GTS Summoner Ch 12: Memory on the Hill!

The world was screaming. Not metaphorically—actual, soul-shattering screams, tearing through the air like jagged blades. The cries of women, of soldiers, of dying men echoed endlessly in the wind, mixing with the clang of steel on steel, the roar of fire, the sound of bones snapping under boot and blade.

The sky was a murky red, like an open wound above the world, casting a strange, raw light over the battlefield below.

Markus stood there—except he didn't remember standing there. One moment he was in a hospital bed, sore and sarcastic, and the next...

This.

A rolling hill stretched beneath his feet, covered in soft green grass that somehow remained untouched by the carnage just beyond its slope. And across that hill, standing like a statue cut from war itself, was a woman.

She stood tall, proud, her silver armor battered but gleaming in the bloodlight. Her golden hair whipped around her face in the wind, streaked with blood—none of it hers, from the look of it.

Her sword was massive—easily as tall as Markus—but she held it with one hand like it weighed nothing. Its blade dripped with something dark, thick, and still steaming.

She didn't look at him.

Instead, her piercing blue eyes scanned the battlefield below, watching the chaos unfold. Her expression was calm—not emotionless, but steady. Trained. Like she had seen this a thousand times before and expected nothing different.

Markus swallowed and took a cautious step forward. The grass didn't even bend beneath his feet.

He looked down at his hands. No hospital gown. No bruises. He didn't even feel pain. Was this... a dream? A memory?

His eyes went back to the woman. There was something familiar about her—the curve of her jaw, the cold steel in her gaze, the way she stood as if the world itself owed her answers.

"Who are you?" Markus asked, his voice quieter than he meant it to be.

She didn't flinch. Didn't turn.

But somehow, he knew she heard him.

The battlefield roared louder. A chorus of war. Swords clashed like thunder. Fires burned in the distance.

Still, she stood still. Watching. Waiting.

Markus took another step, now only a few feet behind her.

"Why does this feel familiar?" he murmured, more to himself than her.

The wind picked up, tugging at her cloak. Her breathing was steady, but her knuckles were tight around the hilt of her sword.

Suddenly, without warning, she spoke—her voice sharp and layered with a strange echo, like a hundred versions of her were speaking at once.

"I am the blade born from sorrow," she said, gaze locked on the valley below. "The echo of vengeance. I am the war they chose to forget."

Markus blinked. "...Okay. That's a really dramatic way of not answering my question."

She didn't laugh. Of course she didn't.

But for just a second, her eyes flicked toward him.

And in that moment, something passed between them.

Not recognition—no. Something deeper. A tether. A thread.

Then the sky cracked open with lightning.

And the hill, the woman, the battlefield—everything exploded in a rush of light and noise.

Markus screamed.

And woke up, gasping, his hospital bed soaked in sweat.

The world was quiet again.

But that hill... that woman...

They stayed burned behind his eyes.

The room was still, quiet except for the faint hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional beep from the machines nearby. Markus sat up in his hospital bed, blinking groggily at the pale blue light leaking in through the window.

It was early morning, the kind of time where even the sun seemed reluctant to fully show up.

He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs over the side of the bed, letting out a groan. "Ugh... today's the day I get out of here," he muttered, cracking his neck. "No more hospital food, no more nurses waking me up to poke at me. Thank God."

But his smile faltered as he remembered the dream.

That hill. That woman. Her voice echoing like thunder. The screams, the fire. The sword glistening with blood.

Markus shivered and ran a hand through his messy brown hair.

It wasn't just a dream. Not really. It had felt different—heavier, more vivid. Like he'd actually been there.

And the woman... whoever she was...

"Let's not think about that," he said to himself as he stood up, ignoring the lingering soreness in his ribs. "Just a weird dream. Definitely not a supernatural battlefield memory. Definitely not."

He shuffled toward the bathroom, squinting against the light. His head throbbed with a dull ache, like he hadn't slept at all.

He flicked on the light switch and stepped inside. The sterile, tiled space looked the same as always. Cold. Bland.

He moved to the mirror, turned the faucet on, and splashed cold water on his face.

That's when he looked up.

And froze.

His reflection stared back at him—but his eyes...

They were red. Not irritated-from-too-much-TV red. No, this was something else. A deep, glowing crimson, like there was something alive and pulsing behind his irises.

Markus staggered back from the mirror. "What the hell?"

His breath caught in his throat.

Then, like a bolt of lightning to the skull, the vision hit.

Screams.

Smoke.

Fire and steel.

Women shouting battle cries.

The glint of swords catching the sun.

The hill.

The golden-haired woman again, standing tall, blood dripping from her blade.

"Stop... please stop," Markus whispered, clutching his head with both hands as pain flared behind his eyes.

The sounds got louder.

Shrieks. Explosions. The grinding of metal.

"Stop it—stop it!" he shouted, falling to his knees. His head felt like it was splitting in two.

And then—

BOOM.

A pulse of raw energy erupted from him, invisible but devastating. The bathroom lights shattered overhead. The mirror cracked from end to end. The ground rumbled beneath him.

Markus was flung backward like a ragdoll, crashing into the opposite wall with a grunt. His ribs screamed in protest as he slumped to the floor, gasping.

"What the hell was that?!"

He coughed and looked up, blinking through the dust and smoke.

Two massive indentations were now burned into the wall in front of him.

Not just cracks. Handprints.

Each one nearly as tall as he was, perfectly outlined as if some impossibly large figure had pressed its hands right through the drywall.

Markus sat there for a second, silent, his heart thudding in his ears.

"That... that wasn't normal," he said, more to the empty room than himself. "That was definitely not normal."

He pushed himself up slowly, glancing back at the mirror. His eyes had returned to normal—still bloodshot from lack of sleep, but no longer glowing. No more visions.

But the damage was still there.

The room was wrecked.

And his world?

Yeah, it had just gotten a whole lot weirder.