Young Writers Society

“Ready to go Olaf?” I asked my brother. I gripped my neckpiece, a piece of metal forged into two lightning bolts crossed with a number two engraved onto it, and looked at it. The one thing my father gave me.

He smiled and shook his head, leaving his long black hair to sweep in front of his brown eyes. “Let’s go.”

Our Pa was resting with the few blankets that we had encompassing him. He was weak and frail in his state. Sometimes I thought about it, how he should just go to sleep forever, but it was a horrible way to think. I would quickly stray my thoughts away from that. Every human life is worth it, no matter how bad it seems like it is.

“Stay safe.” Pa simply said in his frail voice. It was the advice he always gave us whenever we went scavenging for essentials of life. The words have proven to be successful so far.

I looked around myself to see the streets empty. We lived in an alleyway, filled with two dirty beds, various utensils, and a dirty ground. I remember having a cleaner home back when I was still very youthful and innocent: it wasn’t that nice, but it was way nicer than the current home we had.

The streets were made of dirt, in which houses were very close and small. There were stands, from where children would watch puppet shows in the morning. Various toys were also around the ground. Other than that, it was very barren.

It has been three days since we’ve found food or water for all of us. I’ve tried with all the time I had, but I couldn’t find any. Sometimes Olaf and I would even split up to try to double our results, but it would prove to be still hard. I ran outside of our “home” to find essentials for us.

The streets were full of people’s “houses” and darkness blanketed the sky. No lights were visible anywhere. The moments where light was present were special. Usually the people of Sector C would look upon Sector A, the “rich” part of the city, for lights where they were almost always on. I was part of a section of the city called Sector C, basically where all the people who were worthless and poor lived here.

It was a shithole. Even in the few days where I could relax or have fun, it always felt like I was constantly in fear of something. Maybe it was just my cynical attitude. I gripped the pocket knife harder in my jean pockets. It was all about trying to watch your back and survival was an essential thought for every day.

It felt weird to think about a life like that, but it’s the only life I have known.

I ran up the great staircase, which was an access point to all the other sectors of the city. Sector B is what I was hunting out for. Sector C had too much security. I’ve already searched Sector B quite thoroughly, rummaging through people’s houses for food and water. Either it was already stolen, they haven’t got food for the day, or it was already eaten. This time, I had to go higher up the district, or else I wouldn’t find anything.

Upon the sides of people’s houses were posters. They depicted soldiers with similar guns all shining above the animal-like Ventor. With big bold letters, they said to sign up for the fight. To win back our land. It was pure insanity to go out above the underground, as Ventors were simply unbeatable. After two-hundred years of fighting them, and still we have barely got ten square miles back from them on the surface of Earth.

My brother snickered. “Damn waste of human life if you ask me.”

I sighed. Even in my negative attitude towards everything, he always seemed to be the more harsh one. “At least you would get food, water, and a proper home.”

According to the amount of people on the streets, number of candles up in houses, and my estimations, it was probably around one in the morning to four in the morning. There were barely any people on the street as we ducked down the set of stairs to our right and looked at one of the houses. It had its own private property that, while small, was still a step up from my home of residence.

I pointed out to the house that I was eyeing. “Wanna do that one?” I asked my brother as he turned his head towards the house I was looking at. He rubbed his greasy chin for a bit as he pondered the idea.

“Yeah. Looks pretty high class.” Olaf nodded at me. We got up from our position and ran over to the house.

The house was made of rusty sheet metal, a material commonly used in middle class buildings. It had a door made of metal that matched the material of the house. Trails led up to a row of houses laid down, while there were houses coming up to the trails level below. The trails had “steps” of houses, and we were at the highest one. We were right at the border from the middle class area, Sector B they called it, to the high class area, Sector A they called it. We would dare not go into Sector A, as they had higher security that we could probably not escape from.

There was a bronze lock straight on the middle of the door along with a doorknob. It was something I would only see usually in higher classes of income but it was odd to see it in a neighborhood like this. I quickly fumbled in my pocket, at last finding the pocket knife that I always carried with me. It was a memento of many generations within my family, passed down from one person to another within the bloodline. It was very rusted and old on the outside but still functioned perfectly on the inside.

I grabbed a bobby pin that was in my other pocket as Olaf was right behind me at my back, looking out for any possible threat. I put the pocket knife and bobby pin in contradictory to each other and after a few dozen seconds of fumbling with the mechanism, I finally heard a satisfying click. I slowly grabbed the door handle, twisting it with sweaty hands and opening the door very slowly.

There was no light present within the house, so I cautiously fumbled throughout the house relying on my sight with Olaf putting his hand on my back to guide him.

There was a simple table, one of dark brown wood that was also rare to see in this area. Chairs surrounded it with similar looks. There was a metal kitchen with cupboards, dishes stacked dirty in a hole, and a smooth piece of wood for cutting was laid down in one area. I saw two doors, one to my right and one straight in front of me. I dared not to go in them, as I knew from experience that those were bedrooms. I slowly creeped around to the metal kitchen and opened up the cupboards.

I saw food abundant within the cupboards. Various breads were neatly packed and half eaten within bags that protected them from staleness. Apples were also lying everywhere within the cupboards. Jugs filled with water were hidden alongside the bread. Normally middle class families wouldn’t have food or water this clean and healthy. It was usually slightly stale bread or old fruit people were forced to stuff down their throats to sustain life.

“What did you find?” Olaf very silently whispered to me, which was barely audible to even me.

“Food.” I simply said. I handed a jug of water to Olaf and he put the several apples that I handed to him in his pack.

My stomach jumped in excitement with a rumble heard within. I quickly grabbed the bag of bread in one hand and put it in my small pack. I nearly started drooling over the sight of all this food. I haven’t eaten or drank in three days. It was hard not to eat or drink it right there all for myself. I stacked the apples and water alongside the bread, holding one of the jugs in my other hand since it was too big. I was excited to get back to my Pa and-

“What are you doing!?” I heard a voice question me angrily. I slowly turned around to see two men in neat crisp black uniforms. They had badges saying inscriptions saying names I didn’t bother to remember made with sleek white metal. It was rare for patrolmen to come in Sector B. It was usually Sector C they would patrol at this hour because of the abundant amount of crime present within Sector C. Still, they were here and they were obviously a problem.

“Shit.” I said out loud and harshly. I started to hear noises coming from behind the doors. I should’ve been more careful and locked the door behind me. I was too hasty from trying to desperately find food fast.

“What do we do Will?” Olaf quickly yelled out, not caring about being stealthy or sneaky anymore. Even though he was a year older than me, I always felt like I was the one making the shots or leading us.

“You know stealing food is a very serious crime in the region of Poall.” The other guard reminded me. The men started to head towards me. They had sleek black sticks that were instantly recognizable to me as batons. They went around the table as I started to back up into the wall.

On instinct, I held the jug with two hands and threw it as hard as I could at the guard. It didn’t knock him to the floor but it stumbled him for a couple of seconds as he grunted in pain.

“Run!” I ran with as much energy as I had left and jumped onto the table with the stick from the other guard barely missing me. He shouted at me to come back. I heard doors and other voices in the background yelling at me. My brother was doing the same actions as I very briefly looked behind me. I stopped right beside the door, slamming it the moment he passed the door, giving us a couple of seconds. I didn’t even have a moment to run in a direction before the guards opened the door back up.

I looked behind me very briefly and saw the guards running full sprint towards me. We couldn’t out run them because of our lack of energy from insufficient amounts of food. They were also more fit and we were skinny. I was stuck at the edge of the trail, thinking of a plan in worry.

We have to get this food home.

There were metal roofs of depressing colors below me. From my guess, they were about fifteen to twenty feet below. I looked behind me as I backed up to the edge of the trail. The guards and the family I stole from were looking at me with angry looks. The guards were on each side of me. I couldn’t run to the sides. I was trapped.

“You are under arrest for theft!” The guard yelled at Olaf and I while the other put away his baton ready to trap us in his hands. They were no more than ten feet away and coming slowly towards us. I stood there on the edge of the trail, about to fall off with a false expression of panic. The guards were now calmly approaching us, as they thought we had no other option.

I quickly looked at my brother Olaf, who was worrying due to him not being good under pressure. Admittedly, I wasn’t that better under pressure. I nodded at him twice. It was a visual trick that we made up in case of situations like this. It basically meant, follow my actions, no matter what.

