The sound, in the confined stone room, was louder and deeper than anyone who had never fired an ancient musket could imagine. A brutal kickback slammed into his right shoulder, nearly smashing him against the wall and making him drop the weapon. The barrel spewed a half-meter jet of flame and thick black smoke that smelled of sulfur and the bitter salt of coarse militia-grade gunpowder, not the fine powder used by the imperial regulars. Johann knew the difference instinctively, though Alex did not.
Frederich halted mid-stride. The expression on his face didn't change drastically, still one of blind hatred and determination, but something invisible and immensely hard struck him in the center of the chest. He jerked, as if hitting an invisible glass wall. His eyes looked down, confused, as if searching for the source of that sudden pain—a pea-sized lead ball now lodged in the space between lung and spine. Then, all the tension in his legs and body slackened at once, like a cut rope. His feet slipped on the floor slick with blood and something else—perhaps the spilled contents of a young soldier's gut from earlier that night. He fell backwards, like a felled tree, with an unhealthy, heavy thump, and moved no more. His sword clattered on the stone a few times before lying still, its blunt tip pointing into the darkness.
"HE KILLED FREDERICH!" Luke screamed, his voice almost shrill like a child's, filled with pain, terror, and uncontainable rage. His accent grew coarser, hardened by emotion, becoming a northern mountain dialect hard to understand. Johann recognized its tone—it was the sound of a man who had lost everything but his anger.
Johann stood, his ears ringing sharply, the world feeling hollow and distant behind that ringing like a faraway tunnel. His shoulder throbbed with pain, likely badly bruised or even with a cracked collarbone. The body's instinct told him the bone was intact, only deeply bruised. The smoke was beginning to disperse and thin, slowly revealing the scene he had just created. Frederich lay on his back on the floor, eyes wide open staring at the dark stone ceiling, a dark red stain rapidly blooming across the center of his worn wool doublet. The red was starkly different from the rusty red of the dried blood on the floor—it was a bright, almost shimmering red under the dim torchlight, like cheap wine spilled on a wooden table. A life had gone, just like that, quick, easy, and cheap.
A deep nausea, coming from somewhere in the most primitive depths of his soul or perhaps from the empty hollow where Johann's heart once was, churned up from his stomach. I just... I killed someone. He turned his face away, swallowing the acidic fluid rising in his throat, forcing himself not to vomit again. No time. But more than that: vomiting was a luxury for those who still believed in cleanliness. Johann, the soldier, had no time for that.
But the lack of time didn't stop the sudden tremor that swept through his entire body. It was different from a shiver of cold or fear; it was a systemic shudder, like an overloaded machine. His right hand, still gripping the musket that was now just a five-kilogram iron club, shook until his joints felt like they might come apart. This is shock, thought the part of his old logic still functioning. This body is experiencing trauma even though my mind hasn't fully accepted it.
There was no time because Luke Anderson, though severely limping, was in a frenzy. The pain in his foot was perhaps drowned by a greater wave of rage and grief. His bearded face was now a primitive mask of sorrow and fury—the grooves in his dirty face becoming deep trenches of shadow under the flickering firelight. "YOU BASTARD! YOU DAMNED IMPERIAL BASTARD!" He swung his axe blindly, not at Johann, but smashing a broken wooden stool nearby, shattering a small cannon fragment, closing the distance with large, limping yet terrifyingly momentum-filled steps. His gait was asymmetrical—one foot dragging, the other pushing—but it made his rhythm unpredictable, like the movement of a wounded beast.
Johann's musket was now just a heavy, useless iron rod, requiring at least a full sixty seconds to reload properly—a procedure he had practiced thousands of times but now felt like one from another life. He backed away, his eyes hunting for another weapon. Nothing. Only stone, corpses, and cold iron. In his peripheral vision, he saw something: a short pistol with a complex wheellock mechanism—an expensive officer's weapon—lying beside the corpse of a man in a torn blue cloak. But it was too far, separated by the rampaging Luke.
