The woman's eyes flick to her ledger. She runs a finger down a column of names. Your name appears again and again, each entry marked with a small cross.

"Forty-three times," she says. "You're persistent."

Forty-three. The number sits in your chest like a stone. Forty-three deaths. Forty-three resurrections. And you remember none of them clearly—just shadows and screaming and the taste of blood.

"Does it get easier?" you ask.

She closes the ledger. "No. But you get harder."

She gestures to the door. Beyond it, you hear the sounds of the fortress: boots on stone, the ring of hammers, the low chant of the dawn prayers. And beneath it all, a sound like distant thunder. The darkness, pressing against the walls.

You take your sword. It's not the one you remember—if you remember anything at all. This blade is standard issue, sharp enough, balanced enough. A tool for killing. Or for dying while holding.

The walk to the wall takes you through the heart of the fortress. Soldiers everywhere, all with the same hollow look. You've seen that look in a mirror, though you can't remember when.

At the wall, a captain nods to you. "Section Seven needs bodies. The darkness took three last hour."

Took. Not killed. Took. There's a difference.

You climb the stone stairs. The wall is immense, circling the entire fortress. Beyond it: nothing. A void so complete it hurts to look at. Shapes move in that darkness. Things that were never human. Things that hunger.

A soldier beside you is weeping silently, spear shaking in his hands.

You look at your hands. Calluses on calluses. Scars that shouldn't heal, but do—each resurrection makes you new, but the soul remembers what the body forgets.

Fragments come: A child's laugh. A woman's face. Fields of wheat under summer sun. Were these yours? Or did you borrow them from someone else's memories, shared in the space between death and rebirth?

The woman in gray watches you. "Don't," she warns. "Don't try to remember who you were. You're a soldier now. That's all you need to be."

"And if I want to be more?"

"Then you'll suffer more when you die." She turns to leave, then pauses. "The Keeper remembers everything. Every soldier. Every death. Every dawn. That's why the role exists—someone has to hold the memory of what we're protecting."

She's gone before you can ask more.

You take your position on the wall. The darkness ripples like water. And then it comes.

The creatures have no true form—they are absence given shape, hunger given teeth. They scale the walls like smoke, manifesting claws and jaws only when they strike.

You fight. Your sword passes through shadow and finds something solid enough to cut. Black blood—if it is blood—spatters the stone. The creature screams without sound and dissipates.

Another comes. And another. And another.

Hours pass. Your arms burn. A soldier to your left screams as darkness wraps around her, pulling her over the edge. You grab her hand. For a moment, you hold on.

Then her fingers turn to shadow, and she's gone.

You fight until your muscles forget how to stop. Until the sun begins to rise. Until the horn sounds: dawn approaches.

The creatures retreat into the darkness. You've survived.

The woman's expression hardens. "You don't need to know."

"Tell me anyway."

She's quiet for a long moment. Then: "Every dawn, the Keeper dies in ceremony. Their death... sustains the barrier. Feeds the resurrection magic that brings you back. Keeps the darkness from overwhelming us entirely."

"And then the Keeper is resurrected?"

"No." Her voice is flat. "The Keeper's death is permanent. Final. Every day, a new Keeper is chosen from among those who survive the night. They walk into the Temple of Dawn. They don't walk out."

Your blood runs cold. "Who chooses?"

"The Keeper before them. Their last act is to name the next." She meets your eyes. "It's the greatest honor. And the greatest sacrifice. The Keeper holds the memory of everyone we've lost. Carries every name. And when they die, that memory powers the magic that protects us all."

"That's..." You search for the word. "Monstrous."

"That's survival."

You stand beside the weeping soldier. He's young—or looks young. Resurrection can preserve or destroy age. You've learned not to assume.

"First time back?" you ask.

"Seventh." His voice breaks. "I remember the first five deaths. The sixth is... blurry. I'm afraid I'm forgetting who I was."

"Maybe that's mercy."

"Maybe it's surrender."

The darkness surges. Creatures come. You fight side by side, and there's something almost beautiful in the synchronization—two people who've died multiple times, defending a world they can barely remember.

He saves your life twice. You save his once. When dawn comes and the horn sounds, you're both still standing.

He grips your shoulder. "Thank you for standing with me."

"Always," you say, and mean it.

As you descend from the wall, you see the procession heading to the Temple of Dawn. Today's Keeper, walking to their death.

The captain looks at you like you've asked what color the sky is. "You don't remember?"

"I've died too many times to remember much."

He nods slowly. "The darkness isn't an army. It's... entropy. The end of all things. It consumed the world beyond this fortress—cities, kingdoms, forests, oceans. All gone. We're all that's left."