I grinned as I looked back behind me towards the edge of the trail and jumped. Olaf screamed as he jumped after me. I never did this before but I figured it wouldn’t be that bad. At least it was better than the alternative of getting arrested. The pack was hovering off of my back as I fell down to the roof of the home. The guards yells faded away as I sped through the air and dropped onto the roof, landing with a very loud thud.

A pain shot up in my left ankle as I landed on my legs. Olaf came down, rolling on the ground with a thud and uninjured. I crumpled to the ground as I screamed out loud. My breathing was hurried and loud. I started to feel light headed within my head. I looked at my ankle while finally calming down from the pain. It was slightly bent, implying that I must of twisted my ankle. I heard people opening doors below me to see what all the commotion was about. I saw people form on the trail about ten feet below me. They didn’t see me as I was lying down on the roof.

“He’s here!” I heard guards yell at me. Soon enough, I heard heavy footsteps on the main staircase.

I have to get this food back to Pa.

I handed my pack to Olaf. “Just go.”

“Bu-”

I smiled at him, even in my immense pain. “It’s fine.” Olaf quickly looked back towards the direction of our residence and got off of the roof; running towards it. The guards didn’t even see him dash away, but they surely saw me.

I slowly started to get up, putting up barely any weight on my left foot. I started to drag my left foot behind still in pain every time I moved it and moving primarily with my right foot. I approached the edge of the roof, putting my hand down on the edge. I slowly got down carefully, trying to land primarily on my right foot. My left foot landed down, causing me to grunt extremely in pain. I saw residents in average clothes looking directly at me. They just stared at me, doing nothing but standing outside of their homes. I started to slowly limp towards the staircase, back down to where my residence was.

My thoughts of freedom suddenly turned into dread when I saw a guard head down into the trail, blocking the stairway I was going to go down. I looked behind me to see the other guard quickly running towards me, blocking the other obvious escape I had. The guards finally surrounded me. They grabbed out their batons incase I was violent. I was worried and nervous. If I didn’t get this food to my Pa, he would surely starve.

I grabbed the pocket knife out of my baggy dirty pants. I flipped it up smoothly while trying to stay balanced from my lightheadedness and pain.

“G-get away!” I yelled out quite nervously. My cocky attitude was gone as it was replaced now with fear from being captured. “I don’t want to hurt you!” It was true. I never wanted to hurt those of my own kind. It felt wrong. But if they came towards me, I would have no choice. It was either them or my Pa. I would get this food no matter what.

They still approached me with calmness. I kept on turning around to see both of them in my sight. One of them leaped out towards me. I tried to stab him right in the chest, missing him because of him backstepping the attack. I looked behind me, snapping my head backwards with immense velocity. I saw the other guard in the middle of him trying to topple me. I sidestepped his tackle to the right of me.

I crumbled once again to the floor as I landed on my left foot with such pressure. I shouted out loud as I realized I was falling. I dropped my pocket knife in the air as it flew alongside me. I must of fallen off the trail onto the lower path. Maybe I could land an-

That was the last thing I remembered before I blacked out with immense pain present.

I woke up sheepishly with a faint pain present in my leg and head. I looked around the room with crusty old eyes to see pure whiteness hit me hard. I was in a red jumpsuit that stuck to my body. Various equipment with holograms of a body and blue lights were present within the room. I saw myself hovering off the ground over a bed that was giving off faint blue light. I tried to move out of the field, but I couldn’t move outside of it. I was trapped within this.

I heard a loud buzzing noise, making me nervous as I looked around the room in my entrapment. Not even a minute later, a bulky male with a grey uniform walked into the room. Alongside him there was a female doctor in a white uniform with both of them having badges on their breast area.

“Where am I?” I shouted confusingly to them.

They continued to walk up to me. The doctor had a sleek tablet and started pressing buttons on it. After she finished with that, she walked up to the various equipment that I didn’t understand, waving her hands and functioning the equipment.

The man in the grey uniform looked at me with suspicious brown eyes. I could see his nameplate clearly now. It boldly stated the name Kasan.

“You’re in a hospital.” He said calmly. “You fractured your ankle and your head from your ‘escape’ you had with the patrolmen.”

I started to freak out. Now it made sense why I was in this unusual bed. It used gravity to keep one afloat. It was used on the insane or criminals to keep them from escaping. I was going to go to prison. I’ve heard sentences of people being put in jail up to twenty years just for stealing food. People considered it a very serious crime, as most people didn’t have easy access to abundant food. Mostly people in Sector A gobbled up all the food like the rich bastards they are.

“I heard you tried to steal food and water from a family.” Kasan began. I grunted in response, confirmed his suspicions. I looked away from him, as if to act embarrassed for my actions. In reality I just wanted him to feel sorry for me, maybe guilt him into not putting me into prison or, if I was lucky, to give me food.

Kasan’s face started to hover right over mine. He was very close to me.

“So why did you do it?” He questioned me.

I responded with the same sorry expression I had when he began to talk to me. “Cause I was hungry and thirsty.”

He jokingly laughed at my response. “I know it wasn’t for you only. Nobody would be that risky to steal from a middle class family with fair security. Especially one from Sector C, who surely knows the risk of doing it.” I started to actual feel sad now. “So who was it for?”

An awkward silence filled the room as I pondered the question. Finally, I decided to tell him the truth, since it would be a matter of time before I told him. Might as well do it now.

“It was for my family.” I said with sadness present. “I have to get the supplies for the three of us, otherwise we die since we’re so poor. I’m forced to steal it.”

I arose with sudden disappointment. “So put me in jail if you want.”

Kasan once again laughed jokingly. I started to get pissed at him. “What?” I said with bitterness.

“I haven’t seen determination like yours in a while.” He said. “The patrolmen told me what happened. How after crippling yourself you still went on and after that even tried to fight against two experienced fighters while in a state of pain. And how you gave yourself up to save the accomplice that was with you.” He was smiling at me with a face of glee. It seemed odd to me why he would.

“So what does that mean?” I said with intrigue.

He pointed to himself. “I’m a general from the military of New Andrial here to recruit for a new program.” I thought I knew where this was going. “We need men like you. Will you join us?” He said, not beating around the bush at all as he put out his hand for a handshake. The question made me think. I pondered the question for a while. The only noise present in the room now was the various sound of equipment working and functioning. It seemed easy just to walk around guarding cities from humans. I could get food, become fit, and have a proper home.

If not that, then it was probably going to prison. Getting barely any food, sleeping on an old bed, and dealing with other prisoners.

Definately was better than that alternative.

After a couple of seconds, I finally smiled back at Kasan. “Yes. I’ll join the united military.” I said as I shook his hand firmly.

“Thank you, uh-” Kasan began to say.

“William. William Arno.” I responded.

Kasan stopped for a second and made his face a bit confused. It then got back to his gleeful face and he started to get up. He noticed something about me. When I said my name. Was there anything recognizable about the name last name Arno? Did he know anyone within my family.

“The train leaves next week to take you to the region of New Andrial. I’ll stop by later this week to give you new clothes and a ticket. You should be healed up by then.”

He turned around and starting walking towards the door, leaving me and the doctor alone. His sleek black boots sounded throughout the small room. He opened the door, revealing the sounds of various other people. Before he left, he looked back at me.

“Oh and William?” He called to me. I looked up at his face.

“Be prepared for anything.”

Chapter 2

“Thank you for joining the private military number thirteen tram. Have a nice day.” The ticket checker station told me in a mechanized voice. Kasan gaved me a ticket that was to lead me to a private train, one that would lead me straight to the military base I would be staying at. Once it said that, the door lit up with green lights and opened upwards. It surprised me how much more technology there was already compared to my life in Sector C. I never did anything like this in my life, it felt awkward and unusual.

I lifted up my bag full of new clothes that Kasan gave me and headed into the area that opened up. He insisted that I should take a shower while I was in the hospital, because I smelled horrid to him. I followed his orders before I left for the train and now felt refreshed and clean. The area was open with one bullet train that I’ve only seen ever from a distance ready to be boarded. I gripped my neckpiece, one of a archaic metal with the name Arno engraved onto it. My parents gave it to me before they disappeared.

There was nothing else in the room, only openness, a set of escalators on the opposite side, and a bullet train. Through the sleek small windows I saw a number of people talking and sitting down with one another. With nothing else to do, I approached the train, with its door opening again in a similar manner to the last one, and went in with awe.