Luke closed the distance, the space between them shrinking quickly. His small, now red-rimmed eyes shone with pure, unbridled hatred, a fire hotter and more personal than the one still consuming the corpse pile in the center of the room. "For Frederich," he grunted, his breath ragged, and swung his axe.
Not a side slash this time, but a perpendicular downward swing, from overhead, a blow meant to split Johann from shoulder to waist. It was a woodsman's swing, not a fighting technique. Dangerous precisely because of its unsophistication.
The reflexes of Johann, the soldier trained for six months in the Südsea barracks—saved him a second time. His body, unbidden, lunged sideways, a quick, low dodge that made the heavy axe blade land with a crunch just inches from his foot, spraying sharp stone fragments that peppered his calf like needles. Johann, from his sudden movement, lost his balance. His right foot tripped over something—perhaps an awkwardly positioned corpse's arm, perhaps a piece of broken armor—and he fell backwards, his back and head hitting the stone floor hard. Thud. The world swam. Small stars swirled in his vision, and for a moment he saw his old office ceiling, the white fluorescent panels, before the reality of wet stone and smoke slammed back.
Luke, from the brutal momentum of his swing, staggered forward, stepping into the pool of Frederich's blood and almost falling over him. He righted himself with difficulty, panting heavily, then raised his axe again, this time for a simple final blow: a downward thrust, using the axe's pointed tip, aimed straight at Johann's helpless, exposed chest.
Johann saw death in the man's eyes. No logic there, no negotiation, no mercy. Only final violence as the answer to the violence he had begun. Behind those hate-filled eyes, he saw something else: a profound weariness. This was a man who had fought too long, lost too much, and now lost the only thing left—a friend. This killing wasn't just for Frederich; it was to end everything.
His left hand scrambled on the floor beside him, searching for anything. A stone? Too small. A piece of wood? Useless. Then, his fingers touched something long, hard, cold, and metallic. A bayonet. A long, pointed knife usually affixed to the end of a musket for close combat, detached and lying beside its long-dead owner, as if waiting. Its simple, mass-produced leather sheath from an imperial workshop—with the Glaubenkirche cross stamped on its buckle—was open. Its blade gleamed dully, unblemished, as if never used.
In my other life, the sharpest thing I ever held was a kitchen knife or a presentation cutter, Alex thought, but the thought was distant, like an echo from another room. Instinct commanded him. He gripped the bayonet's wooden handle—plain carving, no decoration, designed for a secure grip with gloves—and, from his helpless supine position, with all the strength left in his arm and shoulder, thrust it upward. Not a trained thrust, but a desperate upward shove from below, like someone stabbing from within a grave.
Luke Anderson didn't see it coming. He was wholly focused on his death-swing, on venting his fury, on avenging his friend. His head was lowered, shoulders tense, his entire world had narrowed to a point on his enemy's chest.
The roughly sharpened, possibly slightly rusted-tipped bayonet found its way. It went in just below the ribs, piercing the thick wool doublet that had absorbed rain and sweat for weeks, the rotting linen shirt, skin hardened by labor and weather, and deep into the warm abdominal cavity. There was a slight resistance, then a terrible sliding sensation as the steel tip found empty space between organs.
"Gh—" Luke's voice choked off in his throat. His eyes widened, bulging, filled with a shock deeper and more fundamental than pain. It was the expression of someone who had just been told their entire reality was a lie. His axe fell from his suddenly nerveless hand, clattering on the floor just inches from Johann's head. His empty hand clutched at the air, then came down to the bayonet hilt now protruding from his body, held by Johann's trembling hand beneath. Luke's rough fingers touched Johann's hand, an unexpected and intimate contact in their violence. Luke's skin was coarse, calloused, the hand of a laborer who had plowed earth and held an axe—a painful contrast to Johann's now smooth, seemingly never-hardworked hands.
