The first night in this new body was worse than any hell I had already seen.
The battlefield didn't sleep. Even in the silence between shells, war lingered. Smoke drifted in thick, choking clouds, carrying the stench of burnt flesh and damp earth. The trenches stretched like open wounds, filled with mud, blood, and the groans of the dying.
And inside my head—the soldier's memories.
His name burned into me as if branded: Captain Elias Ward.
Images flickered: villages in flames, children crying in the rubble, orders barked and followed without question. Faces of men—friends, enemies, all blurred—collapsed under gunfire. Elias's hands pulled the trigger, over and over, until the screams stopped.
I felt every memory as if I had lived it.
Every shot.
Every death.
Every sin.
And the worst part—his guilt was endless. He carried the weight of each life like stones in his chest. It dragged me down with him, deeper into despair.
That night, lying in the trench with the cold mud soaking into my bones, I realized something terrifying:
Elias Ward didn't want redemption.
He wanted to escape.
And if I failed him, we would both burn.