The steady clatter of the wooden carriage echoed like an old, tired melody among the mountains. The thick wheels, reinforced with metal plates, crunched over a hard-packed dirt road littered with gray stones and twisted roots. The sky, covered by a blanket of low clouds, cast a dim, even light that bathed everything in a pale hue, as if the entire world were plunged into a colorless dream.

  Joel traveled alone in the back of the vehicle, sitting on a bench covered with a rough blanket. He had his arms crossed and his gaze lost in the landscape that slowly passed by through the small window. Outside, scrubby hills, aged forests, and the occasional abandoned windmill were the only glimpses of a land that seemed indifferent to the passage of time. His face, angular and serene, would have been considered attractive by many, but he had never stopped to look at himself for long. His black hair fell untidily over his forehead, and a perpetual shadow of tiredness adorned his gray eyes. He didn't bother to comb his hair or take care of his clothes, which hung somewhat loosely on his thin but strong body. His beauty was veiled by an almost stubborn indifference. In his hands he held a small charcoal portrait: the face of a young woman, with intense eyes and a soft smile, his mother, the only possession truly his, the only piece of personal history that had not yet been taken from him

  The journey lasted hours, with the landscape gradually transforming. The trees gave way to flat fields, the roads became straighter, and finally, the horizon was interrupted by a black stone wall. Behind it rose square towers, chimneys spewing white smoke, and dark brick buildings—Training Camp 17.

  Upon arrival, a guard checked the document hanging from the carriage and without further ceremony opened the heavy gate. The driver, wordlessly, whipped the horses, and Joel felt the world he knew slipping away.

  The place was a fortress in itself, a labyrinth of courtyards, sheds, barracks, and fields of hardened earth, everything divided with an iron and cruel logic. On the left, the women's facilities: smaller, sheltered, organized like a cold sanctuary. On the right, the men's facilities: open, noisy, harsh. The sound of shouts, blows, and orders floated in the air like a perpetual war chant.

  The instructors greeted the group without a kind word. A gigantic man, half his face burned, was the first to speak. "Welcome to hell. From this day forward, you are not people, you are tools. Some will be broken, others will be sharpened, the rest... will be discarded."

  Without waiting for a reaction, they separated them by name, age, and build. Joel was pushed into a group of boys between fourteen and sixteen years old, none of whom spoke, fear clinging to their sweat like a second skin.

  The following days were a nightmare of screams, mud, and blood. Endless physical training, forced marches in the rain, sleepless nights, and brutal punishments for minor mistakes. Eating was an earned privilege, and sleep a fragile truce.

  Joel, despite his seemingly weak build, was resilient, possessing a strange ability to adapt, to not complain, to observe and absorb every tactic, every pattern like a sponge. His cynicism allowed him to accept humiliation with a bitter smile. His sarcasm, however, brought him trouble, as sometimes a misplaced phrase cost him unnecessary punishment or blows from an offended superior.

  Even so, he managed to establish a certain camaraderie with some: a dull-eyed young man named Feron, another more impulsive and clumsy man named Birm, and a girl, seen at the separation of the ranks, who exchanged with him a look full of understanding and silent mockery.

  Little by little, Camp 17 began to show its true colors: it was not a training ground, but a sieve designed to eliminate the weak. The instructors didn't teach: they molded through beatings, and internal hierarchies among recruits quickly flourished. The strongest ruled, and those who thought... survived.

  The first month passed like a wound that won't heal. Fatigue became a part of every muscle, every thought. The days were endless: before dawn, whistles pierced like knives, then a parade of drills, collective punishments, hand-to-hand combat tests, and endurance sessions. The nights were short and freezing, and Joel often went to bed with his bones throbbing with pain, his knuckles cracked, and his back aching from falls.

  He began to recognize the patterns of the day, to anticipate when one of the instructors would conduct a surprise inspection, or when rations would be cut as a general punishment. He learned to move with the same group breathing, to detect just the right moment so as not to stand out too much or appear incompetent—in other words, just enough so as not to be a target.

  Feron, his bunkmate, whispered to him at night stories of even worse camps, of entire units disappearing without explanation. Birm, for his part, dreamed aloud of rising high enough to avoid dying in the mud. Joel, on the other hand, remained silent, watched, and thought, though he also dreamed of the other world, a world fragmented into irregular eras and other lives, while his body broke and his mind hardened like steel in fire.

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  But not all were days of silent resistance. One gray, sunless afternoon revealed the horror without disguise. One of the recruits, a young man named Darel, thin and nervous, with ever-alert eyes, attempted to escape during the night. He had stolen a key from one of the auxiliary gates, stolen from who knows where, and had managed to reach the edge of the eastern wall before being detected.

  The next morning, the recruits were lined up in the central camp. Darel's body lay on the ground, covered in blood, his face unrecognizable. The officers didn't say a word, and one of the instructors, his voice hoarse from shouting orders, simply said:

  "This is what happens to cowardly deserters. You don't leave this camp alive until you complete your training."

