You're right. Death is an exit. The dead need not concern themselves with guilt or regrets. To live is to face reality, the good and the bad. I will have to live with my mistakes every day I still draw breath...

[Memories ripple around him. That woman in a lab coat, begging and pleading before the bullet strikes...

All those faceless targets he either gunned down or, in some cases, their Shadows convulse, surrounded by a strange, red aura, as wild laughter bubbles up from within t them...

Task after task...

Alone in a political office with a bald man in orange-tinted shades, offering congratulations... Opportunities.

The cognition scoffs.]

You reveled in it. You got your own apartment. You attended a prestigious school. Everyone adored you... and it still wasn't enough.

No. It wasn't... they were all shallow pleasures. Decorations in a gilded cage. But I'd sooner accept a challenging reality outside those bars than return to such a wretched life.

[He turns to Faith, no longer giving the doppelganger even a passing glance.]

I'm sure you understand, given your own experiences.