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The field of war lay cloaked in smoke and ash. Fire cracked the air and the ground shook with each blast, as if the world itself were groaning in pain. The wind carried the scent of blood and blackened flesh, mingled with the sharp sting of winter. The dead lay thick upon the earth, their limbs twisted in final anguish, as if cast aside by some careless god. And yet, amid the stillness of death, there was movement in the trench.

I had died. That much I knew.

A bullet, silent and sure, had passed through my chest and claimed me. For a breathless moment, I had known the hush that lies beyond life. But that peace was not mine to keep. A wrenching came, deep and low in my belly, like the turning of the tide, like a hand dragging me through the narrow door between worlds.

The cold earth beneath me became warm once more. I felt the beat of a heart that was not my own. My fingers stirred. Eyes opened. Above me was the sky, grey with smoke, and there lay the man whose body I now wore. He had fallen seconds before I had. And now I lived again – not as myself, yet still myself.

There was no choice in this. No judgment. No gate. Only return.

This was not life renewed, but life borrowed. A soul untethered, fastened again to dying flesh.

His blood still ran warm where it soaked the coat. His mouth was open in a last, unspoken word. And already his memories came creeping in – broken images of fear, of fury, of hunger for life. He had fought long, this one. Fought hard. But he had lost.

And now I was here. Again.

I rose to my feet – slowly, as one must, when one has only just returned from death. Around me the battlefield groaned, a place neither living nor dead. Somewhere, a scream rose, sharp as a hawk’s cry. Another soul faltered. Another body to come.

I could not remember my name. I had borne many, and all had faded.

They said it was a mistake, a slip in the order of things. A fault in the working of the world. But names have power, and I had none. So I became a shadow, passed from form to form. Soldier, always. Stranger, always.

I stood over the one I had replaced. His armor weighed heavy on my limbs, like sorrow made solid. I knew the rhythm of this. Lift the weapon. Take the step. March once more into the fire.

I did not know if the wheel would ever cease its turning. I did not know if rest would ever come. But until it did, I would rise with each fall.

The war was endless. And so was I.