What Should Have Been a Wound
Shhh… shhhh…
The sound of dragging metal and clanking armor drifted in and out of my awareness. My shoulders burned as something tugged me backward across the dirt. When my vision finally steadied, bodies, blood, and smoke stretched behind me — the battlefield shrinking as I was pulled away from it.
A man loomed above me, face warped with exhaustion, breath coming in broken grunts as he dragged me further from where chaos had just unraveled.
“Oh look. A live one.”
His voice sounded distant.
I tried to focus on his face.
By the time I blinked, I couldn’t quite remember what it looked like.
Time blurred. An outpost courtyard. Bedrolls. Men screaming. The smell of iron and rot thick in the air. I was laid down among the others. My body ached, but not the way it should have.
I remembered the blade coming down.
I remembered turning onto my back.
I remembered the impact.
I moved my hands to my chest.
No wound.
No tear in the armor deep enough.
Nothing.
What the fuck?
My head throbbed as I tried to retrace it. The helmet strike. The fall. The stab.
I could see it.
But when I tried to replay the moment — it slipped.
Like grabbing smoke.
A medic approached, asking where I was hurt.
“Helmet,” I said. “And I was stabbed.”
He inspected my face. Swelling. Bruising. Medicine for the pain.
Then my torso.
Nothing but shallow cuts and bruises.
I told him again. Slower this time. The details.
He smiled.
Not confused.
Knowing.
“Get some rest.”
I wanted to ask what he meant by that.
But the question dissolved before I could form it fully.
Later, I opened my journal.
My hand trembled slightly as I wrote.
“Honey, it’s only the beginning yet it has been such a jarring experience…”
The words felt right.
Too right.
I paused halfway through the sentence.
For a moment, I tried to picture her face.
I could recall the feeling of warmth.
But her features refused to sharpen.
I shut the journal.
Blamed the surge.
Too much strength at once. Too much strain. That had to be it.
Power has a cost.
Everyone knows that.
When I woke again, night had settled.
A group sat near a fire. Laughing. Drinking. Floating somewhere between relief and delirium.
They welcomed me in. Spoke of the battle in fragments.
Stories drifted. Changed. Contradicted.
One swore he had been on the left flank.
Another insisted there was no left flank.
They laughed it off.
Pain meds.
Shock.
Alcohol.
That had to be it.
A patrol passed.
“Rooster!” someone called.
The man twitched at the name.
Clucked.
Just once.
Not exaggerated.
Not for attention.
Reflexive.
Like a cough.
Laughter broke out.
He rolled his eyes and explained the story — the farm, the fight, the rock to the rooster’s head. The tick that never left.
Everyone accepted it easily.
But the twitch hadn’t looked like a memory.
It looked like something answering from inside him.
I told myself I was reading too much into it.
Shock does strange things to people.
Later, I wandered to the training grounds.
Moonlight coated the wooden dummies in pale silver.
I picked up a dull training blade.
It settled into my grip too easily.
Not comfortably.
Correctly.
The balance felt familiar in a way I did not remember earning.
I adjusted my stance.
It wasn’t the stance I used in the slums.
My body shifted on its own.
Weight forward. Shoulder angled. Elbow tucked.
I froze.
When did I learn this?
I tried to recall who taught me to fight.
I could picture the alleyways.
The brick.
The cold.
But the faces were blurred.
The men I used to spar with—
I couldn’t remember their names.
The blade felt steady.
My memories did not.
“I have drawn blood,” I whispered.
The words felt distant.
Not guilt.
Not pride.
Recognition.
“Excellent stance.”
One of the mercenary band’s leadership stepped from the shadows, arms folded, blade hanging at his waist.
I straightened.
“At ease,” he muttered, waving a hand.
“Where did you learn swordsmanship?”
“I haven’t,” I answered. “I am self-taught.”
He studied me for a long moment.
Like he was measuring something I couldn’t see.
“How about a few rounds?”
“Ay.”
I raised the blade.
