Echoes of Ossian
Five years had passed.
I had become a true war dog—an example, a weapon without question. I followed orders blindly, suppressing every emotion, every thought that might remind me of who I once was. I simply killed the enemies shown to me, moving through the blood and chaos like a machine.
Soldiers often use the saying "kill or be killed" to ease their minds when committing atrocities, but in my case, the idea of being killed was a cruel joke. It wasn't a solution. It only pushed me deeper into the darkness, into a pit of depression that I couldn't escape.
The battles on the western seacoast were fiercer than those on the northern plain. I had died countless times, each time dragging myself back to the hell of this war. The only choice I had was to improve—to become stronger, to adapt—or to become one more casualty in a war that never seemed to end.
Everytime I escaped, Cassian made sure to find me and drag me back here by force or by death.
Amid the pouring rain, I stood alone, as I often did. The endless downpour mirrored the numbness inside me, the isolation that gripped my soul. With a heart of glass carefully hidden from the world, and a mind of stone forged by years of bloodshed, I existed only to kill. There was no other purpose left.
I no longer knew why I fought. I no longer knew what I was living for.
I only knew that I had to keep moving. Keep killing. Keep surviving.
And even that, I realized, wasn't enough.
How long has it been since that day?
I had turned my emotions off, buried them deep inside. I told myself I could forget, that I could escape my curse. But I never could. Not truly.
Can a heart still break once it's stopped beating? Is it possible to feel anything when you've already given up on feeling?
Did I deserve this? Was I really the monster they all claimed I was, or had I simply convinced myself that I was? Lying to myself all these years, too afraid to confront the harsh truth. Was it all just an illusion? Or was it real?
I wasn't strong enough to protect him. The only one that mattered in this life.
That thought came to me again, as it always did—unwelcome, but impossible to ignore. I couldn't save him, and I could barely save myself.
Night after night, the nightmares came. I'd wake up drenched in sweat, my heart racing, feeling the blood of others on my hands. Every face, every scream, haunted me. The worst, though, was always the same: the face of the one I failed to protect, the one I had murdered. I saw his eyes in every shadow, heard his voice in every dream. I had killed him. And the lives of so many others after him but he still smiled at me in those memories.
It was unbearable, and no matter how much I tried to push it away, it was always there, lurking at the edges of my thoughts, a constant reminder of the monster I had become.
When I looked at myself, drenched in blood, surrounded by the corpses of soldiers I had slain without remorse, I couldn't deny it. I had become the very thing they warned me about—the thing I feared becoming most. A monster. They were right. No one could escape me—not in this life, and certainly not in the next.
But it wasn't just the blood on my hands that made me feel this way. It was the moments I froze, the moments I questioned everything. When I was poised to strike down a soldier, his desperate cries freezing me in place.
"Please... help me... Mom… please…" He let out his last breath calling for his mother.
His voice broke through the madness, and for the briefest moment, I hesitated. I remembered my mother. Just a whisper of a memory, but enough to make my breath catch in my throat.
I remembered the way she would hold me so tightly, sometimes too tightly, until I struggled to breathe. And then, when she realized what she had done, she would cry, pleading for my forgiveness. I didn't understand why then. I didn't know why she felt so broken, why she thought she had done something wrong.
It's funny, isn't it? How we never understand the things that matter most until it's too late.
The last time she held me like that, she cried and whispered goodbye. Her words echoed in my mind, even now. "I'm sorry, but you need to understand."
Understand what? I was just a child.
I had been too young then, too foolish to see the truth. Or maybe I simply didn't want to see it. The truth of who I was becoming, of what this world had made me.
Nightmares continued to haunt me, even as I woke, desperately wishing that sleep could take me away permanently. I thought if I could just stop fighting, stop feeling, it might end. But the nightmares always came back. And my attempts to escape them were always futile.
No one saw my pain. No one cared. The world went on, indifferent to my suffering, as if I were a ghost walking through the wreckage of my own life.
