Echoes of Ossian
Back to the end of the war
I woke up again.
The moment I opened my eyes, it was as if my soul had been ripped from my body. My lungs gasped for air, but the weight of the world crushed me once more. The bones of this endless nightmare were sharp and unforgiving. I knew this pain. It was a pain I had come to expect, but every time, it felt like the first—a raw, suffocating agony that clawed at me, a reminder that I was still trapped in this cursed cycle.
I glanced around, the battlefield stretching endlessly before me, littered with soldiers bodies. I saw the flames of ruined cities flicker in the distance, the sounds of dying men, horses, and steel clashing, all too familiar. The smoke churned in the air, thick and choking, but none of that mattered. I could hear him, even in the midst of the chaos. Solan. His presence lingered in every breath I took, as if I could still feel his warmth in the coolness of the evening air.
But the silence broke me first, just like it always did.
The scene began to play out before me like a twisted memory, cruel and unyielding.
I saw him across the battlefield, standing amongst the corpses. His golden hair shimmered despite the carnage, his face a mixture of sorrow and determination, the soul I had sworn to protect. He smiled at me, his hand reaching out, a gesture that could never be mistaken. The way his lips moved, I could hear his voice—"Come to me."
I could see his hand stretched, trembling ever so slightly as though he too was waiting for the relief. I started running. I didn't care who or what was in my way; I didn't care about the war anymore. I didn't care if they struck me down, I only cared about him, about reaching him, about saving him.
But as I pushed forward, breaking through the chaos, I saw the glint of steel in the air—sharp, deadly. The blade that pierced Solan's heart was not mine, but it might as well have been. It wasn't my hand that had killed him, but the soldiers who surrounded him, their swords still dripping with his blood.
I reached him too late, the world falling into a suffocating hush as I cradled him in my arms. My hands trembled as I gently turned his body over. His eyes, once filled with light, stared up at me, glassy and vacant. I couldn't save him.
Not again.
"No..." My voice broke as I clutched him tighter, my heartbeat a war drum in my chest. I wanted to scream, but no sound came. I lifted my head toward the sky, through the haze of blood and smoke, only to see the stars above clouded by my tears. This was it—the cruel reality.
He was gone. Again.
My chest cracked open as I fought to hold back the tears. I couldn't save him. Again. I had tried.
I had died for him.
Again.
And again.
I wasn't supposed to be here. I wasn't supposed to live this way—caught in a cycle where I watched him die over and over again, and each time, I failed to change the ending. The agony surged through me, a storm that refused to calm, as I lay there with him, the warmth of his blood seeping into my skin, blending with my own.
The sound of soldiers moving around us—voices barking orders, the clatter of armor—was a blur. But then, I felt it. I heard him.
The blue-eyed soldier, the commander—Cain.
The same soldier who had killed Solan time and time again.
He was there, standing tall amidst the ashes, his armor tarnished, his expression blank but resolute. His two soldiers, bloodied and broken, gathered around him, forming a circle of weary figures. Their battle had ended.
The war had ended.
His voice rang out above the battlefield, but it wasn't the triumphant shout of a conqueror. It was the voice of a man who had seen too much death to celebrate. There was no joy in his words.
"Enough."
The command echoed through the clearing, and for a moment, everything went still. Even the wind seemed to pause. His troops, once so eager to fight, lowered their weapons, their faces grim and resigned.
Cain raised his hand, his eyes casting over the battlefield, searching. They all seemed to await his next order, but his gaze never wavered. His fingers twitched, but he didn't give the command. He was as tired as I was.
Tired of war. Tired of death.
And I understood.
But I couldn't stop.
I couldn't let him go.
I had to make him understand.
I walked toward him, my broken hand clenched into a fist, the pain searing through my limbs.
When I reached to him, I didn't speak. Instead, I grabbed his neck, my fingers tightening around his throat with a force I had only ever reserved for enemies.
"May you suffer as I have," I hissed through gritted teeth, rage flooding my senses. "May death never be an escape for you Cain."
Cain, that name that my ennemies kept on calling like he could all save them...
The words, bitter and raw, spilled from me before I could stop them. They were as much a plea as a curse. I was too tired to fight, too tired to keep running. But I couldn't stop this. I couldn't stop what had been set in motion.
I could hear the crack of Cain's breath beneath my fingers, his eyes widening in surprise. I thought he would retaliate—he should have. I was an enemy, after all. But something shifted in him, something I couldn't quite name.
Then, he spoke, his voice raspy and strained. "It's already too late for both of us. We both are cursed."
His eyes were tired, too much like mine.
"Cursed...How would you know anything about my curse...Unless..."
His soldiers had already plunged their swords into my chest.
The pain was nothing new. I had died countless times on this very field, felt the blade enter my flesh, the warmth drain from my body. But this time, it was different. This time, I was conscious of every drop of blood spilling from me, of the grip tightening around Cain's life, slipping through my fingers as I held him in my arms.
