When I finally crossed the threshold of the cave, the world hit me like a punch to the face. It wasn't a gentle transition, but a brutal assault of light and sound. After the tomb-like silence of my stone prison, the noise of the Loclel mini-citadel made my head spin.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The metallic sound of blacksmiths echoed everywhere, an industrial rhythm, heavy and endless, that seemed to make the very ground vibrate under my bare feet. I saw, in the distance, sparks flying from dark workshops where men with bulging muscles hammered iron, shaping steel for a war I didn't understand yet. Everywhere, voices rose, mixed, crashed together: merchants shouting their prices, soldiers calling to each other, the noise of people fighting for survival in organized chaos.
I lifted my eyes, searching for air, and my breath caught.
Above this earthly commotion, the sky was breathtakingly beautiful. A massive migration of birds crossed it, thousands of winged silhouettes dancing in the blue, forming moving ribbons that seemed to ignore the human misery below. The contrast was striking. I couldn't help but whisper, my throat tight:
"This sky... it's so innocent. So pure."
It was a vision of peace hovering over a world of iron. I stood still for a moment, my face lifted toward that freedom of feathers, before the pain in my body reminded me of reality. I had to move forward.
I dragged myself toward what seemed to be the heart of the district's social life: a makeshift camp. At its center, an old metal barrel, rusted by time and humidity, served as a brazier. Flames danced nervously in it, casting moving shadows on a group of seven people.
They were strangely dressed. All wore long dark robes, reminding me of austere monastery monks, but on their chests and sleeves shone embroidered badges: medical symbols, stylized crosses intertwined with medicinal plants. Healers.
As I got closer, I saw what they surrounded. This wasn't a simple meeting—it was an open-air field hospital. A dozen wounded men lay on makeshift straw mattresses, their bodies marked by the signs of violence. Judging by their mismatched armor and scars, they were fighters, warriors back from the front. The smell of sweat, hot iron, and blood crept into my nose, awakening a dull unease.
Despite my own injuries that burned like embers under my skin, I was drawn to them. An almost magnetic curiosity pushed me to observe their movements, the way they bandaged wounds, how they handled ointments. My eyes examined each injury with an intensity I couldn't explain. I wasn't looking out of morbid curiosity, but with a strange passion, a kind of thirst to understand the mechanics of pain.
That's when I saw him.
A man, a bit apart, lying on the dirt ground. He wasn't screaming—he was panting, a rough, dry sound. His hand gripped his right knee, a mangled area where bone seemed ready to pierce through flesh. The wound was infected, swollen, a vision of pure horror. The healers, overwhelmed by the flood of more urgent wounded, hadn't reached him yet. They ran from patient to patient, their hands stained red, powerless against the numbers.
I approached him, almost despite myself.
Suddenly, an incredible, electrifying sensation flooded my palms. A familiar warmth rose from my hands to my shoulders. My mind, usually so foggy, became frighteningly clear. I knew what I was seeing. I understood the path of the infection, the tension in the tendon, the need to drain this poison.
"No... no... why do I care so much about this?" I muttered, shaking my head, frightened by this certainty growing in me. "Pull yourself together... you don't even know who you are."
But my body refused to listen to my reason. My fingers trembled with an irresistible urge to act. It was a predator's instinct, but a predator of disease.
The man suddenly turned his face toward me. His eyes were bloodshot, his forehead beaded with cold sweat. He grabbed the bottom of my torn t-shirt with desperate strength.
"Please..." he stammered, his voice broken by agony. "Please... if you're a doctor... help me. I'm begging you..."
I stepped back, my heart pounding wildly. The word "doctor" echoed in my skull like thunder. Was I that? Did this emptiness in my memory hide this identity?
I nervously turned my head toward the group of healer-monks. None were free. One was stitching an abdominal wound while another desperately tried to stop bleeding on an unconscious soldier. They were drowning in work.
The wounded man with the knee let out a heart-wrenching moan that pierced my heart. I couldn't back away anymore. Instinct was stronger than fear, stronger than amnesia.
I crouched beside him. Near him, on a crooked wooden tray, lay an open medical kit, abandoned in the rush. Among the bottles of alcohol and crushed herbs, a fine surgical needle glinted in the firelight.
Without thinking, my fingers closed around the cold metal. The weight of the needle in my hand suddenly felt more natural than any other object in the world. My trembling stopped instantly. My face became stone.
I didn't know who I was, but at that exact moment, I knew exactly what I had to do.
I raised the needle to eye level, ignoring the noise of the forge, the cries of birds, and the pain in my own limbs. The world faded. There was only me, this patient, and the life-saving gesture my soul demanded.
In an instant, the world around me seemed to freeze. The noise of the citadel, the metallic whistling of the birds, and even the dull buzzing in my temples faded to leave only one reality: this man's life wavering before my eyes. It was no longer a question of lost memories or mysterious past. Amnesia was just an insignificant detail in the face of the moment's urgency. It was no longer about knowing who I was, but what I could do.