One thing became painfully clear: we all die alone. Death doesn't care who you are or what you've done. It comes for you, steals you away, and leaves nothing but the darkness.
And when it came for me, no one would even notice. No one would mourn. I was already forgotten. My absence would go unnoticed, a whisper in the wind. But that wasn't the end for me, Death didn't want me at all, it played with the curse endlessly.
The battlefield was as brutal as ever—blood-soaked and shrouded in chaos, where every swing of a sword could be the last. Yet, in the midst of the storm, something had shifted within me. I could feel it like a dark promise in the pit of my stomach. The time for vengeance had come, and Cassian would pay for what he had done.
I had been planning this for years, silently biding my time as the war raged on, my mind consumed by the thought of retribution. I had become the perfect instrument of war—faster, deadlier, more merciless than ever before. But today was different. Today, I had a purpose. Today, it wasn't just about survival.
The battle was fierce. The roar of weapons clashing echoed like thunder, and the ground beneath me trembled with the weight of a thousand soldiers. I moved through the chaos, my sword slicing through the air with a fluidity I had long perfected. But my focus, my mind, was fixated on one man: Cassian.
There, amidst the clash of sabers, stood my enemy—the man who had sold me, broken me, and turned me into this monster. The very man whose betrayal had led me to this fate, whose hands had molded my misery. And now, he was within reach.
I couldn't see the pain on their face, nor could I hear their pleas. In my mind, they had all become indistinguishable from the battlefield sounds—the screams, the clattering of metal. But I could feel him. Feel him in my bones.
I forced my way through the lines, the soldiers falling before me like wheat before the scythe, until I reached him.
The battlefield roared with the clash of steel, the cries of dying men, and the thunder of marching boots. The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood, sweat, and burning wood. Arrows rained down like deadly stars, their tips finding flesh in an indiscriminate dance of death.
I moved through the chaos, parrying a strike from an enemy soldier, my blade slicing across his chest before I pushed forward. My target was not just the enemy—it was Cassian, the man who had dragged me into this war over and over again. The man who killed me in every life I had lived.
And this time, I would be the one to end him.
I closed in, feigning an attack against an opposing knight, only to pivot at the last moment, my sword slicing toward Cassian's exposed side. But he was fast—too fast. He spun, his own blade flashing to meet mine in a perfect block, the impact ringing through my arms. His eyes, sharp and calculating, locked onto mine.
"Well, well," he drawled, his lips curling into a smirk as he pushed me back with a forceful shove of his blade. "I had a feeling you'd try something stupid. You always were a disappointment."
I gritted my teeth, stepping back just in time to dodge an enemy spear. Cassian didn't relent, pressing his advantage with a brutal downward slash that I barely managed to deflect. Our swords scraped, sparks flying between us.
"You'll never defeat me," he continued, his voice laced with amusement as if this was all just a game. "You can barely hold your own against the enemy, and you think you can take me down?" He sidestepped an incoming axe meant for his head, driving his sword through the wielder's gut before kicking the body aside like trash. His movements were effortless. "Face it—you were never meant to be a warrior. Just a tool."
I clenched my jaw. "Maybe. But tools can break."
I struck again, faster this time, aiming for his throat. He dodged at the last moment, our swords locking once more. His strength was overwhelming, pushing me back step by step. It was exactly like every other time.
But this time, I wasn't the same.
Cassian didn't know it, but I had fought him before. Countless times. I had felt his blade pierce my heart, my throat, my lungs. I had died to his hands so many times that I had memorized his every move, his every smirk, his every arrogant stance.
And this time, I wouldn't let him win.
He grinned, his blade sliding dangerously close to my ribs. "You've improved, I'll give you that. But it won't be enough."
I smirked back, twisting my wrist at the last second to catch his blade and redirect it, my free hand grabbing a fallen dagger from the mud. "That's what you said last time."
For the first time, Cassian's expression faltered.
And then, I struck.
