– by TehMasterSword

He was well liked by most. Certainly not the most popular in the town, but he was fine with that. He was confident, talented, charming to some, arrogant to others, and had a terrible intolerance for stupidity. Some would say a side effect of his ego.

But even under his layer of thick skin, he was at least somewhat sensitive to the thoughts of a few people, and was always looking for approval of his actions from his peers. Whether that was because of his pride or the cause of some hidden insecurities, that depended on who you asked.

He was happy with himself and his life, at least for the most part. He tried his best to make the people he cared about happy as well, and for all his flaws, he considered himself a decent person.

Even in this galaxy and all its trillions of inhabitants, as much as he was like anyone else, he was a unique human being. He was my best friend.

He died three months ago. There are no flowers on his grave, not today, not three months ago. He doesn’t even have a grave, nor do any of the people that would have come to visit his grave if he had one, most of them are dead as well.

When news arrived just under a year ago on the planet of stable employment for everyone, the whole continent was interested and was employed by the capsuleer. The people were promised decent pay, but none of that mattered after the accident. A massive explosion occured in one of the massive command centers where Reykva worked as an accoutant, destroying the entire complex and incinerating everyone. No one knows what caused it, but that doesn’t really matter much now.

To the capsuleer who ran the operation, it was deemed too costly to rebuild and keep the operation running. Shortly afterward, everyone was laid off and the planet fell into a depression. After becoming dependent on the income from the capsuleer, the people prefered to work their jobs in the new factories and importing what food they needed with thier new found ISK than to grow anything themselves.

So the capsuleer left, along with the ISK sustaining the planet, much like the case on many other planets where capsuleers became disinterested in further planetary industry. The profit wasn’t what they had hoped.The massive refineries, extractors, and other buildings became vacant and in a week and nearly every citizen was unemployed.

Upwards of two thousand dead in the accident, billions dead from starvation in the following months. Every one of those lives were precious to someone, Reykva’s especially to me. But not to that capsuleer.

I was lucky enough to make a life for myself after smuggling myself on to a station just months prior to the cold hearted capsuleer’s intrusion. Or unlucky that I was unable to be with my dearest friend before he died, if you care to look at it that way. I wish I could go back and visit him. To see my homeland the way I remember it, not the empty shell it is now.

News of my friends and family came to me only a month after I had become a capsuleer myself. For a time, I hated myself, unable to accept being in the same category of such monsters. But after a time, there was a change in my outlook. I wasn’t a monster like that man who so carelessly made my people depend on his support and take it all away when it didn’t suit him.

I was better than him. I was different from the rest. I cared about the consequences. At least, that is what I told myself until I found the only way to give my life purpose without him.

Reykva would be avenged, and I would die as many times as it took to accomplish that.