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I had been holding myself together through sheer obsession and the need to survive, bulldozing past one event after another. The silent, mindless wait before we were sent into battle was the closest thing I’d gotten to rest, and that had been spent in a daze of fear and doubt — fear that I would slip back into the essence-slurping void at any moment, and doubt that the world around me was actually real.

Now that I had a moment to think, to process, I felt like my entire being was on the verge of unraveling. Through all the anxiety now bubbling up to the surface, only one question seemed to matter.

Who was I?

I reached for memories.

Instantly, my mind slammed right into the void that I somehow managed to escape. The darkness was ubiquitous, and the only thing that ever broke it was the slurping presence. I shuddered just remembering it.

I shuddered again, more violently, because I could now sense a fragment of that presence burning in my chest.

My breath was nothing but short gasps, forced through clenched teeth. Even the faded pounding on the tower’s door was not enough to distract me from the downward spiral of my own turmoil.

It was there, in the very depths of anguish, that I caught a glimpse of something different.

A life. My life.

Slowly, faces rose from the darkness, belonging to people whose names I no longer knew. Some I felt a burning fondness for. Others elicited distaste. But the appearance of each and every one filled the gaping hole within me.

More and more memories resurfaced, the details surprisingly vivid. Hobbies. Favorite foods. My collection of books and games. The evenings I spent with my friends, chatting or playing a board game. A wild night out on the town after we downed more drinks than was healthy.

There were still gaps in the life I was remembering, but the memories I did have proved one thing: I was a real person. I wasn’t just a fragment of someone long dead, haunting the husk of a mindless demonic soldier.

But I still couldn’t remember my name.

The realization burned, especially when I knew that I’d likely never get that detail back. It was gone, along with other fragments of myself, nibbled away by that overwhelming presence. And then my world stuttered and then shattered once again. That life wasn’t the only thing lurking in the back of my head.

With the force of an exploding cork, other memories flooded into me.

The memories of Hayden Hall.

They were even more fragmented than my own. I caught only snatches of them, ones that defined Hayden’s identity.

Hayden Hall was raised in a demonic camp. His world had fallen to demons when he was very young, too young to remember a different regime, and so demons were all that he knew. He wasn’t sure what made him special enough to be set on the warrior track, but he was grateful for it.

Because the alternative was slavery.

No one wanted to be a slave. To be a slave was to be a toy, readily available for labor, amusement, or whatever else the higher classes of humans saw fit to demand. They were a shared resource, brought in to serve the whims of the warrior recruits and camp staff. Their presence was a constant visible reminder that things could be much worse.

As such, no one needed encouragement to work hard, and Hayden Hall worked harder than anyone. He produced top results in all his tests. He was marked down as one of the few mana-sensitive humans, even getting special lessons on how to leverage that in small ways.

And all throughout his life, he was aware of the demons: watching, waiting, evaluating. They were always simply there, the invincible overlords.

They didn’t abuse anyone, or claim any special ’privileges’ from the humans under their purview. They didn’t even deign to lay a hand on a slave. They just watched.

And when the day came for Hayden and his generation to be tested for fitness, hoping to become soldiers in the grand army of the Duke of Torment, Hayden was naturally chosen and honored as the top recruit.

He was so proud then, his chest blazing with the desire to prove himself. He was proud right up to the moment they were led through the portal, until he reached the end of the line, and the demon on duty thrust a ball of fire into the core of Hayden’s being.

Then his world had burned, fracturing his mind and shattering his soul.

I woke up with a start. I must have passed out right there on the floor of the tower, my cheek slimy from the grimy tiles. Sitting up with a groan, I put some effort into wiping myself clean, but there wasn’t much point. I was covered in dust, grime, and blood already. Even getting most of the dirt out of my wounds would be a challenge.

Moving as swiftly as my stiff limbs would allow, I went up the stairs and glanced out the nearest window. I didn’t know when the invasion had started, but I remembered the sun being up during the initial charge. We were now comfortably into twilight, the fort city twinkling in the light cast by burning buildings and the torches lining the inner walls.

Apparently, I hadn’t wasted much time with my unconscious memory-dive, but my relief was cut short by the emergence of a different problem.

I couldn’t remember how to think.

Hayden Hall had led a lonely, regimented life. Honestly, people in the strictest military systems back in my original world likely kept more freedom and rights than demonic recruits did. He was told what to think, what to do, and when to do it.

Now I was in his body, with only fragments of memories and no compelling direction other than the ever-present murder-compulsion.

It didn’t help that the few memory fragments from Hayden were very nearly useless. The only possibly relevant bits of information were about mana and how to wield it. Apparently, Hayden’s camp leaders had spent precious little time actually teaching their recruits how to murder someone with a sword. Or, if those lessons were more frequent, I inherited very few of them.

Besides mana-related memories, the only other Hayden fragments I found valuable were about the few times he had witnessed demons interacting. They were fond of jeering and using humans as entertainment, often betting on one thing or another.

These memories were useful because they clarified the demons’ currency of choice: souls.