He lifted his gaze from the bayonet, his shocked eyes meeting Johann's lying form. And for a brief, terrible moment, there was a recognition there. An unspoken question. Why? Or perhaps, Who are you really? Or even, How did it end like this? In the depths of his eyes, behind the pain and shock, Johann saw a flash of something else: a house somewhere, perhaps, or a woman's face, or just a weariness so deep that death was almost a relief.
Then, the light in his eyes, the light of anger, pain, bewilderment—went out. Like a pinched candle. Not slowly, but instantly, as if a switch had been flipped. His heavy body, momentarily supported by the bayonet and Johann's arm, went fully limp. His dead weight collapsed forward, onto Johann, slamming him back to the floor and knocking the wind from him with a gasp.
The weight hit, pressing on Johann's chest—the one that had strangely regrown skin with an odd pattern—forcing air from his lungs in a shameful hiss. The man's smell—sour sweat, cheap wine fermented to vinegar on his breath, the sweet-metallic scent of fresh blood, and the scent of earth ground into his clothes like an unwashable perfume—flooded his senses, forcing its way into him. Johann struggled, pushed, rolled, finally managing to free himself from under the still-warm corpse. Luke's blood had flowed onto his uniform, adding a new layer of dampness over the old. He crawled away like a wounded animal, then tried to stand. His knees trembled violently, but finally held. Johann's body knew how to stand after a fight, even if his mind didn't.
Before him lay the two men he had killed.
Frederich, with a vacant stare at the stone ceiling, his face still looked puzzled, like a student who didn't understand his final lesson. A fly—where did a fly come from in this mountain fortress?—had already landed at the corner of his eye, exploring the last moisture. Luke, lying sideways over his own bayonet, an arm outstretched as if in his last second he had tried to reach for something unattainable—perhaps his friend, perhaps his past as a simple farmer, perhaps forgiveness from a god who never listened. His posture mirrored many other corpses in the room, completing the symmetry of violence.
Silence descended. Heavier, denser, more personal than before. Only the faint hiss of the fire still consuming the corpse pile in the center of the room—now burning brighter, emitting a heat that could be felt even from this distance—and the sound of Johann's ragged breathing, trying to become regular again. The sound of his own breathing felt alien in his ears; it was the sound of Johann Reth, the twenty-year-old from Selevia, not Alex's softer, educated voice.
He looked at his hands. The right hand still gripping the empty musket stock, the left empty. Both were trembling uncontrollably, but differently. The right hand, the one that pulled the trigger, trembled finely, like a mis-calibrated machine. The left hand, the one that held the bayonet—shook roughly, jerkily. There were flecks of dark blood on it, between the short, neatly trimmed nails (Johann's habit), on the back of the hand that was now smooth and strangely alien, without history etched into the skin. Not his blood. Their blood. The first blood to stain this blank canvas. Frederich's blood was darker, almost black under this light. Luke's was redder, fresher, still warm when it touched his skin.
His stomach rebelled again, clenching emptily. He bent over, hands on his knees, but there was nothing left to vomit. Only emptiness, inner tremors, and a fact beginning to crystallize in his mind, cold and clear like ice on a Thares mountain morning. I killed them. I took two human lives. He said it in his mind, first in Alex's English, but quickly it switched to Rethian, as if it were his mother tongue.
There was no dramatic burst of emotion. No weeping. No feeling of victory or relief either. Only the acknowledgment of an undeniable fact,beginning to settle like a heavy stone at the bottom of his soul, a new burden he would carry forever. The burden had weight and texture; he could feel it on his shoulders, in the curve of his spine, as if physically pressing him closer to the ground.
He forced himself to move. This body, Johann's body, obeyed dutifully, as if trained to function after trauma. His muscles moved before the conscious command from his bewildered mind reached them. He walked over to Frederich, deliberately avoiding the vacant gaze of his eyes—brownish-green, he noted inadvertently. He took the short sword from the stiffening hand. It was heavy and balanced. Its hilt was wrapped in cheap, rawhide leather—a militiaman's weapon, not a regular soldier's. Johann remembered them calling weapons like this 'people's meat cleavers' in the barracks, with subtle mockery. He also bent down, with a deep disgust stemming from Alex, and took a small utility knife from Luke's belt. Its blade was short and thick, for everyday work, not battle. On its handle was a crudely carved heart shape—a gift from someone, perhaps.