I saw many kinds of people talking to one another. Nobody seemed to notice me enter the train except for a couple of people who were sitting alone. I started to count thirty, maybe forty people all jam packed into the train. Something unusual I noticed was that no one seemed to be older than eighteen. All of them seemed to be somewhere between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. Two rows of seats were along the sides of the train. I stood there awkwardly for a long period of time with nobody noticing me. I saw other people opening up compartments on the roof of the train and putting their belongings inside. I similarly followed after waiting patiently, putting my one light bag inside.

“Attention cadets.” A soothing female voice said to all of us. The talking dispersed and our attention was to the speaker at the top of the train.

“Welcome to our private military train. Please sit down, fasten in your harnesses, and patiently wait. We will take off in fifteen seconds will arrive to our destination in thirty minutes.”

I saw many people hurrying to sit down and buckle in their harnesses made of leather. I picked up my bag and tried to find somewhere to sit as fast as I could. Many seats were being taken as I quickly tried to find somewhere that wasn’t occupied. Everytime I saw a spot that wasn’t taken, someone would sweep it from under my feet, leaving me standing there awkwardly. I found another seat that wasn’t occupied and quickly tried to sit down before the train would take off. I literally pounced onto the seat right next to someone else and grabbed the harness from behind as fast as I could. I felt the train speeding up right as I fastened it in. I sighed as I finally settled down. The speed started to take its toll on me for a bit but after a while it felt natural to my body.

“So that was interesting…” A somewhat deep voice trailed off to the right of me. It was the man that I was sitting next to. I turned my head to see a young man with brown short hair, dark brown eyes, and a slight stubble for a beard right next to me. He had a very rough and bulky face. His large nose and ears protruded out. He looked old for his age, though what his age was I couldn’t figure out. He could be a twenty five year old for all I knew.

I chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it was.” After a brief period of silence, the man finally introduced himself to me with a handshake. I accepted politely.

“Kezno. Dimitri Kezno.” He said proudly while staring into my eyes.

“Arno. William Arno.” I said back.

“Now if you don’t mind, I want to go to sleep.” He said politely again.

“Uh...okay.” I responded. I didn’t question it, it gave me time to think about what my new life will be like in the thirty minutes I had. I looked out the small window, seeing nothing but the old grey walls of the tunnels. WIthin five minutes, Dimitri was already surprisingly snoring off while I was looking out side the window. The conversations that were going on faded away in my head as I thought about how I got here and what happened so far.

Time passed really fast as I suddenly realized the speaker was calling to us again, wanting our attention.

“We have now arrived at the New Andrial military base station. Please follow the guide once you step out of the train.” The same soothing voice from before advised us.

Not a minute later, we finally stopped and we heard a noise, signifying that we have arrived at our destination. I tapped Dimitri on the shoulder, trying to wake him up along with stopping his snoring. He woke up in the middle of his snore, and looked at me with relaxed eyes.

“C’mon, we’re here Dimitri.” I said to him.

I got out of my harness and stood up to stretch my legs. Everyone was filling out of the train one by one. Dimitri yawned while getting his harness off of him. I grabbed my small bag, Dimitri grabbed his two bulky bags, and we headed out of the train towards the guide we were promised. All of us circled around one man.

“Hello cadets.” The old man called out to us. “I am a general of this new program and I will lead you to your dorms. Simple as that. Any questions?”

Several hands were raised around me. The general pointed to one out of many people.

“What is this new program you talked about?”His facial expression didn’t change. “We will tell you about that when we start training tomorrow.”

Several murmurs were heard, questioning how suspicious the general was. All of the hands around me went down. The general smiled as he looked at us.

“Good then. Let me get you to your dorms.”

We walked up an escalator and headed outside. The general was quiet to us the whole time and we all filed in lines of two. Dimitri was still by me with a happy face on.

I looked at him. “What are you so smug about?”

He got even happier. “He said we’re in a new program! What do you think it is? Special new technology? Fancy ne-”

“You need to calm down.” I said to him before he bursted with excitement. With him looking so old, it was odd to see him get blissful about the littlest of things.

His face was still happy. “Sorry William. I just get excited easily.”

“I can tell.” I chuckled back to him.

We continued walking for a while in a somewhat illuminated hallway until we finally started to see light outside. The light was shining up the whole place. It was unusual for me, where light was usually something only the rich could afford. Usually it was a big achievement for me to get a candle that could make a ember. Its something I haven’t seen in a long time.

The light blinded me as I looked into the new area we were in. The light came seemingly from nowhere as everything was illuminated by it. It wasn’t as huge as a city, rather more like the size of a lesser one. It had various buildings of all shapes and sizes with colors of white dabbled onto them.

There was a walkway made of polished material that lead into the heart of the city. To the left I could see blocky buildings and to the opposite of those buildings there were those of giant size with five plus stories to them. The openness of the city surprised me, reaching up to lengths unimaginable.

Right in the middle of the city was a huge dome, about two hundred feet tall, one hundred feet in radius and was definitely the main attraction of the city. Behind it to the left, I could see huge new beams of metal criss crossing eachother. It seemed to be an elevator of some sort. Behind the huge dome to the right, another smaller dome in which lights flickered off of it. Every one of the buildings look sleek and brand new which were contradictory to my home region of history and oldness.

I stopped to stare at awe in what I was seeing. Some of my other peers had similar expressions while some kept on walking with the general. The general instructed us to keep on following him; snapping us out of our awestruck moment and getting us back with the group that we were traveling with.

We walked upon the smooth path with the general. He pointed out various buildings telling us what they did.

“The buildings on the left are for recreation.” He began. “They are where you will find facilities such as your dorms, the cafeteria, and workout areas.

He swung his hand to the right now, leading us still along the path. “These buildings are for research towards our new program which you will learn later about.” It still confused me as to why the general was keeping this secret. I guess it would be that much more cool though when we figured out what it was. A woman walked past us, seeming a bit sorrowful when she looked at us. When we got within range of her, she put on a fake smile that was obviously false.

What was going on?

The general stopped us at a walkway that led to a building with a white exterior and symmetrical windows. The various chit-chat among the “cadets” died down as we paid attention to the general.

“This building is your new living area. It is where we store our fresh cadets.” He strongly put out to us. “The person right next to you is your new roommate. Get used to him or her quick.”

Dimitri and I looked at each other. His face was lit up with joy, mine was too. At least I would be paired with someone who was very friendly. And was possibly my only friend.

The general brought up his wristwatch, tinkering with some stuff. He then escorted us inside the building. The door opened up once again vertically. It was something I had to get used to.

There was no lobby, only a hallway that led to several doors of a milky white color. I saw a staircase on the far side of the hallway lead up to other levels. Directly to the right of us, a sign lit up with blue light said washroom. Directly to the left of us, it said showers and split off into two separate ones for each gender. People started exploring the building in pairs while Dimitri and I stood there in silence.

Before I knew what was going on, I saw the general head out the door. The door went from a blissful green light hovering above it to a negative red color.

“What does that mean?” I asked confusingly to Dimitri.

“It means we’re...locked in.” His expression changed slightly.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Something was going on. Why were they acting so suspicious? It made me worried for the day ahead. Though I couldn’t do anything about it. I was trapped in this building until they told me what was indeed going on. The best I could do was try to forget about it until they tell us an explanation for all this unusual behavior.

I saw another pair of people, two females, come up to us with confused faces.

“What’s happening?” One of them asked.

Dimitri butted in. “The general locked us in.”

Now there were other people surrounding the door as they started to discover what has happened. Murmurs were being heard. They were similar to the ones I heard when the general didn’t answer our one question. Soon enough, yelling started to happen. We were all crowded around the beginning of the hallway with people shouting literally into my ears hurting. People were trying to open the door with their bare hands, yelling out why this was happening. I stood there in silence, just trying to think of some possible explanation. People started arguing with one another, trying to find an explanation for what the hell is happenin-

“HEY!” Dimitri screamed out to everyone. For such a friendly guy, he sure had a booming voice. Everyone started to die down their shouting as Dimitri’s filled the hall.

“We can’t get outside right now. The best thing to do is to go to our rooms and just sleep. Arguing about all this with rage will not help.” He proceeded to say calmly. I expected more arguing to escalate, as the statement he just said wasn’t really poetic or anything akin to that.

However, for some reason, it worked. Everyone just followed along with what he said and started to find dorm rooms to sleep in. As people were starting to file into rooms, i turned to Dimitri.

“How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t diplomatic or anything. They just followed what I said.” His face lit up with joy again. “Maybe I’m just a natural leader.” He said confidently.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. Anyway let’s find a room.”

