...I woke up refreshed and ready for a new day. Whatever nightmare had disturbed my sleep last night had been all but forgotten. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something important I had to do. Probably just something on the farm, I reasoned. I put on my work boots and—

The sword on the table. What was it doing there— I stumbled across the room, searching for a rag. My head felt like it was splitting apart, perhaps some evil spirit had attacked me during the night. A vision- of gripping a longsword in one hand, and a magnificent shield in the other. Yet that couldn’t be me. He looked nothing like me. He was old and... and... had the same birthmark on his right cheek. Like a spiderweb, burrowing down and stretching across. I gripped the sword so hard it felt like my knuckles were going to be ripped apart.

There were people with me too, in that vision, a woman even. Two other men, and someone else we were facing. Everything seemed to be going well, until we started being pushed back and our formation broke, allowing one of our own to be thrown off the cliff we were fighting on, by... some sort of giant moth?

After that, things only got worse and worse. The vision ended with us all dying in horrible ways. Still, it was only a vision. That person might have looked like me, but he wasn’t me. I kept repeating that to myself. Although, if that sort of thing could ever come to pass, then it was a good idea to train to make sure it didn’t.

I washed up before eating breakfast. My uncle had prepared an assortment of bread, cheese, meat and vegetables. Trying to get the thoughts of that horrible vision out of my head, I began a conversation with my uncle about how the harvest was predicted to go. Apparently this year was supposed to be a particularly fruitful one.

The sacrifices to the elder goddess had been made, and the ritual had been completed just hours before. At least a twenty percent increase in grain was expected from last year, and much more in terms of fruits. My uncle would go to the market after harvesting, in order to make as much profit as possible.

My uncle had taken care ever of me ever since I was a little kid; I would have ended up going to the village orphanage otherwise. It wasn’t all bad. I had a roof over my head, albeit of straw, and the food my uncle made was always good, so I had time to train every day.

I wanted to become a paladin, a holy knight, like I had heard about from the men who came from the capital. Paladins had been blessed by the true god, and could smite foes with bright light strong enough to blind even dragons. They carried cool swords and a shield that could tank blows from giants.

I would pray every night before going to bed to the one true god, to give me strength and protect me from evil, and to help me and my uncle in preparing our farmland for the harvest.

Every morning I went out and did fifty pushups and sit-ups, then did ten laps around the farm. Physical condition was the most important part of a fight. Often, many an otherwise strong warrior lost due to a lack of stamina. That would never happen to me. I would make sure that I would never be the first to fall.

Now I had to up my training regime even more, making sure to make my sword sparring as effective as possible. I had saved my pocket money in order to purchase a training dummy in our backyard, and in the afternoon, usually after coming home with Marcus and Linden, I would always help Marcus with his homework.

This time I had already finished my chores beforehand, so we jumped on my bed and started shoving each other around. We’d been talking about the festivities around the harvest time. He threw his messy bundle of sheets from maths class onto the desk next to my bed.

They got to go to school while I didn’t. Education was free and somewhat compulsory until ten, but after that it became more expensive with every child you had. My uncle made good money from the farm, but he couldn’t afford to pay for my education; it was simply too much for him to pay in addition to his sons.

“So, today at school—” Marcus began, sitting cross-legged on my bed.

I screamed as I thought my head was simply going to melt away. It flung forward to hit the bedside table on which I was writing. It felt like I could see Marcus already telling me everything about his day. That he had failed an incredibly important test and didn’t know what his prospects were going forward. And that I would then help him study for the test. And then he would fail it regardless. And then in an act of rage he would try to fight the Amrita at the edge of our village and— and die. I realized I had started crying. Marcus was looking at me, his eyes wide. He put his hand on my shoulder.

“Fernando, what happened?” He asked, his voice shaking slightly.

“Nothing, Marcus, I’m—” I looked at my friend, and then remembered the way that old man had decimated an entire team of professionals. “I’ve realized I need to take my training more seriously.”

A glare of the sun blocked my line of sight, slowing my movement, and my sword missed its mark, allowing Marcus to sidestep and strike at my exposed arm.

“Be careful,” he said, as I cried out in pain. “There’s no need to go over the top just because something scared you. Let’s rest for a while.”

“No,” I insisted, rubbing my bruised arm. “We have to keep going, no matter what.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he said, staring me down, “but I don’t want to see you get hurt, so just take it easy, for my sake.”

I didn’t meet his gaze, instead thinking about the best way to kill an immortal spirit.