Then, facing the most dreadful task, he crouched beside Luke's body, placed his boot on the corpse's chest for leverage, and pulled the bayonet free.
The sound it made was wet, sticky, and horrifying—the sound of a vacuum releasing, followed by a heavier flow of blood. Johann closed his eyes, swallowing spit that felt like sand in his mouth. Once the bayonet was free, he wiped it roughly on a torn piece of Frederich's doublet, cleaning off most of the gleaming, sticky blood, then sheathed it in the leather sheath on his own belt. His movements were efficient, without waste. This body knew the ritual of cleaning a weapon after use.
He had to go. Now. The small explosion, the musket shot, the screams—all must have been heard by others in this fortress, rebels or whoever held it now. If there were guards in the towers, if there was a patrol in the courtyard... He looked toward the narrow arrow slits. The purple moonlight still crept in, but now there was another color at its edges: a pale orange of approaching dawn. The night was almost over. He had been "alive" again for possibly only a few hours.
With steps still unsteady yet growing steadier with each stride as if this body remembered the way out of nightmares, he retrieved his main torch from where he had dropped it earlier, then removed his own jacket and replaced it with Luke's which looked relatively decent. Just worn. The torch still burned, slightly diminished, yet bright enough to illuminate the two faces of fresh death—and the countless faces of older death. Its light swayed, making the shadows of the corpses move as if still breathing.
Johann paused for a moment, unable not to, taking in the room full of suffering. This guard hall was now a graveyard for two hostile sides, both victims of a larger machine: the imperial machine that needed taxes and blood, the rebel machine that needed anger and sacrifice. On the floor, fragments of the blue-silver imperial flag were mixed with pieces of simple brown cloth that might be a rebel's scarf or headband. The smell was the smell of bitter victory, rotting defeat, and the still-fresh, hot smell of his first sin, like bread straight from the oven.
He didn't know what to feel. Empty. Alienated. He only knew one thing: to survive in this world, he had stepped across a threshold. A line he could not uncross. Alex, the negotiator, had died somewhere else. What remained here was Johann Reth, or something wearing Johann Reth's skin, someone who had to learn to live with stained hands and a fractured memory. His name was now the actions he had taken, not the words he once spoke in meeting rooms.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the mix of smoke, burning flesh, blood, and death. He held it for three seconds, as he used to before important presentations, then exhaled slowly. The breath didn't cleanse anything. Then he turned, ready to face the dark corridor at the end of the room, the only visible exit. Short sword in his right hand, torch in his left, bayonet on his hip, a body not fully his own under his control—or perhaps him under its control.
He took the first step toward that corridor.
Then, from somewhere very deep, not from the stone around him.
"Bang."
The sound did not come through his ears. It came through his bones, through his teeth, through the fluid in his joints. A high-frequency vibration that made the cavities of his ears resonate like drums.
The air inside the fortress, already thick with smoke and the residue of death, suddenly hardened, becoming dense and heavy like water turning to gel. The torch in his hand, which had been burning freely, suddenly shrank to a short, still blue flame, as if afraid to move.
An invisible pressure, a giant fist of something. He stood frozen, not by choice, but because his physical self could not move against the sudden weight pressing on every molecule of air around him.
Then, the sound came a second time. A bass tone too deep to be mere sound, too commanding to be mere echo. It did not roll. It pummeled. Through three-hundred-year-old foundation stones, through cracked mortar, through the frozen air, through the flesh and bone of every being in the fortress, including Johann. It was a sound that had weight and intent. A sound that wore reality like a garment, and had just shifted its cloth.
The world did not explode.
The world was forced to bow.
And in the distance, from somewhere outside the thick walls, followed by a more violent vibration, came the sound of massive stones cracking like giant teeth chewing a mountain, and human screams distorted by distance and pure horror, cut short before reaching their natural end.