I knew I needed to collect ten in order to meet my quota, but I hadn’t thought about what to do with the leftovers. Now, thanks to Hayden, I knew I could use those souls to establish myself in this army.

The new thought brought me to another pause. Did I have to continue serving in this army? Theoretically, with most of the other soldiers oblivious to my presence, I could try to sneak away. I didn’t know much about the world I was in now, but it had to be better than a literal army from hell.

Right?

The first thing that stopped me from entertaining that idea further was fear. I had no clue what demons were really capable of, but I knew they could use powerful magic, and I was branded by their ball of fire. That sent up a whole lot of warning signals.

Ironically, the second thing that stopped me was another wave of Hayden’s memories. My memories now. He had wanted nothing more than to join up and progress through the ranks of demonic hierarchy. Serving in this army was his dearest dream. And even though none of those desires were my own, it sure felt like they were.

So, where did that leave me? I could hunker down and try to wait out the rest of the invasion. The city was well on its way to falling, I had more than enough souls to qualify me as a survivor, and the demons hadn’t yet personally involved themselves in the conflict. I could guess that once they did, things would only get worse for the defenders.

In other words, ’do nothing’ was a very solid option.

On the other hand… Where would that leave me?

I would be one of the many freshly inducted humans who barely squeaked by the basic requirements. The demons sent us into this battle with a single weapon and the clothes on our backs. That was it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were unlikely to provide anything better for future combat encounters.

No, if I wanted to really establish myself and get some useful gear, I had to buy it. And for that to be possible, I needed to get out there and kill more humans.

Or I could rob my fellow soldiers.

The realization of what I could do certainly painted the only other cognizant recruit I’d met in a different light. The man who tried to kill me had obviously considered himself superior to the dregs of the army, and he’d been set on proving it.

Did I want to follow his example?

More importantly, what was the alternative?

The demons would just keep throwing me into the charnel house of invasions. I was willing to bet on that. Without gear, without advanced info, without more power, I would eventually get unlucky. A single strike would be enough to take me out and hurl me back into that void.

In the end, it all came down to one simple question: was I willing to kill in order to stay alive?

As I gripped the handle of my sword, my determination crystallized.

Suddenly I laughed, loudly and shrilly. My new resolve made it painfully obvious that I definitely belonged here. There was no avoiding that truth anymore.

When I died in my first life, I ended up in hell.

That’s what it was, nibbling away at my soul. Hayden had heard the ’Will of Hell’ mentioned enough times by demons and instructors to know it was a thing, even before a fragment of it was shoved into his chest.

And I was willing to do whatever it took never to meet it face to face again. Anything. Even something that condemned me to hell.

Before I could follow through on my newfound determination and storm out of the tower in search for victims, the sound of a drum shook the very foundations of the city.

A slow, steady beat at first, it was soon joined by a host of others. Venturing higher, I reached the top of the tower and stepped out onto the wall. The gust of frigid wind that hit me did nothing to douse the murderous flames now licking through my veins.

The demons were massing outside the city, back where they set up camp on our arrival into this world. They were led by a line of brutes almost half as tall as the city walls themselves, each with an enormous drum hanging from their necks. These drummers were crafting a heady melody out of that single instrument, and I could feel something deep within me responding to their orchestra. It was magic, it had to be, especially considering the new strength surging through me with every beat.

I felt like I could fly, like a single punch could obliterate the tower behind me. My wounds flared up in mind-blistering pain, then dulled and faded away entirely. I clumsily ripped away one of my bandages, watching in wonder as the wound beneath healed in seconds.

Then the hulking brutes started chanting.

Their voices ripped through the air, the alien words forcing themselves into the ears of every living thing inside the city. To my shock, I could understand them.

This wasn’t like a mortal language. Each word was more of an impression, evoking images and feelings that blended together to convey meaning.

The demons spoke of anger, of slaughter, of business left undone. They spoke of the cold hatred that the dead harbored for the living. They spoke of vengeance taken on those who got to live another day, while the dead were left behind to rot.

The dead were listening.

I didn’t notice anything at first. But when I glanced back towards the city, I noticed some corpses twitching down on the ground. The sight was unnerving enough that I managed to tear my eyes away from the demonic spectacle outside, giving the city’s dead my full attention.

As the song rose into a frenzy, as the demons lamented and taunted in one breath, the bodies of the slain defenders rose. Eyes ignited with glaring red flames, their fingers searched for weapons they had dropped in death.

A roar rose from near me, and I watched in stunned silence as the brute whose spear I stole tore his way through a wall, his face frozen in a blend of hatred and resentment. He seemed different from the rest of the corpses, as though more of him had made it back through the veil of death.

And now it was focused wholly on the death of the living.

This new threat almost made me reconsider my determination to earn more souls, but much to my relief, the undead streamed right past the few other demonic soldiers I spotted down below. Their hatred seemed wholly reserved for their past allies.

Well, if the demons were finally willing to get off their asses and assist, I could hardly continue to hide in the darkness of a half-fallen tower.

It was time to fight.