We walked down the hall, opening doors with people already in them, until we found one that was open at the end of the hallway. It said 1T at the top in a polished sign. The door opened up to reveal a room.

The room was a square, painted white on all walls. There was one window with light shining through it. A holographic clock hung above the window. Its lights were barely visible from the light. but still readable to say 8:32 PM. Beds with plain blankets were neatly arranged on either side of the room. There were two trunks on the ends of the beds to put personal belongings in. A single desk was laid out by the window. There was a plain sleek white dresser made out of material unknown to me to hold out clothes. Other than those things, the room felt somewhat empty, as if someone hasn’t stepped into it in forever.

Dimitri headed over to the bed on the right. He put down his things on the floor and landed on the bed with a solid thump. He sighed with relief as he relaxed on the seemingly comfortable bed.

I calmly put my one small bad on the bed beside me. I laid down with similar relief on the bed like Dimitri. It felt nice to have this bed. The ceiling was warm and relaxing, even though with all its whiteness it looked infinite. The bed I had back at Sector C was old and barely was comfortable at all.

I heard Dimitri get up off his bed while I kept on staring at the ceiling. He started to unzip things, possibly the baggage he came with. “Why do you have such a small bag?” He said with his calm voice.

I got a bit worried at the question. “It cause I’m poor. I came from Sector C of Poall.” I said without confidence. A long awkward silence followed, in which he and I just stared at each other. Eventually, the silence was broken. “Are you judging me?”

“No, no. I was just curious.” He said forgivingly. “In fact, I’m from a rich family in the city of New Aalam.” He declared proudly.

I got up from the bed to look at him. I was curious about where New Aalam was. “So where’s this city located?”

“Two-hundred kilometers north from here about. About seventy-five miles west of Poall actually.” He unrolled a poster. On it was the symbol for the united military, with words of encouragement to sign up. On the middle, there was a huge face, symbolic of the average soldier telling me, “Everyone matters. Sign up today for the united military.” He grabbed a fancy gun of sorts. He shot it at the poster with it up against the wall, and suddenly it stuck to it. It actually kind of fascinated me how much I haven’t seen in this world. He looked back at me. “Was tired out from the train rides I had to go on to get finally here.”

“So why did you want to join the military?”

“A couple of reasons actually.” He started to point out. “First off, my family has had a long history with the military. Its a tradition of sorts in my bloodline.” He sat back down on his bed. “Another reason is that I’ve always had my parents gently edge me towards joining it. Its also because I want to become stronger.” That last statement struck me off guard. I looked at him with worrisome eyes.

“What do you me-”

“So why did YOU join the military?” He cut me off. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it by the looks of it. Even with his friendly face, there was a hint of sadness within it.

I laughed at the idea. “Didn’t really have much of a choice.” I said with a smile. “It was either this or prison.”

Dimitri looked at me with a worried expression. “Did you murder somebody?”

“No, far from it.” I responded. “I stole some food.” Dimitri looked at me with confused eyes.

“Why would they put you in jail for stealing food?”

“Cause compared to your city of peace and happiness, mine is full of the unsavory and the untrustworthy. I had to do it to survive.” I responded with a slightly snarky tone.

He put his head down. “Oh.” He simply said.

After an awkward silence, he finally perked back up to his eternal state of happiness. “Anyway, I’ll get the rest of my stuff out later.”

“So what should we do?” I asked out loud.

“Is there really any choice to what we can do?” He responded with a shrug. “We’re trapped here, so might as well go to sleep and figure out what this new program is in the morning.” His voice shot up with excitement. “I can’t wait to figure out what it is though.” He always seemed happy. It was quite unusual, especially coming from a place where happiness was trying to not starve or to get a good bed for once in a while.

Even though it was around nine o'clock at night, I still felt very tired. I stood there, thinking about the new friend I made. He seemed like a good guy, even if he came from a spoiled family. He was very friendly and kind. Dimitri laid down on the bed, and within minutes he was already sleeping, even with the light still on. I headed over to the wall, trying to find a light switch until I found one. I pressed the button and got into my new bed. I didn’t bother putting the blankets over me.

It felt nice to have an actual new bed. The comfiness of the mattress along with the perfect temperature of the room enveloped me. The light from my eyes escaped as it turned into darkness, leading me into an eternal sleep.

A blinding light came over me. I tried to cover my eyes from it with my arms, but they were stuck. I quickly looked around to see myself in a single room with cuffs around my limbs. There was a huge machine to the left of me, pointing towards my head. I started to freak out about what was happening. I saw doctors in the backgrounds, talking about stuff I could not hear. I laid my head back down again and closed my eyes, so that they could not detect me awake. My natural instinct made me feel uncomfortable. All I knew is that this wasn’t something to be happy about right now.

I heard a door slide open. Footsteps were being heard.

“Is the transmitter ready?” I heard a familiar voice say. I looked up slightly, not too much to draw attention to myself, to see the same general who escorted us in. I laid back down softly.

“Yes it is general Blacksan.” I heard a voice respond to him.

“Good, then let’s get to work.”

I heard people shuffling around with various metals and equipment until it stopped. I waited in anticipation. I almost jumped as something cold and liquidy touched my skin. I calmed down, so as to not draw attention.

“Inserting the sleeping agent now.” I heard a voice now much closer to me say.

A sharp pain formed in my neck as I tried not to react. Within mere moments, I started to feel drowsy. The hard material I was on felt soothing now and relaxing. I kept on telling to myself not to fall asleep, somehow overpowering the sleeping agent for a little while.

I heard a vicious whirring noise to my left. It pounded into my ears with such force. Just hearing it made it feel like the thing was deadly.

“And now the transmitter.”

I heard the machine come louder to my ear, hovering above me. I started to feel drowsy in my state. Sleep was beckoning to me like a siren. I didn’t want to go, but I soon started to succumb to it. I couldn’t keep awake. Voices started to trail off and become diluted as I finally started to sleep.

“Lining it up with the cerebellum.”“Hurry up doctors. I got several other cadets to do this to.” The general said.

“Okay then. Inserting in 3..2..1..”

As if on cue, that was the last thing I could remember before going back to sleep.

Chapter 3

I woke up to the sound of a voice yelling in the hallway silently but still noticeable. I grunted as I shuffled in my bed. I noticed a slight pain in my head.

“Wake up and be ready in thirty minutes cadets!” I heard the voice of General Blacksan echo throughout the hallway. I got up on the bed, sitting there and rubbing my eyes as I saw Dimitri also up on his bed barely awake. The event that happened last time just came back to my mind, and it worried me. What they did to me, I wasn’t specifically sure.

“Hey Dimitri, your head hurt too?” I said while yawning.

“Yeah, it does actually.” Dimitri said surprisingly.

We both thought about it for a moment in silence.

“Probably a rough night.” I finally chuckled at him. “First night in a new bed can be hard.” I knew that wasn’t the case. It had to be something with those transmitters the doctors kept on talking about.

Dimitri and I headed out into the showers. We quickly got showered in about ten minutes with the perfect temperature heating us and essentials supplied to wash ourselves. I noticed my body started to build a bit of fat, since I have been eating pretty regularly for the last week or so since the hospital. I changed into my clothes with plain jeans and a t-shirt while Dimitri put on his clothes of various colors. We headed out into the hallway to talk with a few other people who were already up and about until our time was up.

By the time the general came back to us, most of us was talking to one each other in the hallway cramped together. There was a few less people then I remembered, but they were probably still getting ready.

“Good to see you all here on time.” Blacksan said to us all. No responses were heard as we all stared at him, awaiting our next task.

“Well if you would follow me then please.” He said calmly.

We headed outside of the previously locked dormitory, finding several people in uniforms walking around the paths with various objects in hand. We headed there in complete silence, no talking or conversations taking place in between us. Our thoughts were probably confused in what we were doing. It was still very vague.

With noticeable silence in the air, we followed Blacksan. Before I knew it, we were suddenly stopping right in front of the huge dome area in the middle of the city. Its height was impressive from where I was, literally going up seemingly as far as I could see. The dome’s sleek white appearance was strange. I barely noticed when we stopped right outside the large glass doors of the dome. The general stopped and turned around to face us all with a straight face and serious eyes.

“What you are about to experience is top secret.” He called out to all of us. “The things you will hear and see are for you and you only. You are not to tell anyone outside of this facility about the events we are doing. Do I make myself clear?” We all mumbled yes to him in questionable voices. “Do I make myself clear!” He yelled out at us.

