He clawed at the callouse. A Couple hours ago they had been hardened blood barely covering the white of bony knuckles after hours of punching stony walls. He’d cried out when the sawbones had poured stinking stinging poultice on his hands. The skin had grown back bony and shell like and he couldn’t stand the numb feel of it. So he kept scratching over and over again.

Until another hand closed over his, halting the movement with a cool carapace hiding a boiling furnace.

“Dude, you’re in the Forever War now. If you want to survive you’re going to have to change.”

He wouldn’t understand those words for a while yet. Instead he could only burst into tears as his comforter guided him towards the flames, around which the soldiers danced away their cares and fears. A whirl of desperate sanity amidst the bloodshed.