He looked almost sad. "Well. Most people don't like to hear how their last hope for survival effects that survival."

"It..." he began, then stopped. "It didn't help afterward. But while I was doing it..."

While he was in the thick of it, snapping bone and incinerating enemy combatants with their own incendiaries, it had been so tempting to just stop thinking and never, ever start again. He wasn't sure if it was something his creators had instilled in him, or some essential flaw in himself. Maybe both.