“Yes!” A conjoined voice responded with confidence. Blacksan smiled at us as he led us into the building. At last, we finally entered the building. Blacksan moved out of our way to let us take in our surroundings.

The whole room was busy with machines and voices heard everywhere. People with white uniforms were walking around, papers and pens in hand. Another set of people with skin-tight grey uniforms and a blue symbol of vector wings on the breast were walking around the facility, looking at the various equipment. The whole room seemed to glow with a subtle ice blue color. The dome went up for hundreds of feet, making the whole room seem boundless. There was various doors leading to rooms on the end of the room with glass windows. People inside them were writing down on paper.

The rest of the room held equipment in glass containers. The people with white uniforms were pressing buttons and testing out the equipment. There was various stuff, ranging from weapons like a minigun contraption, to a blade glowing with light, and even a body of something emitting a material unknown to me. The people in grey uniforms simply stood by the white uniforms, talking to them and analyzing the equipment in the room. There was a huge staircase to the left of me leading downwards.

Several murmurs were heard as people were starting to question what exactly this stuff was. It was too much with very little explanation as to what it was.

Blacksan came back to our group. “What you see here is part of a project we like to call Project Orion.” He said proudly and boldly. He started to head down the huge staircase to the left, leaving all of the other interesting features we wanted to learn more about. With no choice, we followed him.

The staircase became darker and darker as we went down. After a minute of walking, the room ahead finally was illuminated. Finally, the general talked to us.

“This,” He said with emphasis. “is what Project Orion is.” Blacksan let us walk around and inspect “Project Orion.”

The room was faintly lighten up by lights. People with masks and protective armor on were around something, tinkering with it. At last I finally saw what it was. Giant mechanical humanoid statues were standing proudly up, seemingly looking straight at us. They were big, possibly going up to twenty feet in height. Even though they were very large, their body shape was lean and slender in build. They had slots of weapons sticking out of them currently. They were visible on lots of areas of the body, from the arms to the shoulders, and even places like the breast. Smack down right in the middle of the chest was a large orb, possibly a power source of some kind faintly glowing. Little slits jutted out of the forearms, legs, back, and front. In the back was four sections of the body divided and jutting out, revealing an area of entrance. On the upper area of the back were two folded sides, like extended shoulder blades. There was a distinctive coat of white metal around them, with scratches and battle scars visible on them. Their head was covered with sharp angles for facial features. For eyes, they had a wide V shape visor that was black. Two large pointed “ears” were folded back with a black band around the ears.

I could hear several voices around me express their amazement and awe at what these mechanical beasts were. Dimitri was right by my side, staring with the same expression I had with me.

“What are these?” I said with half confusement and half intrigue.

Blacksan looked directly at me. “We call these the Guardians.” He said loudly. “These have been around for nearly three years. It is our new special combat strategy to eliminate the Ventors who reside on our Earth. It is a far more beneficial type of weapon, due to the Guardians being faster, better, stronger, and in every way better than previous types of weapons, like tanks.”

The intrigue I once had was now replaced with anger. Several voices shouted out their opinions. Most of them were surprisingly excited. My mind went blank as I repeated what I just heard to myself.

Eliminate the Ventors.

Why me? Why me of all people? I just wanted to border the streets of cities, peacefully living my life out with solitude. Now, that dream came crashing down as I thought about my new dystopian future. Why would they hire me?

The voice of Kasan echoed in my head. I’m a general from the military of New Andrial here to recruit for a new program.

New program.

The bastard set me up. I should’ve known from his ambiguity and choice of words from the beginning that something was up.

“What!?”

“Can we really kill them?”

“What do you mean eliminate the Venators?”

“Let’s go right now!”

General Blacksan simply just stood there with his expressionless face, taking all of the compliments straight on, as if he was prepared for this type of mostly positive feedback.

“In the future, this is where you will depart for missions out onto Earth.” Blacksan continued. “Right now, our technicians are working on putting together the final parts of your mechs.” He said as the technicians kept on working with their tools. “For now, we will go to the simulation area.”

Once again, Blacksan started to walk towards the stairs. More arguments were being said as we still followed him, like cattle. I was getting fed up with all this silence and no answers.

“Hey, General!” I yelled out to him. He simply ignored me and continued his walking.

I was getting really annoyed. I ran up to him with full speed.

“William…” I heard Dimitri behind me say to be calmly. I felt Dimitri try to hold me back, but I slapped him back. I finally approached him with his back turned to me.

“Blacksan!” I said right behind him. He stopped to look at me. With all of my strength I punched him straight in the face. However, he quickly reacted and blocked it with noticeable surprise. My fist struggled to get through his defense.

“How do you know my name?” He said to my face through gritted teeth. The shouts from behind me died down. They were probably focused on the encounter that was happening right now between Blacksan and I.

“It doesn’t matter. Why are WE a part of this?” I barked back at him. “We are just teenagers! Why not have actual soldiers do this?”

He let go of his defenses. I mutually put down my anger and lowered my fist.

“It’s because of the transmitters we placed in your brain.” He said, still a bit angry at me for trying to punch him. “They cannot enter an adult brain, as the brain will reject it and won’t develop alongside it. Your brains are the only ones we can do it to.”

“What transmitters?” I said confusingly. I knew about what happened last night, but I wanted to know what they were actually for.

“The ones you will use to fight with in the Guardians of course.” He said smugly. “They are used to sync your body movements with the Guardians themselves.”

I stood there, thinking about what he did.

“You kidnapped us to fight a battle we don’t want to.” I said to him angrily.

“Most of the cadets here signed up for fighting on the surface of Earth, so what difference does it make?” I looked around to see people looking at me with weird faces. They were probably questioning why I was yelling about this. The general smiled as he walked up the stairs and beckoned our group to follow him. Most of them signed up to fight on Earth, but I didn’t. So why would Kasan hire me?

I haven’t seen determination like your’s in a while.

Was that the reason? What would determination do with no strength? I had barely any muscle, and I’ve never fought with guns or serious weapons before.

“Now, if you will follow me, we will show you to the simulation battle arena.” We walked back up the stairs at him. Arriving in the main huge open room, I realized the equipment around us was parts of the Guardians. We walked out of the huge dome and started to walk to the left of us towards the other similar dome.

As we were walking, with my attitude still filled with anger, Dimitri tapped me on the shoulder.

“Why did you get so mad earlier?” Dimitri questioned me.

I sighed. “I didn’t ask for this. I wanted a life of bordering cities as a guard safely. Not risking my life to fight an enemy that is unbeatable.”

“Why don’t you want to fight for your country?”

I looked at him with a stern face. “What has this country done for me? Make me live a shitty life in poverty. Why should I repay them?”

Dimitri looked sad as he looked away from me. “Oh.”

He looked unnatural with that expression. Even in the few moments I knew him, I knew it wasn’t his type of attitude.

“Look I’m sorry.” I said. “Let’s forget I said that. I’m just a bit...ticked.” We walked in silence for the rest of the journey.

Within minutes, we approached the smaller, but similar, dome and headed inside with Blacksan leading us.

The dome’s main room looked so much smaller than the other dome. It had a square white room, no larger than ten feet across and had two glass doors on each side. We entered the actual dome to see a large expansive room, filled with large grey spheres all over the place. There were dozens spaced out between each other in rows of symmetry. On the back of each of them were holographic monitors, most of them currently not projecting anything.

“This is where you will spend your days training. These spheres hold simulations mostly accurate to what piloting an actual Guardian is like.” He said to all of us. “Be prepared to train tomorrow morning, at eight-thirty.” We all responded with a yes to him.

“Good.” Blacksan smiled. He handed out everyone a map of some kind. When I unfolded it, I saw it was a map of the base we were on. I saw many rooms, like “Advanced Cadet Dorms”, “Cafeteria”, “Hospital”, “Gymnasium”, and “Recreational Room”, all of which were unknown to me.

“The cafeteria is open from six in the morning to eleven at night. You can eat and drink there for free.” Admittedly, I smiled widely at that. Thinking about having unlimited access to food and water was like a dream for me, compared to stealing very little like before.” A small pause soon followed while everyone was talking happily about what they were providing us. I was a bit happy too as it distracted from my anger, but I still had a hint of anger at the whole “kidnapping me” part. I sighed, as I figured I couldn’t leave. They said this was a top secret project, so they wouldn’t let me contact anyone or talk about to anyone outside of here. Hell, I bet I can’t even go outside to other cities. I’m probably locked in here.

Might as well make the best of it.

