The creation of a living

Three days after Karison Strefer's betrayal, Adrian found himself situated in a shack on the edge of a large plaza in the center of Brarish. The city was located in the East of Eldara, the smell of the sea flowing throughout the capital of the province. 

On the day Adrian awoke, his body hurt immensely. The bed he inherited was moldy, and the bars in front of the windows gleamed with a dim light as the afternoon sun shun on them. Bandages covered the bruises on his body, and every now and then a small plate with bread and water came through the entrance of the house. Every time he tried to breath in, his lungs felt like fire. While wavering over to the scrubby metal plate, his right leg gave in. He collapsed. Because of the state his body was in, he didn't have time to catch the fall with his left leg. 
His broken body didn't let him catch the fall. His left leg refused, and his elbow collapsed under him. Adrian's left elbow collapsed inwards and he fell with his head straight on the ground. There was a surprisingly little amount of pain. He had no strength left. Not even enough to pick up a simple glass and eat a sandwich, no matter how dry it was.
The noise Adrian made must have alerted the guard that had given him his food each day, as in a short notice the man returned to the shack. The guard called one of his colleagues, and together they  maneuvered themselves with Adrian in their arms through the house, and finally outside. The light that he had not seen for a long time shone sharply in his eyes, and the air of the outside world flowed in through his nose like apple pie. The warmth of the sun shone on the bare parts of his body. The clothes he was wearing were torn and worn. Not even a vagabond would volunteer to carry this. As the sun smiled calmly at him, the guards laid him on a wooden cart. Adrian heard the sounds of a hoof as the cart moved away at a slow speed. It felt as if the end was oh so near.

"Well, well, well, what a pitiful sight yet again." 
Adrian could not properly open his eyes, but he didn't need to in order to know who's voice was speaking.
"I was wondering how you were doing, but I guess one could say a freshly caught fish is more alive than you."
Using the tip of his shoe, Strefer turned Adrian around. He didn't even flinch. There was nothing left to resist with.
"Please kill me..." is all he could muster as his lungs protested.
"Kill you? I thought you wanted me to spare you? I can't have my precious little strategist die on me now."
Adrian wanted to live, but no one could call his situation living.
"I'm sure you'll be feeling better before you know it. I thought I was being very reasonable with the housing I had provided for you, or are you saying you'd rather sleep under a leaking bridge?" 
Strefer's comment reminded him of his mother telling him he could always leave the house, but that wherever he went wouldn't be as good as being at home. 
"I'm sorry..."
Karison's expression turned puzzling.
"Sorry for what? You do know you helped me put the first part of the plan into place right? In all honesty, you should be rewarded with the most luxurious room this place has to offer, and so you might wonder why I've dumped your bedridden body in a shack covered in mold. Well, it is because I do not trust you."
Karison's face went stern.
"When we returned from Altirra I had one of my men look into the soldier Adrian Tarper, yet, funnily enough, nothing came up. I had an inkling something was up when we devised the plan for the attack on Eldara. You appeared out of thin air, thought of a plan, and didn't betray any of the soldiers involved. I hid my suspicion knowing I'd want to confirm your identity first. Got anything to say about that?"
This was valuable information for Adrian. When he woke up in the tent on the battlefield he though he'd simply replaced somebody else's identity, but it seems he might only have taken over his body. 
"You wouldn't understand..." The words left Adrian's dry mouth, releasing musty air in the process.
Karison laughed loudly, and his guards, seemingly intimated by the General, laughed softly along. 
"I wouldn't understand you say? Well, luckily we will have plenty of time to go through all the details."
He came closer to Adrian's face, grabbing the top of his hair and pulling his face up.
"You do know who I am right? I am Karison Strefer. The General that will lead Eldara to become the most important entity known in this world. Lie to me, and I'll give you a death so slow, soldiers will pray for your fate never to find them."
Spit flew into Adrian's face, but he simply had no energy to do anything about it. 
"We will talk again once you are in a better state. Guards, take him!"
The guards reacted in unison, lifted Adrian up and returned him to the rotting shack the same way they took him away.

A pungent smell of disinfectant and blood clung to the air like invisible smoke. Adrian lay strapped to a metal slab, his arms stiff, his legs still resisting movement. Each breath rattled through cracked ribs. But his eyes - those still burned with a flicker of defiance. "You're healing slower than I expected," a cold voice commented. Strefer. Of course. The general stood at the edge of the sterile room, arms folded, his crimson cape trailing behind him like spilled wine. "You're not the first strategist to have their body broken. But you might be the first to have their mind still functioning. I must say, I admire that." 
Adrian didn't respond.  He couldn't waste breath. 
"You're going to help me, Adrian. You see, we've found a little pocket of resistance near the northern border - quaint little town, believes in neutrality." 
His voice dripped with amusement. 
"I want you to plan their destruction." 
Adrian tried to sit up, the restraints holding him down biting into skin.  "They're civilians-"
"They are merely variables as a part of a larger formula. You'll learn."
Strefer turned to leave, but paused at the door.
"Oh, and if you don't write up the plan by tonight, we'll have no choice but to test some Animatic weaponry on the village next door."
Silence.
A green glow guided itself through his body as Adrian stared at the ceiling, his breath shallow, his soul twisting. He had no choice. Not yet.

"You are saying you had an entire day and the strategy you came up with is to simply overrun them?"
Adrian stood in front of an audience of many important people within the Eldaran army as Strefer spoke.
"The town itself is too small to offer up any resistance to the Eldaran army. Due to its size, it should be expected that no other province will provide any aid to the town, nor to Inveren as a whole."
The audience mumbled to each other, yet it was Strefer who spoke.
"Strategy denied. I did not keep you alive to merely think of such a useless idea. 'Expecting' another province to not interfere is writing yourself a death sentence. Nor have you thought of the idea that Inveren might possess Animatics unknown to us. The province might be small, but you have seen what one of them can do to an army."
Strefer was correct. Adrian had made too many assumptions. He made it sound so easy, but in reality, starting a fight means you have to take in account the consequences. When he used to work the consequences weren't significant like life or death. Whenever one of his experiments failed, he simply changed some values and variables, and see what the result became. This was serious.
"I offer you my apologies General. I have realized my strategy lacks the tightness and accountability for consequences."
Strefer's face did not change.
"You may leave."
"Yes Sir."
And so another grueling day came to and end for Adrian. More to be learnt. More to be researched. Yet this was his expertise. This was what he always wanted to do. This was what made him happy from the moment he realized what studying was. Under Strefer's reign he wouldn't be able to protect everybody's lives, yet those that fought with him were expecting his plans to be correct, so the least he could do was make sure no one who could survive, dies.