Rune saw smoke rising in thin, steady trails from the chimneys ahead. It drifted into the overcast sky, which hung low and colorless, heavy with the threat of rain. The ground was slick, the air damp and cold against his skin. Everything felt wet—walls, cobblestones, even the trees, as if the whole village had been soaked through.
Birds circled overhead, calling out in sharp, irregular bursts. Their cries echoed off the red-brick houses and timber cottages that lined the narrow street. The buildings leaned slightly, worn by time and weather, their windows watching in silence.
It reminded Rune of the world he'd seen on flickering screens, narrated by voices who sounded too polished to know the taste of blood or the smell of fear. A world curated for comfort.
It was not his world - perhaps a different timeline. Or a dream, and he just needed to wake up.
And it certainly was not his battlefield. There were no places that looked innocent but swallowed men whole. No caves breathing menace. No trees that could cover a dozen eyes watching from the shadows. This place had the softness of stories told to children before sleep. It was peaceful. Alarmingly so.
War had chipped sanity from him the way rust eats through steel—slow, inevitable, final. Afghanistan had taught him that the rules didn't matter. Reason didn't matter. You could be good, and still burn. You could be smart, and still get shot. What mattered was what was left in the pit of you when everything else got peeled away.
Then—"Excuse me. You're blocking the way."
The word came like a stone thrown into still water. Close, unfamiliar, behind him.
Rune moved reflexively. Fast. Too fast. His arms, thick with memory and instinct, reached and caught flesh. Very supple and felt very wrong. Before him was a delicate-looking girl with blue eyes and golden hair.
Pain bloomed on the woman's face like cracked porcelain. Her body folded and the world around them noticed. The villagers stopped. They stared. Their eyes had the weight of judgment and scorn, but all they did was stare.
"I wasn't—" Rune began, but the words came out too late to be useful.
An old man approached. Built like a bear. He had a frying pan laid across his shoulder like a knight would carry a sword. His approach was slow, deliberate, and heavy with intent. His beard was stormcloud grey, his lines of wrinkles were carved deep into skin. Too determined and serious to be her brother. And a lover would not exhibit such calm composure. That left one option.
Father.
Rune felt the tension move through him like lightning warming up before the strike. He could fight. He'd fought worse. But there's something about a father defending a daughter that bends the odds. Especially when the man looks like he could lift a tree and break it in half just to prove a point.
The man halted, his boots grinding to a stop barely a meter away. He loomed like a silverback, broad-shouldered and unmoving, the air around him thick with tension.
"Did you do this?" he asked, his voice a low growl—gravel laced with fire.
"Yes," Rune didn't lie, there was no point in doing so.
"Why?" the man asked again, slower this time. Rune noticed the way his fingers curled tighter around the frying pan's handle.
"It was an honest mistake," Rune said. "I was agitated. It's… hard to explain."
The man's eyes narrowed, but he nodded once, as if that answer—however insufficient—fit into some grim logic he understood.
"Yeah. Agitated people do stupid things. Sometimes violent things."
He turned to the girl beside him. His gaze lingered on the bruises blooming along her neck, but his face betrayed nothing.
"You alright?"
"I'm fine, Dad," she said, forcing a smile. Her eyes dropped to the shattered egg on the ground. "I wasted them all… sorry."
"You're always like this, Elena. Always blaming yourself. Not everything that goes wrong in the world is your fault, you get me?" He leaned in, voice softening. "Close your eyes for a bit."
She obeyed, lashes fluttering shut.
Rune barely had time to react. The man's fist came like a hammer—quick, precise. Rune raised his arms to shield his face, but the blow landed squarely in his chest. The air fled his lungs. He crumpled to his knees, clutching his abdomen, pain radiating like wildfire.
"More often than not," the man said, brushing Elena's hair with a tenderness that didn't match the violence just delivered, "problems come at you without warning.."
He looked down at Rune, voice cold. "Like this lunatic here…scram."
Then he turned, his silhouette already retreating into the distance.
"Come on. We've got errands to make for the Duke. You know how impatient he can be."
Elena hesitated, her eyes flicking between Rune and her father's back. Then, in a whisper only Rune could hear:
"I'm sorry."
And she was gone.
Rune lay sprawled on the cobblestones, breath shallow, pain blooming in his chest like a second heartbeat. He'd been hit before—many times—but never like this. Never with such precision. Such power. It was monstrous.
Night fell like a curtain.
When Rune awoke, the world was quieter. The pain hadn't left—it had simply settled in, a dull throb beneath his ribs. Hunger gnawed at him. His limbs were heavy, his thoughts heavier.
He tried to piece it together, but his thoughts came in fragments—jagged, blood-slick shards that refused to fit. The trench. The stench of damp earth and sweat. The faintest buzz of insects that had stirred them in their sleep. Where were the others?
His squad—God, how many were left? He couldn't remember. Faces blurred in his mind, names slipping through like water through trembling fingers. Had they been killed? Poisoned? Taken? He strained to recall the last voices, the last movements, but all he could summon was the cold press of dread against his spine.
This wasn't some illusion conjured by the Haqqani. No alchemic trick. It was too real. Too raw.
Or maybe this was the afterlife. A purgatory of stone and shadow, where souls wandered until they faded into nothing.
Rune glanced again.
The streets had emptied. The chaos of the day had given way to a hush. He could hear voices behind closed doors, the occasional footstep echoing like a drumbeat in the silence.
He wasn't alone.
A few meters away, three children huddled against a wall, their thin clothes no match for the cold. Rune wasn't much better off—just a threadbare shirt and cargo pants worn to threads.
Then he saw it—a shadow stretching toward him, long and swaying in the lamplight. It moved with purpose. Familiar and heavy.
The man.
He stepped from the darkness like a revenant, face drawn and hollowed by something far worse than exhaustion. The fire that once burned in his eyes had guttered out, leaving behind only the smoldering wreckage of grief. But Rune saw it—felt it. Beneath the ruin, something still burned. Not hope. Not rage. Purpose. A terrible, unyielding purpose.
In his arms, he cradled a body—limp, broken.
Elena.
Her golden hair, once radiant, was now a tangled mess of blood and dirt. Her skin had the pallor of moonlight on stone. No breath stirred her chest. No flicker of life danced behind her closed eyes.
Rune's breath caught in his throat. His stomach turned to ice. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. He took a step back, as if distance could undo what he was seeing. Oddly enough, he was thrilled to have felt something within him. He had thought his heart had frozen numb, but looking at the flaccid body of an innocent girl, he felt a shred of sorrow.
"What… happened?" he asked, though the words felt like ash in his mouth.
The man knelt, lowering Elena with a reverence that made Rune's heart twist. His eyes met Rune's—flat, lifeless, like the surface of a still pond hiding something monstrous beneath.
"You once wronged her," he said, voice devoid of warmth. "Now's your chance to make it right. Help me."
Rune's mind screamed for meaning, for sense, for anything to anchor him in this nightmare. And then— It came.
A voice. A distant buzz of something ancient. Echoing through the marrow of his bones like a revelation. It didn't belong in this world.
Will you accept the Quest: The Chef's Assistant?
Rune staggered. The absurdity of it struck like a hammer to the skull. What kind of sick joke was this? But the voice was real. The weight of it is undeniable. And somewhere, beneath the horror, a terrible truth began to bloom.
This was only the beginning.