My eyes, which I felt burning with new intensity, showed no trace of hesitation. Fear, that emotion that had paralyzed me in the cave, had evaporated, replaced by cold, sharp determination. My entire body seemed to transform into an instrument of precision. It was a dizzying sensation: my mind knew nothing, but my muscles, my nerves, and my bones seemed to whisper what to do. An invisible force dictated each movement, filling me with certainty that I could pull this man from his agony.
I turned toward the nearest brazier, where the old metal barrel spat tongues of reddish fire. I took the needle between my thumb and index finger, feeling the bite of cold on the metal. Without a word, I plunged the tip into the orange glow of the flames. I watched the steel turn red, purifying itself in the heat. Crack... A spark flew from it, but I didn't blink. I felt the hot breath of flames on my face, but my expression remained stone.
Right beside it, on the rough surface of a rock serving as a makeshift table, sat a small bottle of alcohol, probably abandoned there by a doctor called urgently elsewhere. I grabbed it with a sharp movement. Pouring a few drops on the still-hot needle, a sharp hiss rose, accompanied by a small acrid vapor. Tssssss... The smell of alcohol rushed into my nose, awakening a distant echo in my memory, a memory of white rooms and studious silence. At that exact moment, I was a stranger to myself, an amnesiac whose soul was empty, but whose hands possessed ancient knowledge.
With a step that felt majestic, carried by confidence I couldn't explain, I returned to the wounded man. The man looked at me with bulging eyes. Without hesitation, I grabbed the bottom of my t-shirt, that old garment already in tatters, and pulled sharply. The sound of tearing fabric—Scritch!—echoed like a starting signal. With the piece of cloth, I knelt and made a tourniquet just above his wound, tightening it with measured force.
The man, shaking with uncontrollable tremors, finally let his terror burst out.
"Hey... you sure about what you're doing, man?" he panted, his voice breaking. "You sure?"
His cry, though weak, was piercing enough to cut through the ambient noise. Heads turned. On neighboring mattresses, wounded soldiers who had been moaning in their own misery seconds before sat up on one elbow. Their gazes, at first glassy and lost, fixed on me. I saw doubt, pity, and even a hint of contempt in their eyes. Who was this kid in rags, himself beaten up, playing healer? A silence charged with skepticism began to settle around us, forming a bubble of tension in the middle of the camp.
I ignored their judgment. I lifted my eyes from his knee to look straight into his.
"Stay calm," I said. "Trust me. Don't worry—at least we'll have tried."
My voice, when it came out, had a calmness that surprised even me.
I placed a hand on his thigh to hold him still.
"This is going to hurt like hell," I warned, without the slightest sugar-coating. "Clench your teeth. Bite your wrist if you have to, but don't move. The next five minutes are going to be hell. After that, it'll be over."
He nodded, tears forming in the corners of his eyes, and brought his wrist to his mouth. He was ready.
Then I began.
The first puncture of skin was accompanied by a muffled groan from him, and a collective shudder from our improvised audience. These men knew pain. They read it on their comrade's face and felt it by proxy. But as I continued, their expressions changed. Skepticism gave way to silent fascination.
My hands didn't shake. They danced. With surgical precision, they guided the needle through damaged flesh as if they knew the map of every nerve. My mind was a simple spectator, watching my fingers make perfect stitches. I didn't need to think; my hands knew. In the silence that had thickened, only the crackling of fire and my patient's rough breathing could be heard. The other wounded were captivated. They had forgotten their own wounds. Their eyes, lit by dancing flames, followed the ballet of the needle, their war-marked faces suddenly filled with a kind of sacred respect. They no longer saw a kid in rags, but a craftsman at work.
The operation was brief, fiercely intense. After what felt like seven minutes, the last stitch was tied. The wound, once a hideous crevasse, was now just a thin red line sealed by flawless stitching. Slowly, I loosened the tourniquet.
The man pulled his wrist from his mouth. He opened his eyes, his gaze moving from his knee to my face, disbelieving.
"That's it... it's over?" he whispered. "It's really over?"
I nodded, an Olympic calm having taken hold of me.
"Yes, it's over. You're out of danger for now."
A sob of relief shook the man. He thanked me, words tumbling over each other. I then gave him advice that seemed to come from a forgotten source: keep the wound clean, apply a decoction of such-and-such plant, don't put weight on his leg.
That's when I heard the whispers. A murmur spread among the other wounded.
"By the ancients... did you see that?"
"Not a single tremor..."
"The healers couldn't have done better."
A wave of respect, almost veneration, came from them. They no longer looked at me as an equal, but as something else. A hope.
Exhausted by this surge of adrenaline, I decided to move away before this attention became too heavy. I leaned on my knees, my own body calling me to order. I straightened slowly, back bent... and when I turned around, ready to blend into anonymity, I saw a man.
But not just any man.
He wore the black uniform of the Spenked Empire, and his eyes were fixed directly on me.
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