The crunch of snow and dirt underneath my heel reverberated in my ears; thick fog smothered my eyes; an acrid taste formed in my mouth; and an intense aroma attacked my nostrils. The granite walls cracked, dilapidated and weary from age. My hand brushed against it, fingertips buzzing with sensations as I followed after a scarcely visible silhouette.
"You know where this is?" they asked me. Their voice was monotone, lethargic, as if they were asking on command and not by their own choice. I briefly answered yes. A quiet moment followed. "The Wellspring of Truth. When you come here, you learn who you truly are." I looked down to my feet, almost invisible as they sifted through the fog. "Do you know who you are?"
I was unprepared for the question. I hadn't thought about it. I choked. How could a question that seemed so simple have such a complex answer? Or maybe I didn't know. My hand fell from the wall to my side and I stopped moving. "You." I only whispered it, and my gaze returned to the silhouette. The vague humanoid shape seemed to be turned towards me, though I'm not sure how I knew. "You are my true self." The words came out harsh and unwieldy like the first swings of a large broadsword, but they were said.
The shadow grew as it approached me, my eyes darting left and right, unsure of what to do. I was unadjusted to this position. I was normally calm and collected; capable of analyzing positions and planning accordingly, but now it seemed my Genius had abandoned me. It stopped, only a meter from me, and reached its hand outwards. In response, I reached out mine.
"I know you've a dagger up your sleeve."
I immediately jumped back, but lost my footing in the snow and slipped. The snow blanketed my fall. It stuck to my cloth like putty. My movement was hampered for a moment, and I could see the shadow darting in a circular motion around me. How did it know?
"You can't outsmart me. I know every plan you're going to think of. Every tactic, every maneuver. I've said before that I am you. I'm just more honest."
The words shouldn't have stung like they had, but I knew they weren't lying. I wasn't going to be able to outsmart this opponent, and that was my greatest weakness. "Honest?" I asked out loud, getting up from the snow. "Then I assume you'll answer any questions I ask you faithfully, am I correct?"
By this point, the shadow had run to my left. Two meters, not very fast. Shoes mustn't be made for snow travel. Like mine. "Yes," it answered slowly, almost methodically. "Any questions pertaining to yourself, I will gladly answer. If you choose to continue to deny yourself, however, that is outside of my control."
"Alright then," I started. I spread my legs and positioned my arms in a bracing position. "If you know who I am, tell me. What is it you think I can't admit?"
Sudden, sharp pain. Shoulder. Blade gleaming. Knife wound.
I cried out in surprise and agony, my right hand reaching up to clutch the wound. My face scrunched up in pain. I cocked my head to see my own face looking back at me, but the expression was all wrong. Nonexistent, in fact. "You're a killer," was all I heard before I saw the blade again. I ducked in time to avoid it, then kicked my leg out. The shade jumped over my attack, then backed away.
I staggered forward, down to my knees. The searing pain was unbearable, and I could hear the sound of blood pumping in my ears. Whether the chill I felt was due to the already frigid night air or from blood loss I was yet able to tell. If the latter, I had to end this quickly.
"You should stop calculating ways to end this," the shadow called out. "There isn't any other way. You think because I'm you that you can predict me, but it isn't that simple. I'm the real you. The you that doesn't hold back. I'm a survivalist. I don't care about winning or losing, and I don't care about ideals. I only want to survive. If I have to kill you or anyone else, then so be it. I will live. In every battle you've been through, you order men and women to die. Do you think it was happenstance that you became a tactician? Even with you in the heat of battle, you're far too precious to die. Even the Prince know it. Let someone else end their life. Call it spending lives if you wish, but you're only spending their lives to save your own.
"You don't even care that you can't remember your life before they found you, do you? Which is sad, because I remember everything. I know why we are the way we are, but I can tell that you don't even want to know. You can't accept the truth staring you in the face! How can you hope to survive?"
My mind raced with thoughts, far too consumed with itself to realize the presence looming over me. It was no longer in front of me. I snapped out of my head and turned around. Nothing. Not in front of me, not behind. I raised my right arm in the air protectively and felt the weight of its foot crashing down on me. My frail frame couldn't withstand the immense physicality of an entire body, and I crashed into the snow.
What happened next was a blur as our bodies frantically fought for dominance. The only thing I could tell was that, as the adrenaline pumped throughout my body the pain subsided, but even more than that; the shade had yet to strike my shoulder again. As if it were avoiding my obvious handicap.
I flung my right arm forward into its jaw, and their body twisted and recoiled. "You still don't get it." They rotated their head back towards me, face still unchanged, save for a minor bruise. "Maybe I was wrong." Their fist slammed against my temple. I closed my eyes, head ringing in pain. Then I felt their hand on my neck. "Accept it."
There was a grunt, a surprised curling of lips, and a wet spot forming around my abdomen. The shade looked down, eyes staring wide. The knife in its stomach twisted, and I pushed it deeper. Water spilled from the wound instead of blood, and a low growl emanated from the shades gaping maw. "You finally got it. Good." The words shuddered in their weakness and the mouth that spoke them fell as the shade slumped on top of me.
I felt the body slowly melt, dissipating into me as a puddle formed around my body. My shoulder stung as the liquid seeped into my wound. My hands fell to my sides. The knife felt accusing in my hand; it felt more like grudging absolution against my thigh. I was alive.
"Are you okay?"
Where had this voice come from? It felt as if I had been snapped from a daydream, with my friend's face hovering above mine like a nurse by my bedside. I was still where I had fallen. How much time had passed? I tried to answer him, but could barely speak at all. I only nodded curtly.
Shallow breaths, bleeding wound, numb extremities. Dying? No, not if I had been found. But as close as I had ever come.
More faces crowded above me. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I could tell they were worried. I could only make a few out: Henry, Lucina, Virion, Chrom. Chrom must have been telling them to stand back, swinging his arms out. His sister was already knelt by me...
Two weeks into recovery I felt in full health. Though urged to avoid straining myself, I managed to venture out into the barracks. It was lively with the hustle and bustle of many warriors training and preparing for our next assault. With my bandaged shoulder, I stuck out like, as Donnel would say, a cactus in a snowstorm.
"Hey! Are you supposed to be out of the infirmary this early?" a voice called out to me. Lucina approached, Falchion in her hand. "You sure aren't in any form to train, by the looks of it."
"I'm fine," I replied meekly with a grin. "I'm certainly able to walk around by this point, it was only a shoulder wound."
"True," she nodded. "But we still aren't fully sure if the water from the Wellspring haven't had any sort of side effect on you."
"No, I'm completely fine."
A moment of silence, quickly broken by Lucina.
"Hey... at the Wellspring, we all saw a shade meant to represent our true selves. While I'm still not sure what to make of what happened, I'm curious. What did your says?"
I scowled, thinking back to the shade's words. I had spent my time in the infirmary thinking about what had transpired in the Wellspring of Truth. "It's hard to explain properly. It was my true self, I'm sure of it. But it lied to me."
I don't care about winning or losing, and I don't care about ideals. I only want to survive.
"It caught me off guard. It could have ended the battle and killed me once we were on the ground. I was already wounded. Yet they never took the opportunity to attack my wounded shoulder. It wasn't trying to win."