Cassian's hesitation was brief, but it was all I needed. I twisted my body, forcing his sword off balance just as I drove the dagger toward his exposed side. But he was too seasoned to fall so easily—he jerked back, the blade only grazing his armor instead of sinking into flesh.
His eyes narrowed. He wasn't smirking anymore.
"You—"
An enemy soldier lunged at him from behind. Cassian sensed it, turning just in time to parry the strike, but the momentary distraction was my opportunity.
I moved with precision, shifting behind him and angling my dagger toward the gap between his armor plates. I didn't need to drive it deep—just enough to weaken him. Just enough to make him vulnerable to the chaos around us.
The blade slipped in.
Cassian jerked, his breath hitching, but he didn't cry out. He was too disciplined for that. He twisted his body, forcing me to withdraw the dagger, and staggered forward as if the wound was nothing.
But I knew better. I had fought him too many times.
Another enemy soldier rushed in, his spear thrusting toward Cassian's chest. Normally, he would have sidestepped it with ease. Normally, he would have cut the man down before he even finished his attack.
But not this time.
Not with his balance faltering. Not with his body already betraying him.
The spear struck true.
Cassian gasped, his sword slipping from his fingers as the iron tip pierced through his ribs. His gaze snapped to mine, wide with shock. Understanding flickered in his eyes—not of the enemy's attack, but of my betrayal.
I stepped back just as more enemies swarmed in, their weapons carving into him before he could regain his footing. Blood splattered the mud, the once-mighty commander now just another fallen warrior among the countless bodies on the battlefield.
As the enemy forces overwhelmed his position, I turned away, blending back into the chaos.
No one suspected a thing.
And this time, Cassian would not be the one to kill me.
The surrounding soldiers, still caught in the fury of the battle, saw only the blood and assumed what they wanted. He had been struck down in the chaos of war.
The battlefield around us, frantic and unfocused, became his executioner. He looked at me pleading for help. The enemy, eager for any advantage, descended on him like vultures. With a swift strike, they ended him, their blades sinking deep into his flesh.
And as I watched him die in their hands, I felt nothing. No joy, no relief. Just the empty echo of something I had been chasing for far too long. The revenge that had driven me for years had already lost its meaning. The battle continued around me, but for the first time, I no longer cared.
I disappeared into the chaos of the battlefield as if I had never existed, my heart still a hollow, aching pit. The soldiers around me moved in a blur, their faces indistinguishable from one another, their voices just noise in the back of my mind. The war was still raging. The world was still turning. But I had no place in it anymore.
Cassian was gone, and with him, the only thing that had kept me tethered to this battlefield.
I had my revenge.
But it didn't change anything.
I had no purpose left. No reason to keep fighting, no reason to keep breathing. The emptiness in me grew even darker, even colder. There was nothing left to chase, no future to dream of.
I had become nothing more than a shadow on the battlefield. Just another lost soul, wandering through the remnants of a world that had long forgotten me.
I had won my battle, but I had lost myself. And now, there was only one thing left: the endless void of nothingness.
I gazed up at the sky, seeking some kind of answer, some fleeting relief from the aching void inside me. The moonlight bathed everything in a cold, indifferent glow, and I felt nothing but emptiness. I wanted to feel warmth, to feel something other than this crushing weight on my chest, but I couldn't.
My heart cried out for something—anything—but it was as if there was no answer. My mind doubted every consolation I had ever told myself. I had been brave, hadn't I? I had fought to stay alive, to survive. But for what? For whom?
I had lost everything.
Every piece of myself was shattered, scattered in the wake of the horrors I had endured.
And maybe it was true. Maybe I was cursed. Maybe I was doomed to this hell because of what I had done, because of who I had become.
Why did my heart still cry? Why did it hurt so much to be alive, when I had nothing left to live for?
I had tried so hard to be brave. But now, I was nothing more than a shell of a man, broken and bleeding.
A good soldier? A killer? It no longer mattered.
What was the point of fighting anymore?