Those Eyes is part of the grimdark sci-fi Monster(S) universe by Sam Lacoste.
Stories should be read in order. This is story #1.
Clarence still wants to believe his father was something worth admiring.
At fifteen, trapped in a home shaped by tension, silence, and emotional fallout, he turns to forbidden memory tech to escape into the past. Through a stolen splinter, he relives one of his father’s wartime experiences firsthand, chasing the version of the man that corporate myth and family distance have made easier to love.
What he finds is not heroism.
Dragged into a jungle campaign defined by mutilation, terror, and moral collapse, Clarence witnesses the truth of corporate war through his father’s own eyes. Soldiers are broken long before they die. Violence becomes routine. Survival belongs to the people willing to live with what should never be survivable. At the center of it all stands Omega, a machine-like apex predator whose presence turns battlefield legend into something far worse.
The deeper Clarence goes, the more the illusion of his father falls apart. What remains is not a war hero, but a damaged man carrying memories too horrific to be owned, sold, or passed down untouched.
Those Eyes is a grimdark cyberpunk short story about inherited trauma, weaponized memory, and the moment admiration gives way to horror.
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