Order for one.
Order for two.
Order for... just me.
Always just me.
That waitress looked like she'd been sculpted for a very different kind of establishment, curves sharper than her tray, smile thinner than the wine glass she set before me. She knelt with exaggerated grace, eyes not quite meeting mine. A polished performance. One, she wasn't being paid enough to rehearse, let alone perfect.
"Thank you, miss. I'll enjoy this... here. Your tokens."
My gauntlet clinked as silver coins dropped into her hand. Old ones. Ornate. Real silver. From a treasury that hadn't existed for two generations. The way her fingers flinched made me think she recognised the insignia. Or maybe it was just the cold iron.
"Ah... yes... please do..." she whispered, backing away like I was contagious with the fucking plague.
Through the warped windowpane, rain slid like it was trying to forget it had ever been clouds. My reflection looked back at me, unimpressed. A mercenary. A murderer. Someone who got paid to step into the fire, and then got blamed when he walked out without burning.
Gold teeth where decay had won. Swords holstered lazily, their hilts worn by desperate fingers. Armour falling apart at the seams, its fabric stitched with the sigil of a noble house that no longer existed... maybe never had? A liar's costume. An honest one.
I tapped my foot. The floorboards didn't protest. They were too tired. Like me.
From my coat, I withdrew a pocket watch. It swung from a thick iron chain like a prisoner's shackles. Back and forth. Back and forth. The rhythm of inevitability. I never looked at the time. It didn't matter. I already knew what was going to happen.
That's when the noble arrived. Predictably late. Profoundly sweaty.
"E-ehem... Sir Callan?"
"That's me," I replied. "You can drop the 'sir.' I'm here on contract, not courtesy. You've hired me, correct?"
His smile was nervous, but warm. His eyes were gentle, but calculating. His neck was damp, but perfumed.
"Ah, yes, of course. As stated in our letter, there's a settlement north, by the Blade Mountains. It's been overrun. Orcs. Dozens, maybe hundreds. We need men."
"Men?" I raised my brow, swirling the wine. "You've got one."
"I-I beg your pardon?"
"No men. No unit. No army. Just me. You pay for one result, not many."
"But the letter said-"
"The letter said you wanted the problem solved. I solve problems. Personally."
He hesitated, then nodded, as if resigning himself to the absurd. "You'll be compensated in full if the matter is resolved."
"Of course I will," I said, smiling. "And if it's not, I'll be dead, so you won't owe me anything."
I downed the wine. Bitter. A good year, probably. One of the last.
As I stood, I clapped him on the shoulder... he flinched, and walked out into the rain.
I was a crybaby.
I mean that literally. Most babies stop screaming after a few weeks. Months, at worst. I went years. My mother said I was born weeping and never stopped. My father said nothing at all. Ever.
I cried because I heard things. Saw things. Things that hadn't happened yet. Might not ever happen. Probably shouldn't happen.
But they always did.
I'd scream when people were about to die. Laugh when they were about to betray me. I'd whimper when towns were about to burn, when siblings were about to kill each other, when kings were about to fall asleep and never wake up. People said I was cursed.
They weren't wrong.
The first time I tried to stop it, I killed someone.
The second time, I saved someone.
The third time, I realised both were the same thing.
Steel parted flesh like wet cloth. The orc collapsed, bisected from shoulder to hip.
I stepped over the body.
Snow drifted lazily through the broken windows of the abandoned village. No screams. No children. No mothers clutching infants. Just ghosts of lives that had never been lost. Because I made sure they weren't here when the slaughter began.
"This place was never truly occupied," I muttered. "Just scouted. Raiders. Foragers."
The corpses littered the streets like punctuation marks endings. My sword dragged crimson across the snow.
I'd sent the villagers away before the attack. Told them I'd had a dream. I didn't bother explaining more. They were superstitious folk. That helped.
Now I stood alone in the centre of the ruin. Smoke rose from blackened roofs. The sky was heavy. Tired, like everything else.
"Good enough," I said, dusting off my coat. "I'll get paid. That's what matters."
I smiled, crooked and cold. Gold teeth flashing like false promises.
Conflict was necessary. Conflict fed me. Saved me. Paid me.
And no matter how many futures I tried to prevent, there was always another one waiting.
Another scream. Another death. Another premonition I would fail to ignore.
That old blade of mine dripped quietly. Blood steamed against the frost.
I kicked open a door. No resistance. Inside, just some crates, broken furniture, and the smell of charred flesh lingering like regret. No survivors. No captives. No glory.
There never is.
I stepped out, letting the wind bite through my cloak. Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed, wrongly. A few seconds too early. I knew, because I'd already heard it.
That's the worst part.
The future doesn't just come to me in dreams.
It leaks.
Leaks into the corners of my thoughts, behind every word someone says, inside every silence that lasts too long. It's not like seeing pictures. It's like remembering something that hasn't happened yet.
I looked down the road, muddy and half-frozen. The path back to the noble. The path to payment.
But I didn't move.
Somewhere out there, maybe tomorrow? Maybe in a year? Someone would scream my name before dying. A war would start because I didn't get there fast enough. A city would burn just because I blinked at the wrong moment.
I saw it.
All of it.
And still, I walked forward.
Because this future...The one where I keep going...It is The Future Only I Can See.