Once you were introduced to Thorfinn as your mentor—your fellow slave and reluctant partner—he wasted no time teaching you the brutal basics of felling trees in the dense forest your master had entrusted to you both. The task was simple in design, but merciless in execution: clear the land, shape it into a farm, and eventually, you would earn your freedom.

It was a rare chance—perhaps the only chance you’d ever have—to seize something resembling a future. This master offered freedom at the end of hard labor, a promise that sounded almost too generous to be real.

From the very first day, Thorfinn made his nature painfully clear. He was a man of silence. He worked with precision, every swing of his axe efficient and practiced, but his lips remained shut. He spoke only when necessary—brief, clipped instructions on what to cut, how to split, where to haul. His words were tools, nothing more.

It wasn’t until nightfall that you realized silence didn’t mean peace.

You woke to the sound of screaming.

Thorfinn’s screams.

He writhed on the hay-strewn floor, fists clutching at the straw as if it might drag him from the depths of whatever hell he was trapped in. His arms flailed upward, desperate, as though he were drowning beneath invisible waters. The nightmare lasted only minutes, but each second gnawed at your nerves until the sound carved itself into your chest. Finally, he jolted upright, gasping for air, sweat streaking down his face.

And for the first time, you saw something more than the hollow shell he carried in daylight. For the first time, he wasn’t empty.

Yet the next morning, he was unchanged. No acknowledgment of the night before, no stumble in his stride. He worked as though nothing had happened—save for a single flicker of unease in his eyes when he caught you watching him. Then the wall went back up, and the silence returned.

But the second night was worse.

You both settled into the straw, exhaustion dragging you into sleep within moments. The quiet stretched, broken only by the distant chirp of insects and the soft rhythm of breath—until the nightmare came again.

The screams tore you from sleep. This time, they didn’t stop.

One minute. Two. Three. Four. Five.

By the time he snapped upright, his chest was heaving, his wide eyes burning with terror. The room fell into a tense silence, broken only by the ragged pull of his breath. Then, for the first time, he spoke—not in cold instructions or clipped orders, but in something startlingly human.

“Sorry.”

The word was low, rough, like he had to drag it from somewhere deep inside. He hesitated, then pushed forward with effort.

“I… don’t remember what it was about.”

He raked a hand through his tangled hair, the other clutching at the fabric of his shirt as though trying to anchor himself to the present. For a fleeting moment, the mask cracked, and you saw the boy beneath the soldier—the boy haunted by ghosts he couldn’t even name.