  The message was clear, and no one dared to look too long. But Joel did. He stared at the corpse as if trying to memorize every wound, every blow, every twisted curve of the body, not out of morbid curiosity, but rather out of suppressed rage and a bitter mix of compassion and helplessness. Darel wasn't his friend, but he had been a comrade... And now he was just another corpse.

  That night, Joel lay awake longer than usual, the voices of the instructors mingling with those of his memories. The mud and blood were beginning to smell the same, and brutality was not the exception, but the rule. Training camp didn't teach courage: it sowed fear.

  During one of those nights, where rest came later than usual, his dream took him back to the life of a soldier in an ancient era, marked by incessant wars and armies in full dress uniforms, carrying strange firearms always slung over their shoulders. He was a young peasant enlisted in an army that marched under the banner of a golden eagle. The cold of the countryside, the shouts of the officers, the smell of gunpowder and wet earth... everything was vivid, almost unbearable. His first battle was a bloody chaos, a dance of smoke, steel, and death. He was wounded, but he survived... And he did it again... And another time.

  As the years passed, he rose through the ranks. He earned the respect of his comrades and was recruited into an elite unit: the so-called Old Guard, the most loyal, the most veteran. His uniform was different, more ornate, and he marched with men who no longer feared death, but dishonor.

  The last battle was the most brutal. Under a constant rain and the beating of war drums, they stood like iron pillars against an enemy that outnumbered and outgunned them. One by one, his comrades fell, and he, wounded in the chest, refused to retreat. He died standing up, his sword stained with blood and mud, surrounded by corpses, while the cannons silenced the last cries of his unit. But inside, there was peace, for he had lived with glory, with purpose, and his soul, as it detached itself from his body, ascended with honor.

  Joel woke up in his bunk drenched in sweat, his breathing heavy, but his eyes showed no fear, they showed respect. That dream had taught him not only the cruelty of war, but also the power of loyalty, camaraderie, and dignity even in defeat. He stared at the cracked wooden ceiling, wondering if he would ever find a cause worth dying for like that.

  And then, something stirred inside him, a doubt and a restlessness that had been silently stalking him. Each dream left its mark on him, not only because of what he saw or felt, but because of what it took away from him. He was no longer sure if some of his memories were his own or from the lives of others he experienced. He found himself thinking like them, remembering gestures, words, even emotions that didn't belong to him. He felt a mixture of fascination and terror... How many men could he be before he ceased to be Joel?

  There were moments, brief but unsettling, when he found himself reacting with pride to events he hadn't experienced, feeling nostalgia for people he had never met. The accumulation of so many lives was pushing him toward a slow dissolution of his own identity. He wasn't sure if he was being enriched... or erased.

  Joel hugged the blanket, seeking warmth, but also support. He feared that one day he would wake up and not remember who he was. He feared that the face in his mother's portrait no longer inspired him. He feared becoming just another echo, trapped among the fragments of others.

  A few days after the dream, during an afternoon when the recruits were sent to carry barrels of water from the wells on the west side of the camp, Joel again crossed paths with the girl he had seen on the first day, at the separation of the lines. This time it wasn't a casual encounter, but a sustained moment, a brief but intense encounter that seemed to alter the rhythm of the afternoon.

  She was on the other side of the fence that divided the male and female training areas; her hair was braided back, strands loose from sweat and exertion. Her build was slender but athletic, and her movements denoted a grace forged by effort. She also wore her training uniform with the same nonchalance as Joel: functional, without pride.

  When their gazes met, she raised an eyebrow and then gave a mocking half-smile. It was an expression that broke the somber tone of the surroundings. Joel held her gaze, not smiling, but his eyes reflected a spark of recognition. Silently, she gave him a brief nod of her chin, as if to say, "Are you still in one piece?" Joel tilted his head with his trademark cynical air and kept walking, though inside he felt a small vibration, a warm echo amidst all the cold.

  Later, he discreetly inquired about her among the recruits. Her name was Liria, and she was one of the few selected with an aptitude for advanced tactical training, specializing in magical rearguard coordination and logistical support, but she had also excelled in physical training, something unusual in her field. Some said she came from a disgraced family, others that she was the illegitimate daughter of a minor noble, though nothing was confirmed. But all agreed that she had character, for she was neither loved nor feared by her peers: she was respected. Her responses were sharp, her decisions swift. She had won simulated duels with a disturbing coldness.

  Joel didn't know what to expect; it wasn't a romantic connection, not even an emotional one; it was something different, as if two anomalies had detected each other's oddness in the same quagmire. That night, he thought of her before sleeping, not as a longing, but as a reflection. He wondered how many secrets Liria carried under that penetrating gaze, and if, like him, she also had something whispering in her ear in the darkness.