My eyes were tired after almost two days of travel, shut inside a cart together with fifteen other boys like me. The front had called us as researchers against the Zwasì, a group of tribal people who, in the eyes of modernization, seemed medieval, yet on a cultural and intellectual level, and in their mastery of Sciarra, they were way more educated than us.

  The cart traveled through the metal tunnels with no sight of the outside light, at a speed almost nine times that of an arrow shot from a longbow, constantly shaking and carrying only barely enough supplies for the journey.

  Cold.

  Loneliness.

  Anxiety.

  I had been recruited for my above-average intellectual abilities, yet I could not understand how, even in crisis, a state could send inexperienced boys toward the front. Too many thoughts overwhelmed me, and my head burned from the overload of information I had swallowed. After all those hours of travel, I could no longer bear to be on my feet, so I lowered myself to the ground, wrapping my knees around my arms and holding them tightly.

  Near me, I could hear another boy, and although I had no strength to lift my gaze, my ears could clearly taste the pain soaked into his voice: "Why me? I want to go home. I do not want to go to war. I want to live." Clear and direct words, my friend. Almost none of us wanted to be here, and those few who were filled with a murderous excitement would soon realize that they were traveling toward a black hole of death.

  Slowly, I could feel the vibrations cease, signaling the approaching end of the journey. But instead of feeling relief at the conclusion of the grueling trip, my heart wept with pain and bitterness. Fully aware that this was only the beginning of my personal hell.

  An unnerving silence followed. Then, though still blind to the light, I felt my muscles pressing harder downward. An instant later, I felt my body rise upward, and with little time to react, I instinctively moved to cover my head. Inevitably, after being lifted, my body was pulled back toward the floor of the cart. I felt my chin strike the cold, dirty metal, my eyes sealed shut by fear.

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  Slowly, I began to feel warmth reaching my body. The darkness behind my eyelids turned faintly pink, and at that realization I opened my eyes. The solid roof of our cart had opened, and for the first time in two days, my eyes saw daylight.

  For a second, a fleeting sense of happiness reached my heart as I prepared to gaze at the sun, but this joy was short-lived. At that same instant, four figures surrounded the metal cart. Because of the sun’s rays, my view of them was not entirely clear, which made them even more unsettling than they already were.

  One of them extended a hand toward me, and, already resigned, I grasped it. The hand was thick and muscular, pulling me upward and pushing me out. "The first journey is hard for everyone," they said. Beyond the dry humor of the remark, I sensed an undercurrent of bitterness in the way they looked at the new young recruits, which only weighed on my stomach, making it difficult to stand up without my knees trembling.

  A tall man wore a short, single-breasted black coat that reached his waist, with a white shirt visible up to his neck. His shoulders were as broad as a mountain, and he was muscular like a gorilla. His face was flattened, with a bandage over his left eye, and his head partially shaved. From his full lips, one could sense he was a warrior who had spent the past fifteen years in constant conflict on the battlefield.

  Two more soldiers in similar outfit approached. A tall woman with blonde hair and a short man with brown hair. I felt their arms coil around mine, pulling me and gathering me together with other boys of the same age, piled up like beasts. My attempt to find reassurance in the soldiers’ eyes was futile, as they stared straight ahead, rigid and stoic.

  Once we were gathered together, the man with the bandage over his eye stepped in front of us. "I am Areo Quinta. I personally requested your presence in this difficult time for our nation. You will be assigned to the hut dedicated to the study and maintenance of the Sciarra, where you will work until the end of the conflict. If you refuse this proposal, you will be placed under arrest for twenty months and you will be barred from obtaining any academic qualification beyond the lower middle level. If you accept, after the conflict you will be rewarded with a noble title and access to any privilege the senator can grant."

  The moment the man finished speaking, a sensation slipped into my mind and crawled between the folds of my brain. A feeling of pure hatred, because it was this man’s fault that I was here.