Seagulls were the first sound I heard, followed by the gentle crash of waves on the beach, and the soft sound of crabs scuttling through the sand. The sun was hot, and I could feel the bridge of my nose burning. It didn't hurt yet, but it would soon enough. I had to get up, I had to move out of the unforviging sun.
Heavy footsteps reached my ears, muffled by the sand. I began to shift, not daring to open my eyes just yet. I was hurt, that much I knew. I couldn't remember how, why, or where I was, but I knew that something bad had happened. "Hey, you're alive!" The voice was close, and soon enough I felt a hand on my chest. A shadow fell over my face, and I looked up to see a young man, a soldier, kneeling over me. "Are you alright?" The language wasn't my own, but I knew it well enough. "No," my throat was dry and my tongue swollen. I could taste salt. "You really took a beating," the man commented as he held a water skin to my lips. I drank gratefully and sat up, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. "Thank you, friend," I felt woozy at first. "Here," the man took something out of the pocket of his leather pants. He had chainmail on his upper body. A soldier then.
He pressed a bandage to the back of my head. "You're not bleeding anymore. I think you'll be alright," he stated after a few minutes, wrapping a clean bandage around my head. "What's your name, stranger?" I opened my mouth, then paused. "I... I don't remember." I scowled, trying desperately to remember the most fundamental of facts. What was my name?
A fragment of a memory came to me. A woman with soft brown curls, an elven woman. "Bran..." I repeated what she said, though it felt incomplete. It would do for now. "Bran. That's all I can remember." I looked over at the man, getting a better look at his features. He looked exhausted, and beaten. He had a bruise on his cheek and his chainmail had tears in it. He helped me to my feet, "well, Bran, got any fighting experience?" I shrugged, I didn't remember. He looked me over, "by the looks of your muscles, and the leather armour you're wearing, you certainly do. Some of the wreckage from your ship washed up. Maybe we can find something."
I helped him look. All I could find were two daggers that fit comfortably in my hand. It would have to be enough. Once that was accomplished, I followed the soldier up to a small camp. These men were on the brink of exhaustion, bandaged and rebandaged until they were barely held together. The captain was pacing back and forth, muttering. I made my way over to him, feeling pity for these soldiers, and asked what I could do to help. The captain looked hopeless, but he motioned to a path. "The archers on the other side of that field are quickly running out of arrows. If you could retrieve some from the bodies, it could possibly turn this whole thing around." It was clear he didn't think it was possible; the battlefield was riddled with the undead.
I made my way onto the battlefield. I might not have remembered anything, but my body certainly did. I seemed to be an expert fighter, what would be classified as a rogue. Backstabbing and trickster games were my forte. Gathering the arrows that the archers needed was a breeze, and the grateful looks on their faces when I delivered them made it all worth it.
They sent me towards the wall around the city of Neverwinter, fighting my way through various hordes of zombies. At some point, I met Private Wilfred, who was absolutely beside himself, ready to fight. "We have to go across Sleeping Dragon Bridge, the city needs us!" He grabbed my shoulders. I took a step back, "alright, let's go while there's a lull." We raced up to the bridge, where the few soldiers that were left fighting were dropping like flies.
We fought our way through the undead. I made sure that Wilfred survived the encounter. We couldn't save the soldiers on the bridge, but we certainly avenged them. I looked up from another corpse to see Wilfred rushing at the one who had started it all, the woman commanding the dead. He was blown aside instantly, hitting the stone wall hard. I jerked my blades from a corpse and hurried in his direction, only to be stopped by a giant being of the undead.
Killing him was no trouble.
"Wilfred," I knelt beside him, listening to his last words. I held his hand during his dying breath and I realized, this was what I was meant to do. I was meant to kill, so others could live. How ironic.