"Why hasn't it taken us?"

"The dawn ceremony. The Keeper's sacrifice powers the barrier. Every day they die, and every day the magic holds. Without it..." He gestures to the void. "We'd be nothing. Not even memory."

"And the creatures?"

"Echoes. Pieces of things that were consumed, given temporary form by the darkness. They want in. They want to finish what was started." He hands you a spear. "We make sure they don't."

The darkness surges. The battle begins.

The temple sits at the fortress's heart, built from white stone that seems to glow with internal light. You've never been inside—few have, except those who enter to die.

A priest guards the entrance. Old, impossibly old, with eyes that have seen too many dawns.

"You seek understanding?" he asks.

"I seek truth."

"They're not always the same." He steps aside. "The Keeper's body still lies within. Today's ceremony hasn't happened yet. You may enter. But what you see may change you."

Inside, the temple is simple. A circular room. An altar. And on that altar, a body.

The previous Keeper lies in perfect repose, hands folded. But their face... their face shows everything. Every death they remembered. Every name they carried. The weight of infinite sacrifice, etched in their final expression.

Beside them, a journal lies open. You read the last entry:

"I choose the one who asks questions. The one who remembers that we are more than soldiers. That we are human still."

You find a cot in the barracks. Around you, other soldiers sleep the exhausted sleep of those who've fought all night. Some whimper in their dreams. Some lie too still, as if practicing for death.

You close your eyes. Sleep comes.

In dreams, you see them all: every soldier you've fought beside. Faces you shouldn't remember, but do. The young weeping soldier. The woman pulled into darkness. The captain with tired eyes.

And you see someone else: a figure made of light, standing at the center of the darkness, holding it back with sheer force of will. The Keeper.

You wake to bells. The dawn ceremony is beginning.

Outside your window, you see the procession: priests in white, soldiers in black, and at the center, today's chosen Keeper, walking toward the Temple of Dawn.

Walking toward death.

You stand among hundreds of soldiers as the new Keeper enters the Temple of Dawn. She's young—no, she just looks young. Her eyes are ancient.

She turns at the threshold and speaks, her voice carrying across the silent crowd:

"I carry your names. I carry your sacrifices. I carry the memory of what we were, and what we fight to preserve. In my death, you will rise again. In my death, the darkness will be held back one more day."

She pauses, then looks directly at you. "And I choose my successor. The one who stands in section seven. The one who asks questions. The one who still remembers how to weep."

Every eye turns to you.

The priest's voice echoes: "Do you accept the burden of the Keeper?"

Your heart pounds. This is the choice. Die permanently tomorrow, but hold the memory of everyone. Become the sacrifice that allows others to live, die, and resurrect. Or refuse, and remain a soldier, dying and rising endlessly, slowly forgetting everything that made you human.

You fight like the darkness itself—unstoppable, relentless, without mercy or fear. You've died forty-three times. What's one more?

You save three soldiers. You kill—if killing is the right word—seven creatures. You hold the wall when others fall back.

And then one gets through.

Its claws—made of nothing and everything—pierce your chest. Cold floods your body. Not the cold of winter, but the cold of ending.

You fall from the wall. The world blurs. You hit the ground inside the fortress, and soldiers rush toward you, but you're already fading.

The last thing you see is the woman in gray robes, her ledger open, making a mark beside your name.

The forty-fourth cross.

You wake.

Not the violent waking of resurrection, but something gentler. You're in the Temple of Dawn. And you're not alone.

The previous Keeper stands before you—or their spirit does. "You died heroically," they say. "You have earned a choice."

You read the journal. Page after page of names. Thousands of names. Each one a soldier who died. Each death recorded with love and precision.

But there's more: observations, theories, hopes.

The final page is blank except for one line:

"I choose the one who finds this journal. They have the curiosity to seek truth, and perhaps the courage to become it."

You stay in the barracks. You hear the bells. The chanting. The moment of silence when the Keeper dies.

And then you feel it: a pulse of energy, washing through the fortress. The resurrection magic, renewed. The barrier, strengthened. The darkness, pushed back for another day.

Someone died so you could live.

That night, you return to the wall. You fight. You survive. Days blur into weeks into months. You die sixteen more times. Each time, you wake, and you fight, and you try not to think about the Keeper who died that morning.

You become efficient. Skilled. Numb.

One day, you realize you can't remember your name before you became a soldier. You can't remember the child's laugh, the woman's face, the wheat fields. You've forgotten everything except the weight of your sword and the shape of the darkness.

You've become what the system needs: a weapon. Nothing more.