It doesn't matter how many times my blood spills from my nonexistent gut onto the floor, how many times I've stopped arterial bleeds. How many times I've had to stitch up a very bad wound. How many times I arrive, medical in hand and bandages across my waist overflowing into grenade pouches, with blood dripping down my face. These metal hands feel everything, even if I don't want to. I feel the life draining in that blood, and I feel the cold of death. And he's always over my shoulder, whispering if this one is the one I don't save. And I'm fucking terrified every single time, that my sacrifices aren't enough. That I didn't pack enough supplies, do enough training, learn enough biology. That I won't save these people. People I barely know, but people all the same. And every time I see someone die, see their friends mourn over them, it feels like the most terrible aching in the world. I want to stop and cry. But I can't. You can't stop, you just have to keep going. If you break now, others will die too. But gods...not being able to cry in those moments...is the worst fucking feeling in the entire universe. I have to keep going. Body after body, from quiet death to a simulated waiting room, waking up on a 3d printer bed, water draining from it, sylk over my skin. I don't get up anymore. I just lie there and cry now.