After several long minutes of absolute silence, the man found a cave. His legs no longer responded; his exhaustion was evident after everything that had happened so quickly.
The cave was a small refuge, hidden among the rocks. Deep enough to feel safe. The man entered and let himself slide down against one of the walls, his breathing ragged. He could barely move.
Now that the adrenaline was fading, his body began to demand payment for the overexertion. His muscles burned and his wounds throbbed, a deep, unbearable pain, one he had not felt until now.
He looked at his hands. They were trembling. Drops of blood from the soldiers covering his skin mixed with dirt. He was a mess. He let out a dry, humorless laugh.
He had died once. He had returned to life in this strange world. But his body was still human, weak and mortal. He was definitely not invincible.
Little by little, his consciousness began to fade. His eyelids grew heavy, darkness enveloped him. His body slid down the wall and collapsed onto the ground.
At last, he fell. His exhaustion was so overwhelming that, without realizing it, he fell into an indefinite sleep. And while he slept… he dreamed.
He dreamed of blood, of screams. He dreamed of a woman wrapped in gold. He dreamed of the weight of a curse he did not yet understand, and more importantly, he dreamed of the name of someone who had betrayed him.
The dream began, a silent abyss where even his breathing did not exist.
From within the darkness, shouted orders could be heard in a language he recognized. Dry gunshots tearing through the silence. Screams muffled by blood.
—Voices?—
No. They were childish laughter. The sound of boots echoing on metal floors. Footsteps in narrow corridors.
And then… a blinding flash that engulfed everything. The world took shape.
The light of spotlights shining over a large concrete hall, windowless, colorless, cold and unforgiving. A training ground surrounded by high walls and electrified fences.
There, his childhood had passed.
He and other children. Children who did not know the meaning of "home" or "family." Children who only knew how to obey orders, train, and kill.
There were no families or toys. Only children like him, training endlessly under the gaze of men in dark uniforms. His life began there, molded according to the ideals of an assassin.
The days in the training complex had no sun or moon. Gunfire. Blows. Cold. Hunger. These were his daily companions.
Running until legs gave out. Lifting weights until bones creaked. Enduring pain until the mind learned to ignore it, regardless of the missions imposed by their superiors.
All that mattered was being better than yesterday. It was a succession of relentless trials.
Though to ordinary people they looked like nothing more than children, the adults who lived alongside them during training and care knew something the rest did not.
They were not ordinary children.
They were soldiers.
They infiltrated dark buildings, eliminated targets with precision. Without mercy. Without remorse. Each time they returned, their hands were stained with blood. They were ruthless children.
But among all those children, among all those faces marked by the same misfortune… only one mattered.
—Him.—
His friend. His brother in everything but blood.
They looked almost identical: two lean but strong bodies, two pairs of calculating eyes, two souls marked by the same fate.
—"Tied again." —the boy said, his words filled with mockery. He did not need to turn to know who stood beside him.
The man saw his reflection in the eyes of his only friend, both breathing heavily, a knife in each hand. His friend smiled back at him.
Both were covered in sweat and dirt, surrounded by shattered targets. The knife-throwing test was over. As always, they had tied.
The hit count… equal.
—"You can't be better than me. You still can't beat me, huh?" —his friend teased with a tired smile, letting his knife drop.
The man, who was now only a child, simply exhaled through his nose and smiled faintly without replying. They didn't need words. He released his knives.
As long as they could remember, they had always been together in everything. From the moment their hands were large enough to hold a knife, they learned to kill together.
From the moment their bodies could bear the weight of a weapon, they learned to shoot together. When their muscles could endure the pain of blows, they learned to fight together. And when their souls were marked by the blood of their first missions… they learned to survive together.
The days in the complex had no names. There were no Mondays or Sundays. No vacations. No rest.
Only training.
Every dawn, a new trial. Races until collapse. Hand-to-hand combat until one fell unconscious. Disassembling and reassembling weapons in under thirty seconds. Precision shooting in total darkness.
And when daylight faded, the trials only became crueler. Sleep deprivation. Pain tolerance. Psychological torture to eradicate fear.
Even despite everything… they always had each other.
Together, they were unstoppable.
Every mission, every assassination, every stain of blood on their hands, they faced it together. There were no doubts. No fear. No remorse.
But there was something deeper they never dared to say out loud. A buried desire. A longing that burned within them.
That night, while the complex slept, they watched the sky from the rooftop of the tallest building, lying on frozen concrete. They saw the stars for the first time in years, on one of the rare nights without training.
His friend broke the silence first.
—"Do you think that someday we could… stop doing this?" —he asked, his gaze lost in the sky.
The man did not answer.
—"I mean… what if we escape? Find a place where no one is looking for us. Somewhere quiet, where we can be normal."
The word sounded strange.
"Normal."
What did it even mean to be normal?
The man looked at the stars, wondering what it would feel like to be a normal person. What it would be like to wake up without orders. Without the need to kill. Without the obligation to survive every single day.
—"Maybe." —His voice sounded more hopeful than he expected.
Maybe they could. Maybe they could be something more than assassins. Maybe they could live.
Together.
But it was only a child's dream, something only simple children could desire without understanding the great cost of leaving their place in the ranks. A dream that, as the years passed, slowly shattered.
One of those harsh nights, the stars in the sky were covered in blood.
The world twisted. Memories warped. The night filled with screams and blood. And the last thing he saw before waking…
Was the image of his friend, reaching out a hand to him… the other stained with blood.
He gasped.
The cold air of the cave hit him like a blow. His body was drenched in sweat, his chest rising and falling violently. His hands trembled, but not from the cold. For a moment, his mind was still trapped in the dream.
He raised a hand to his face, feeling the warmth of his skin. He could almost feel the heat of the complex lights, the scars. The memories still burned inside him. His friend's voice echoed in his head. The stars. The fire. He could still feel the weight of weapons in his hands.
He exhaled with difficulty. He was no longer there. That world no longer existed.
He took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his brow.
No matter how much the memories hurt, now he had to survive.
He stood up, ignoring the pain in his body. He still had a long road ahead, and whatever awaited him out there… would not be more relentless than his own past.