As for tge rest of the soldiers, the panic in their eyes was unmistakable—fear, not just of the man who had been their commander, but of something deeper.
The horror of knowing that Cain's life was slipping away, the life they had all sworn to protect, was now hanging by the thinnest of threads between my fingertips.
For a moment, I was suspended in that space between death and life.
Would this time be different?
The soldiers around me hesitated. The sound of steel in the air felt like it was stalling, as if the entire battlefield was holding its breath. There was a collective pause, an uncertainty that seemed to ripple through the ranks. They had seen me die before, of course. They had seen me fall again and again. But never like this. Never with Cain's life caught between the fleeting moments of my curse.
As I tightened my grip on Cain's neck, I could feel the tremor in his breath, the tension in his body as he struggled to breathe through the crushing force of my curse. But his eyes… those damn eyes of his, the same blue that had seen too much of this damn war, too much death, too much suffering.
He didn't plead. Not yet. But I could see the question in his eyes—Why?
My vision blurred, the edges of my sight dimming as the soldiers' swords pushed deeper, driving me further into the ground. The cold of the steel biting into my flesh, but it wasn't the pain that consumed me. It was the knowledge that I was killing him.
And yet, I couldn't stop.
Not while the curse pulsed within me. Not while Solan was gone.
Not while I was forced to relive this endless nightmare.
And for a moment, I wanted to. I wanted to end it. I wanted to break free of the cycle. I wanted to end the curse.
But I couldn't. The rage, the grief, the madness that had coursed through me for years—it was all I had left.
The soldiers, those loyal to Cain, their faces full of fear and desperation, began to shout—some urging me to stop, others calling out to Cain to do something, anything, to end this madness. But Cain's breath was ragged now, a wheeze, almost as though he, too, was caught in this cycle—one of endless pain and death, just like me. The soldier with the blue eyes, the one whose fate had become intertwined with mine, was struggling to breathe, his neck being crushed by my hands.
The irony of it was that I could feel his pain. I could feel him drowning in the same hopeless agony I had suffered. And it was all because of me.
Then it happened. The world slowed down, time stretching painfully before me. My own heart seemed to thud in my chest, echoing through the battlefield. The faces of my soldiers blurred and then sharpened, their expressions torn between duty and fear. I heard their shouts fade away, swallowed by the silence that pressed against my eardrums.
And then, Cain's voice broke through the haze.
"Stop...." he wispered in a breath.
His voice wasn't a command. It wasn't an order. It was a plea, raw and desperate. It was the voice of someone who knew the weight of what had been set in motion.
The soldiers around me froze. The swords embedded in my chest didn't move. The battlefield seemed to stop breathing.
"Enough." Cain's voice trembled, weak but defiant. "This has gone far enough."
"You killed him...again, Solan is gone...You don't understand, I have to save him !" A single tear came from my eye.
And like he finally realised what he had done, his eyes widdened. But I didn't let any words come from his mouth.
I didn't want to listen.
I didn't want to hear it.
I couldn't have him tell me that it was sensless.
My fingers tightened reflexively around his throat, the curse urging me to finish what it had started.
The curse that had been passed down through the ages, from one soldier to another, from one broken heart to another. The curse that demanded suffering.
But Cain was still alive.
The bastard was still breathing, still holding on. And I was still trapped, torn between two worlds: the one where I let the finnaly war end and watched Solan die for the thousandth time. And the one were I start the day over and try to save him.
But the truth was, I couldn't.
Not yet.
The panic in their eyes, the soldiers surrounding us, was growing. I saw it now—the horror.
I couldn't bear the thought of losing him again.
I wanted to scream, to rage against the world that had twisted my fate so cruelly. I wanted to die to end it all, to dissapear from this world that played a cruel fate on me. But I couldn't. I had to keep going. I had to keep trying.
Even if it was a lie, even if it didn't matter, I couldn't stop. I would never stop.
And he looked at me, his eyes full of that same sorrow I had carried for so long. "End it, lets start over" he whispered, barely audible above the tension.
Cain's hand reached up, weak but steady, and brushed against my arm, as if he were pleading with me, not just to stop, but to understand.
"We can break this curse. Together."
And then, for the briefest moment, the world went still. The weight of my own pain, the weight of my mistakes, and the endless torment that had haunted me for so long seemed to lift, just for a second.
I felt the pressure in my chest. The blades in my body. The pain that had defined me for so long.
But most of all, I felt his touch. His hand on my chest.
The warmth.
And for that brief, impossible moment, I let go.
The swords dug deeper into my chest, but I didn't care anymore. I had to sart over once more.
He let out his last breath between my hands. And I follow shortly after struck by blades filled with rage from his soldiers.
Always the same ones following him everywhere. The same eyes filled with rage and sadness. The same two soldiers always by his side.
Always.