Because 6 sees things sometimes. Things that aren’t really there. Things he thought he riddled with bullets back in Vietnam, when the sky was set alight by the napalm and the plants cried, for the world had fallen apart. He sees the child in the trench that his platoon had to execute under the malevolent and unforgiving shaded canopy of the jungle. Sometimes Six wakes up in a cold sweat, while the jungle and rotting planks of the house they burned down disintegrate as he snaps back into reality. He sees the village his platoon overwhelmed and when they entered they did- he prefers not to think of those things anymore. His horrific war crimes damnable even by his standards. That’s what his therapist tells him. But when Six sees his fellow soldier Seven he is sent into a panic of blood and pain and senses he will be punished for his sins. He remembers that horrible night when he lay not six meters away from the enemy camp with only two bullets in his hard metallic Browning, one to kill their leader and one to kill himself. And as he stares, Seven’s face rots away and transforms into the faces of the citizens he massacred. Six falls to his knees, begging for mercy and sobbing, his tears coalescing with blood. The ghosts of the ones he killed surround Six from all sides, tearing at his flesh and forcing Six to beg for a death that will never come. Then Six wakes up, crying. The ghosts are gone and merely illusions, but the pain is all too real.