The following morning, Gerry woke up in a pool of his own cold sweat. Rubbing his eyes and sighing, he all too quickly realized the events of the previous night were all too real. Slowly, he got out of bed, dressed, and headed to breakfast. When he entered, the rest of his family were in the process of eating.

“You’re up late this morning,” his mother said as Gerry walked into the kitchen.

“I was tired,” Gerry replied. He quietly sat down in his seat at the table. He made his plate and started eating.

“I saw on the Holo this morning that a Stormtrooper was found dead late last night in the park near here,” Gerry’s father said.

“That’s awful,” Gerry’s mother answered. “What happened?”

Heart pounding, Gerry didn’t look up and continued eating.

“They aren’t sure,” his father answered. “All they said is that he was found late last night. He had a blaster wound in his chest.”

“Was it terrorists?” Derrin asked.

“They don’t think so,” his father replied. “Apparently there were people who heard the Stormtrooper and two other people arguing. Man and woman, I believe. Said that the Stormtrooper sounded like he had been making unwanted advances towards the woman.”

“It probably was a spur of the moment thing then,” Gerry offered as calmly as possible. “Maybe the man was trying to protect the woman.”

“Probably,” his father said. “Hopefully the killer gets caught soon though. Deserves everything that will come to him. They don‘t even have any idea what the killer looks like. No one saw anything.”

“What happened to the other two people?” Derrin asked.

“They were long gone by the time anyone found the body.”

Gerry bit his lip and simply continued eating.

“You didn’t see anyone suspicious last night while you were at the park, did you Gerry?” his mother asked.

The exact kind of questions he didn’t want to answer the night before, this morning, or ever.

“No,” he answered. “I didn’t see anything. I wasn‘t there for too long. I was just wandering around most of the night.”

He hoped it sounded sincere enough. It must have been as the conversation continued without accusation.

Or perhaps his parents preferred not to think of him as capable of murdering somehow though however accidental or in the heat of the moment it had been.

Oddly, Gerry didn’t find himself feeling as guilty about the whole thing as he had previously imagined. After all, wasn’t it self-defense? And he was protecting someone who wouldn’t have been able to protect herself. The Stormtrooper brought the whole thing on himself, after all. If there was anyone to blame, it was the him.

Yeah they‘ll understand. Maybe they’ll take a little longer to execute me, Gerry thought.

Of course, no one could feel anything resembling normal after just killing someone for the first time. That wasn’t typically a normal everyday occurrence for anyone, Gerry figured.

The fact he didn’t feel as bad as he knew he should was what bothered Gerry.

As the rest of his family ate their food, Gerry quickly finished his. He stood and took his plate to the kitchen.

“I’ll be outside,” Gerry said to his family.

Walking out the front door, Gerry felt the warm sunlight, made possible by the orbital mirrors surrounding the planet, hit his skin. But his skin suddenly turned cold and clammy at what he saw.

Across the street, the blonde female from the night before stood waiting.