Isakk stumbles, momentarily disoriented from the curse placed on him. He decides not to dwell on it and patches his injuries the best he can before stumbling back to the campsite with what strength he has left.
He reaches the campsite and walks to his tent where the pregnant woman, named Anna, is currently pushing a baby out of her. Isakk is shocked and walks straight back out, stumbles, falls on his face, and scurries off traumatized. He comes back two hours later to see her holding the baby. It's a boy.
Isakk hears soldiers outside talking about the baby.
Soldier 1: Hmm, another mouth to feed.
Soldier 2: She better take up extra work to compensate for that liability.
Isakk walks up to them and says: I'll take extra work for her, so shut your dirty mouths.
The first soldier, the more burly one, slaps him and shoves him aside and says: Who are you to talk to me? You're all bones. Did your mother not teach ya?
The second one, with a lanky tall build, says: He doesn't have a mother, remember.
They both laugh and Isakk grits his teeth and walks back to the tent, to his sleeping bag of hay and leaves. No room to complain. People like him don't have that blessing.
Isakk wakes to the same grimy place as usual. He's stopped hoping for things to be better. Worse, the baby kept him up all night with its crying and Anna's attempts to soothe it. Isakk walks out and stretches. He doesn't have any registered patrol today so he decides to help the workers around the camp. He doesn't like it, but for someone of the same upbringing, it's better than people that mock them helping out.
He reaches the kitchen and gets his apron and hairnet. He is helping Anna since she is obviously in no condition to work, let alone cook, for a fat, useless sperm cell of a man that does nothing but sit on his ass all day. The cooks greet him first with small nods and even some hellos. This is shitty and everyone in the kitchen knew it. They are worked to the bone every day, and even on the odd days they have a break or aren't scheduled for work, they are worked.
"Add more salt here," Isakk says.
The cook beside him side eyes him and does it.
37 minutes later, after Isakk had finished helping Anna in her shift, he decides to train. Not in the training grounds or anything good like that, just a small open space behind the camp where he somehow snuck in some training equipment the soldiers threw away and repurposed.
He trains hard for as long as his body allows him, and when exhaustion finally gnaws at him, he walks to his tent and sleeps in his corner. He wakes up during midday to random shouts and noise. He goes to check what's happening and sees Anna on the floor while her baby is in the hands of Commander Wideroth. Isakk hears, "Get the alchemist ready, a baby without sin is a good ingredient for alchemy," and Isakk doesn't think, his body acts before that, because the thought of a baby, a child being taken from its mother before even knowing her, stings at a particular spot in his heart. He lunges at Wideroth with a fury that's almost animalistic, but he is stopped by two soldiers that pin him and beat him to the ground. Isakk, helpless, looks at Wideroth with pure malice and bloodlust in his eyes, the only thought in his head to get the baby back. The sigil in his hand flickers and he hears whispers, specifically the voice of the demon he killed.
"Isakk, kill them all. Their blood will taste extraordinary as you rip them apart limb from limb as they beg for their lives."
"No," Isakk says, visibly straining against the demon's influence.
The soldiers continue kicking him and Isakk quickly draws his dagger and stabs it into one of their feet, then runs to Wideroth and punches him with all his strength, taking the baby from his hands with shaky, angry breaths. Isakk sees that he's outnumbered but still shouts, "All of you trying to separate a mother from her newborn child are despicable." Some recoil, some step closer.
Wideroth shouts: Soldiers! Capture him and throw him in the camp prison.
Isakk calms his heart and gives the baby back to Anna and kneels down slowly, but the guards still knock him unconscious.
But Isakk does not dream. Instead, Isakk wakes in darkness, and kneeling beside him is the demon he killed, poking at his cheek. When she sees he's awake, she smiles and says, "Ohh my, you are finally lucid."
Isakk scrambles back, reaching for a dagger that doesn't exist in this plane of thought.
She laughs and says, "Calm down, I'm not hurting you. Well, I can, but I won't. Your real body is in enough pain as it is, think of me as a helper. They are torturing you for disobeying that fat man."
Isakk says, "What are you doing in my head?"
She says, "That sigil in your hand, silly. When I cursed you, normally demons of my caliber don't do this, we just curse the ones that kill us, but as benevolent as I am, I decided to leave a piece of my soul in your consciousness." She continues, not even giving him a chance to speak, and says, "And my name, you ask, it's Xarielle Vok'thessa Nyx-Uur."