The first sensation was weight.
Not the weight of guilt, not the heaviness of despair—though those came quickly enough—but the brutal, physical weight of iron shackles clamped around my wrists and ankles. The metal was cold against raw skin rubbed red from constant friction. Every step rattled the chains, a cruel reminder of ownership.
When I opened my eyes, the world around me was dust and fire. The sun was merciless, glaring down from a white-hot sky that seemed intent on burning the life out of every creature below it. Heat pressed into me, seeped through me, made the air shimmer in waves. My throat was cracked, my tongue swollen, and each breath carried the taste of sand and sweat.
I was kneeling in a row of men. Some were young, their backs still straight, though their eyes already dulled. Others were old, their spines bent like broken branches, their skin leathered by years of labor under this pitiless sun. Whips cracked somewhere in the distance, followed by the dull thud of bodies hitting earth.
Memory wasn't mine but his—the life I had been thrust into. A man named Kael. He had once had a home, a wife, and a son whose laughter echoed faintly at the edge of his mind. All of it was gone now, sold, scattered, erased. What remained was the field, the chains, and the overseer's voice barking commands.
"Up! On your feet, scum!"
A lash snapped across my shoulders before I could even react. Fire streaked across my back, the sting burrowing deep. My body jerked upright, unsteady on legs that trembled from exhaustion. The men around me rose as well, some groaning, some silent, all broken.
We were herded forward toward the fields, where endless rows of crops shimmered in the heat. The soil was dry, unyielding, but still we dug with rusted tools, our chains clattering with every movement. Sweat stung my eyes, salt burning raw skin, while flies swarmed around us, feeding on open wounds.
Kael's despair pressed into me, heavier than the sun itself. He no longer dreamed of freedom, no longer prayed for rescue. He wanted only one thing: release. And that release had a single shape—a rope, a fall, an end.
I felt it already, the whisper curling inside his skull. One night. One chance. One step into silence.
The thought lingered like a shadow, never far. Every lash, every curse from the overseer, every hour of labor carved it deeper. My own chest tightened with it. I had known betrayal, Elias had known guilt, the boy had known abandonment—but Kael… Kael knew captivity.
And captivity was its own kind of death.
The sun dipped lower, painting the sky with streaks of red, but there was no beauty in it. Just another day survived, another night of aching bones and broken hope to come. As we were marched back to the shacks, my wrists bleeding from the chains, Kael's thought pulsed like a heartbeat inside me.
End it. Tonight.
I stumbled, nearly falling, and the overseer barked a curse. The whip cracked again, but the pain barely registered. What terrified me more was the certainty blooming inside Kael, inside me.
The rope was waiting.
And unless I found a way to stop him, it would be the last thing either of us ever felt.