“We have placed books of research about the Ventors in your rooms. I expect you to read them as much as you can before and after your first simulation battle. The books will teach you as much as we know about the Ventors.” Blacksan reported.

“Now go.” Blacksan said. “Be here by eight-thirty tomorrow morning. The rest of the day is free for you.” He said with a smile. Everyone started to leave the simulation room.

“Hey son.” I heard Blacksan say as I started to leave with Dimitri. “I’m sorry about you being forcefully admitted into this program. Your recruiter saw something within you though. Something you can use and I trust him or her for that.”

I chuckled at him. “That sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”

Blacksan smiled back at me.

“Dimitri, what do you want to do?” I said to him as we walked out of the room.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty hungry.” He responded.

“Yeah, good ide-”

I heard a scream sound in the distance. I looked around for anything that could of caused it. I saw in the distance two men holding a female. They were running towards us. I jogged towards them and saw the female in a skin-tight grey uniform with a helmet on. She was screaming out in pain as I saw that there was blood running down what was left of a left arm. It was mangled and looked like a huge bite wound.

“What happened?” I said trying to act calm to the other people. I was actually really scared about what could of happened to her.

One of the males yelled out to me while still rushing her to what I now saw to be the hospital. “A Ventor bit her arm off! What else does it look like?” He said angrily. He was obviously busy with some things. I stopped following him.

Dimitri and I just stared in awe. Is this what fighting on Earth was like? Or was this just a rare occurrence?

Chapter 4

“Thank you.” I said to Julia, the chef cooking food. She was old with wrinkles visible and was gentle with kindness.

“You’re welcome!” She said with a huge smile.

I drooled over the sight of fresh sausage and eggs on my plate. Many other people were in the cafeteria, sitting with others at the tables. Dimitri and I sat down alone at a table in the middle of the chaos.

“Let me guess, you're excited to pilot the Guardians.” I said to him with a mouthful of sausage.

“You already know me too well.” He said with a grin. I noticed that he was eating very neat, probably a side effect of growing up in a wealthy family.

“Do you have a family?” I said out of the blue.

“Yes I do.” He responded. He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a sleek device on his wrist. He touched a couple of buttons on it and revealed to me a picture of a nice family smiling with trees in the background and lots of light. It seemed so lively. I saw a lady and man in a tuxedo and dress behind two children. The boy child I assumed was Dimitri holding hands with a girl which was probably his sister. I noticed her sister had a metal leg, which was unusual.

“Why does your sister have a metal leg?”

He sighed. “She lost it in an accident.” He left it at that. He didn’t explain at all why or how it happened. I let it go, assuming it not to be important.

“Hey!” I heard a high pitched female voice say. Her face was soft and soothe. Her long straight red hair was put into a long ponytail going over her shoulder and down her chest. There was a simple white bow keeping it together. She had dark blue eyes, that seemed to complement her soft face very well. Her facial features were average, nothing out of the ordinary. She seemed cheerful while smiling at us. Alongside her was another female, slightly shorter than her with short blonde hair and dark hazel eyes. Her features were similar to the girl aside her, albeit a bit rougher. She was quiet and had a slight grin with her, but not as big as the girl beside her. They were both holding trays of food.

“Can we sit with you guys? We don’t know anyone here.” The girl with black hair asked us.

Dimitri spoke up. “Why sit with us of all people?”

“Because you guys seemed alone and needed some friends maybe.” The girl with black hair replied.

I butted in. “That’s a bit insulting, but sure. You can sit with us.” The girls sat with us on the opposite side, putting down their food. “I’m William by the way, and this is Dmitri.” I said while motioning my hand at Dimitri.

“I’m Amara, and this is Lucia.” The girl, now identified as Amara, said back to us with a smile.

“So where are you ladies from?” Dimitri said politely.

“We’re both from the city of Lowin. Its a few hundred kilometers hundred of here.” Lucia said silently. She pulled up her wrist and started to function the buttons on her device. I saw text get pulled up and her reading it.

“So you guys are, like, friends then?” I responded.

“More like sisters actually.” Amara said.

“But you guys don’t look alike.” I replied puzzlingly.

“Adopted sisters.” Amara replied.

“Ah yes.” I said.

I kept on looking into her deep blue eyes. For some reason, I was attracted to them. I quickly looked away to avoid looking weird in front of her.

“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Amara questioned me.

“Uh…” I said while buying time for an answer. I eventually just told her the truth. “I thought it would be weird if I was staring into your pretty...eyes.”

Amara laughed at me. “I get compliments like that a lot.” I started to laugh awkwardly alongside her. Lucia and Dimitri just looked at us with weird expressions. “You can be honest with me. It’s fine.” She replied softly while looking at me.

I died down my laughter as I blushed. “Yeah okay.” I said to her.

“If it makes you feel better, I also like your blue eyes.” Amara playfully said. I blushed even harder. I started to laugh awkwardly again while rubbing my neck.

We sat there in silence for a couple of more minutes, all of us eating our food while the conversations filled the room with noise.

“Well I think it’s time for us to leave. Got to do that studying right?” Amara said, ending our silence. Lucia looked up from her reading and started to get out of her seat.

“Can I study with you?” I called out to Amara while almost jumping out of my seat.

Amara giggled at me. “Studying isn't really a group thing, silly Will.” People didn’t call me Will, but it felt nice when she said it.

“Yeah your right! I’m stupid!” I said, trying to make a joke out of myself.

“Though…” She said, thinking about something. “If you want, you can come talk to me whenever you want. My room’s the fourth on the left.”

“Okay!” I said excitingly. I was thinking about the way I was acting. It was stupid how excited I was about everything related to Amara.

“See you tomorrow at the simulation room.” She said while waving goodbye to me. They left the cafeteria, leaving Dimitri and I alone.

“You done drooling over Amara?” Dimitri said nonchalantly. I looked at him with a saddened look.

“Was it that obvious?”

Dimitri sighed. “I’m not blind, William.”

“Yeah, I figured. Sorry.”

Dimitri got up from his seat. “Anyway, we should go back too.” I got up from my seat.

“Okay.” I replied. “Can we stop at Amara’s?” I said, getting excited over the thought.

Dimitri looked at me sternly. “We better study, William. This isn’t a generic romance fantasy like in books.”

And so, we studied for the whole day. Dimitri and I occasionally exchanged conversations, but other than that, our room was silent for the whole day. I learned a whole lot about the Ventors today. The information really intrigued me because, other than the stories from soldiers coming back from the surface, I didn’t really know much about them.

The Ventors came from an unknown source. All we know is that their points of origin are areas on the surface known as Mexico, Egypt, and Russia. They came two-hundred and twenty six years ago, when humanity still lived on the surface. When they came, nearly all of the population was wiped out within a decade. Standard weapons from that time period could not combat the Ventors, and thus we could not fight them. We declined as a population, dropping down nearly to extinction. However, a last ditch effort to tunnel into the earth and make civilization anew worked, leaving the rest of the 1% still alive to escort themselves into the earth. We survived, making another civilization in the ground. We built new resources, bringing as much as we could from the above world. At first it was hard adjusting to the new life, but eventually we became acquainted to the new life. The reason behind why or how they came here still entangled humanity in a mystery.

Even though I’ve never seen a Ventor up close, I know from stories of the people around me what they were like. I remember people told me they were like nothing they’ve ever seen before; with stained sharp fangs, curling eerie claws, and abnormal agility, all with distorted skin in a shade of obsidian purple, which let them blend into the night perfectly. They stood on all fours, but still were huge and large with heights sometimes going up to twenty-five feet. They could stick to walls and ceilings by using their slender limbs. Their eyes were large and pure black, something that still makes me wonder what pure black eyes actually look like. Their heads curled forward, with the large back of their head jutting out abnormally. The book reminded me of this, with sketches from what soldiers describe as the “Ventor”. It matched the descriptions people have given me near identical. They roamed in large packs, always attacking the enemy aggressively no matter what it was. Their strategy was non-existent. All they would do was rush the enemy, using their weapons viscously until the enemy stopped moving.

It amazed me how much I read. When I finished reading the one-hundred page book or so, I realized that it displayed eight-oh-nine on the clock. With nothing else to do, I got up off of my bed.

“What are you doing?” Dimitri asked confusingly while looking up from his almost finished book.

“Y’know...taking a walk.” I answered while putting my hands in my pockets. Dimitri looked at me with a disappointed face.

“William, no.”

“What?” I said nonchalantly. Dimitri got up from his bed and looked at me in the eyes while closing his book.

“You’re not going.” He replied, getting surprisingly annoyed. He already figured out what I was going to do.

“Why not…” I whined.

“Because you need to focus on learning.”

“But I already read it all!” I whined again. Dimitri held me with his hand while backing up towards the door.

“I’m sorry, but you need to know when it’s time to be serious. RIght now, it’s time to focus on the Ventors.”

He did have a good point. Ever since I met Amara, I’ve been focusing on her regularly while reading. It was weird.

“I guess…” I trailed off.

“All I’m saying is that this isn’t a school for your needs. It’s a school for defending our nation.” He proclaimed patriotically. It kind of pissed me off how much Dimitri had the ideal of his country deserved him. Apparently I was included in this as well.

“Okay, you keep on giving an egotistical handjob to the country that you respect so much then.” I said with a smirk while pointing at him.

I expected a spark to ignite inside of him, but he surprisingly just let it go. He went back to reading his book. It was weird to see him annoyed.

And so, I laid there in my bed, half-thinking about Amara and half-thinking about the days ahead with Ventors. Soon enough, I finally went to sleep, leaving Dimitri to his readings with the light still on.

I woke up with the lights now off. Light barely shone through the window, possibly signs of the early morning. The clock said faintly seven-thirty-two. I got up, shuffling through the room to getting dressed. I saw Dimitri in his bed, snoring and still sleeping like a bear. I made sure to be quiet, in alarm of waking him up. I got dressed in a new pair of clothes, and went outside the room into the hallway with the lights off in the hallway.

I walked down the hallway and to the exit door. As I was walking, I looked at Amara and Lucia’s room while slowing down. I bit my lip hard. Dimitri was right, I should focus on what was actually important. Reluctantly, I walked past the door, not looking at it and thinking of the reason why I got tasked for this. To fight Ventors. I may not be able to leave this area, but I might as well do the job that they are giving me. There’s a reason I was put into here. I walked outside of the door, heading towards the simulation room to train. I went to the cafeteria really quick, grabbing a fresh apple off of the fruit basket which I bit into with a refreshing appetite. I waited there for a hour, until it was time to go to the simulation room. After a hour, I saw people outside heading towards the room. I got up and headed towards there.

I saw the simulation room filled with people. Dimitri, Amara, and Lucia were all around the front, so I shoved my way past crowds to join them. We stood together in silence, waiting for command on what to do. Blacksan was in front of us, waiting for all of us to enter. He had a crowd of people with grey uniforms on behind him. After about five minutes of waiting, Blacksan finally spoke.

“The people around me are experienced cadets, who will personally help you all in the simulation.” Blacksan proclaimed.

He didn’t beat around the bush at all. “So who wants to start us all off?”

Before anyone else could talk, Dimitri stepped up to the general and proclaimed, “I will, general.”

Blacksan motioned his hands onto the side of the sphere, which opened on his command. Dimitri calmly stepped into the simulation sphere, and the doors closed upon him. After a minute or two of silence, the monitor on the sphere lighted up with visuals. It showed a holographic overlay with various numbers and symbols that I didn’t understand. The monitor showed a blank white room. I saw Blacksan quietly talking in the background into a headset he had now, while all of us crowded around the monitor in anticipation. After a while, Blacksan came back to us.

“Dimitri, stay there” He said. A older cadet took the headset from him and started talking onto it.

“Cadets, go to a pod please and wait for another cadet to guide you.” Blacksan demanded for all of us.

I went to the nearest pod, and waited there until a young man with long blonde hair came to my pod. He had a headset on and held a tablet in his hands of which I didn’t understand its purpose.

“Hey. How are you?” The man said nonchalantly.

“Good, good…”

“My name’s Kyle, second year cadet, and I’ll be guiding you throughout your career in this program.” Kyle said to me.

“Okay thanks Kyle.” I replied. “Name’s William.”

“Good to know.”

He motioned me into the sphere, whose doors were opened. I sat down in the chair at the middle of the inside. The door closed around me, leaving me with a blank sleek black wall. I was enveloped in darkness.

“You hear me, William?” I heard Kyle say inside the sphere. It sounded like he was all around me.

“Yep.” I calmly replied. “So what are we doing?”

“Well, we’re running basic attack scenarios against Ventors. So, basically fighting them.”

“That sounds simple enough.”

He laughed as I said that. “You might find it a bit...frustrating at first.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” I replied with a grin. I heard him adjusting his headset and soon talked to me again.

“Ready?”

I tightened my fists. “As much as I’ll ever be.”

As soon as I said that, the back of my neck had a sharp pain form. I flinched as I tried to look at it, but eventually my eyes blacked out. I couldn’t see anything or move my body. I started to freak out.

“Initiating simulation combat arena number twenty-seven.” I heard Kyle say from around me. After a brief moment, I could finally see out of my eyes again and move my body. I saw myself in a blank white room. I felt myself standing up now. I saw around me the inside of a machine. I was inside a Guardian.

“Try to move around, William.” I heard Kyle instruct me to do.

“Well, how do I do that?” I said in confusion

“Just...move. It’s hard to explain.”

I did what I did naturally, and to my surprise the mech started moving. My body inside did not but the Guardian did.

“How did I do that?” I asked Kyle.

“This is a simulation of what piloting the Guardian is like. As such, in a real Guardian, your movements are linked to your transmitter, which makes piloting a Guardian feel as natural as anything you regularly do, like walking.” Kyle replied in a lengthy answer.

“Ahhh.” I said while running around, still amazed at how it worked. “So why did they drill the transmitters into us during the night without telling it to us?”

I heard Kyle stumble. “How do you know that?”

“I was awake right when it was about to happen.”

It was a little while until Kyle responded to me, while I was still getting a handle of the Guardian. “I honestly don’t know.” Kyle said in a slow voice.

“Oh…thanks.” I said in a false voice. I quickly dismissed the idea, as it would eventually be revealed to me. It didn’t matter right now.

“Now I’ll explain the additions you have.” Kyle started, moving the subject away from what it was.. “You have various weapons, that will feel natural to you along everything else.” He laid down a list of weapons that I had.

I nodded and said yes at every weapon that Kyle listed. “Energy beam cannon on left forearm. Standard machine gun attachments on right forearm. Mini-rockets on each shoulder. Energy blade in right wrist. Got all that?”

“Yeah.” I replied.

“Bringing up holographic overlay.” Kyle said as an overlay came up on my vision. In the middle was a square within a circle, and the circle hovered around as I moved while the square stayed stationary. There was an outline of my Guardian, and all sections of it were colored green in the lower left corner. On the right side was all the weapons that Kyle listed pictured in outlines with numbers on them.

“Good. Now use those weapons.”

Before me I saw multiple Ventors appear. The pictures and descriptions of them were almost spot on. The center reticle of my vision was now locked onto the target with the circle jiggling over the place and trying to stabilize itself. They were static in their movements. I flinched back and started to get a little scared. Obviously it was showing as Kyle stepped in.

“William, its fine. It’s a simulation remember?”

I calmed down from the very brief and minor panic attack I just had. “Yeah...yeah sorry.”

“Now fire upon them with the energy beam cannon in your left forearm.”

It was hard to explain exactly how I brought upon the weapons. It felt...natural, like Kyle said it would be. It just felt like another arm or leg that I had. When I thought about firing with the energy beam cannon, it just...happened. I brought it up smoothly and readied it. A huge sleek barrel with a hollow center came up on my left. I charged it up, lighting up the hollowed center with blue light. Eventually, it shot out onto the Ventors with a huge kick that sent me flinching backwards. The Ventors were still intact, but parts of their body were missing as orange blood starting pouring out from missing limbs. It felt...good.

“The energy beam is a great weapon for multiple targets, when you have the time.” Kyle proclaimed. “However, it takes a long time to recharge and is hard to aim with when moving around, so it’s usually a support weapon in long ranges or a finisher.”

“Okay.” I simply said.

“Now pull out your machine guns.” He said as the virtual disfigured Ventors disappeared while new fresh Ventors appeared in front of me. Two sleek machine guns appeared on my forearm side by side. I ran them up, aimed at the new Ventors, and shot with immense speed. Bullets were spraying all over the Ventors as slowly but effectively had their skin filled with dents and blood slowly dripped out.

“Great, now finish them off with the mini rockets.” Once again, I brought up the weapon smoothly. Two bulky shoulder pads came up, with ammo alongside them. I shot them into the Ventor’s heads, and they exploded in a storm of orange.

One more Ventor was created for the final weapon. “The energy blade is perfect for close range, as it can almost instantly kill one if aimed at the head or hearty. However, it is very risky to do even with just two Ventors.” I nodded as I flicked my wrist and a blade came up from my hand. It was about seven feet in length, which seemed short compared to my Guardian’s size. I slashed it across the Ventor’s face, which left a big deep wound across the eye. I finished it off by slicing his head off sleekly.

“I thought you said this would be frustrating.” I questioned Kyle. I heard him chuckle in the background. “Now it might get frustrating.”

“Alongside your weapons, you have access to a type of thruster system built into your Guardian.” Kyle instructed. “You have many small jets built into various areas of your Guardian. It acts as an evasion tool for both defense and offense. When you thrust, the Guardian levitates itself by built in thruster in the feet, which allows for moving side to side, front, and back. Again it acts naturally. Try it out.” He said in a brief but long explanation of the system.

As soon as he said that, I felt for what could be my thruster system. It didn’t feel like an extra limb, but rather another way of moving akin to walking or running.

“So…” I started off as I tried to finally move with this new system. “Like this?” I said as I tried moving backwards with it.

I jolted backwards, losing my balance and control as I fell onto the ground with a large thump. I didn’t feel any pain from the huge impact. I struggled to get up as I heard Kyle laughing in the background.

“I guess this is how it’s frustrating.” I murmured to myself.

Kyle stopped his uncontrollable laughter. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just funny to see it happen to someone else and not me.” He finally got the last bits of giggles out of his system and started talking in a serious voice again. “You’ll have to get adjusted to using your thrusters. It requires lots of balance to use properly.” He said.

I prepared myself for the next thrust. After a few seconds of concentration, I flew back with the thrusters, only to result once again in landing on my back.

“Maybe we should try somethi-”

“No!” I yelled in response. I got up quickly and prepared myself once more, this time thrusting to the left. I once again landed with a thump on my side heavily. I was determined to get this right. All of a sudden, I couldn’t move my body. I tried to move it, but my effort was wasted. I could still see and talk however.

“What’s happening?” I said, half-shouting.

“I disabled your movement system for now.” Kyle declared. “Just listen to me for a second.”

“Okay.” I simply said.

“Trying over and over again won’t help you in this. We need to train your balance.” Kyle suggested to me. A silence followed as I heard him fumbling with something.

“What are you doi-”

I was jerked back into the black sphere that I entered into. I felt something come out of my neck and I yelped in pain. Surprisingly, when I felt it, there was no blood.

Light hit me hard as the wall opened up. I found Kyle’s soft face on the outside as he motioned me out of the sphere. I stood up, stretching.

“Why did you take me out?” I questioned him, a bit annoyed that I couldn’t train further.

He didn’t talk to me, instead taking my hand and leading me forcefully outside of the simulation area. I tried to go back, but he was surprisingly far stronger compared to my frail body. After a little bit, he finally responded to my question.

“I’m taking you to the gym that we have. We need to work on your balance, as you seem to be lacking it.”

“But what about fighting in the Guardians?” I asked.

Kyle looked back at me. “We’ll think about that later.”

I wanted to fight in the Guardians. For some reason, the prospect of seeing the outside world excited me. Not only that, but learning more about the Ventors seemed to intrigue me far beyond what I initially thought. I seemed to have a reason to learn how to use a Guardian now. I was fairly curious about what the outside world was like, instead of seeing the same bland and depressing days I experienced in Sector C. It made me joyous for the days ahead.

We arrived at the gym, which had various people working out in the area. There were weights of all kinds and machines of all kinds that people were using or were vacant.

Kyle handed me two heavy dumbbells, one for each hand.

“Now stand on one leg, with the other in front of you slightly off the ground. Breathe slowly and steady.” Kyle instructed me to do, while helping me perform the instructions. He held onto me as I assumed the pose awkwardly.

“Now...balance!” He commanded me to do. He let go of me. Within mere moments I fell down slowly, catching myself while the dumbbells dropped to the ground.

“I can’t do it.” I said.

Kyle grabbed a hold of the dumbbells. “It’ll take time William. Trust me. It’s how my instructor trained me. Some people have bad natural balance.” He gave me the dumbbells back. “But trust me, you can learn.”

I nodded at him.

“I’ll see you at five.”

I looked at the clock. “But it’s twelve right now.”

“I know.” Kyle said with a grin. He left the building, leaving me alone with nothing to do but what he instructed me to do. I sat there, thinking about how this would help at all. It seemed stupid just to do this for hours. It wasn’t anything serious or demanding, but it was just basically standing with one leg in the air.

I sighed. I had to trust people more. Maybe its because where I grew up, where I could barely trust anyone, but Kyle seemed like a cool guy. So if he tells me this will help, then I trust him and will do it. I started doing the procedure again, falling many times but I started to notice improvement in how long I could stay up, albeit small ones. Everytime I fell down, it made me that much more determined to succeed in what Kyle wanted me to do. My muscles were surprisingly strained and sweaty in the five hours that I did the tedious task.

Chapter 5

Time passed fast as, before I knew it, I saw Kyle come back. He had apples in his hands and cups of liquid. I looked at the clock and it said five-oh-six.

“So how’s it going?” He yelled down the room while walking towards me. He sat down with the things that he had and started biting into one of the apples.

“I think I really improved.” I said filled with a bit of joy.

“Then show me and we can get out of here.”

I started my pose and in my head I initiated it. I counted in my head how many seconds I was maintaining it. It felt like forever how long I balanced my body with the dumbbells in my hands and one leg sticking out. I finally started to shake a bit with the first signs of imbalance. Not shortly after, I stumbled out of my pose, catching myself from a fall.

“Thirty-six seconds!” I yelled out to him. “That good enough?” He smiled as he tossed me an apple, which I gladly accepted and bit into. He handed me a cup of water as well and I drank it all in one gulp.

“Pretty good.” He said, mildly surprised. “I expected this to take a few more days but it seems like you can get some control of the thrusters now.” He got up from his rear and motioned me towards the exit. “We’ll start early morning tomorrow. Around six.”

I started to get weirded out. “Why are your training methods so...unusual?” I questioned him as I threw out the apple and cup in a nearby garbage can.

“It’s just how my instructor taught me. I found it to be pretty good.” He said as we exited the gym. We walked towards the dorms that were opposite to each other.

“I didn’t think I would improve, but I did. Thanks.” I directed to Kyle after some silence surrounded us.

“See I knew you could do it!” He called out excitingly and was somewhat embarrassing for me to hear.

“See you at six in the simulation room, remember?” Kyle said as we finally said our goodbyes for the night.

“Yep, see ya.”

I stood there as I saw Kyle heading off towards the advanced cadet dorms, and I saw him greeted at the door by another person which was probably one of his friends. I went into my own dorm building and knocked on Amara’s dorm door. I heard footsteps in the room as I awkwardly stood there in the hallway waiting.

Lucia opened the door, looking at me with sleepy eyes.

“Hey Lucia.” I said while standing outside her room.

“Hey William…” Lucia said while trailing off. She obviously looked sleepy.

“Why are you so tired?” I asked her.

“From training. My instructor really pushed me.” She responded.

“Oh okay.” I said, playing with my hands. “So where’s Amara?”

Lucia looked at me deeply, with a concerned face. “Why do you want to know where she is?”

“I just want to talk to her, that’s all.” I confessed.

“How was training Lucia? Oh glad you asked William!” She started out in a masculine voice.

I sighed. “Sorry. How was your training?” I say in a slow and interested voice.

She smiled as I questioned her. “It was great! Started out a bit rough but I eventually got a hold of it and my instructor told me that I had a very promising future.” She said joyfully with obvious pride.

“That’s great Lucia!” I said with a bit of false excitement. I was glad she did well on her training, but it wasn’t something to get really happy about in my opinion.

“So again,” I asked Lucia, “Where’s your sister, Amara?”

“She’s down at the cafeteria with Dimitri.” She replied.

“Okay thanks Lucia.” I said as I started to walk the other way. I called out to her again before she closed the door.

“Why aren’t you with them?” I asked.

“Cause I’d rather sleep right now.”

“Okay then.” I replied jokingly..

“Whatever, go have googly eyes for my sister.” She said with a smirk. I sighed depressingly, trying not to get annoyed. So it really was that obvious. I exited the building and headed towards the cafeteria.

I started to think about why this “love at first sight” phenomenon was coming true. I couldn’t point my finger at what exactly made me have a crush on Amara. Maybe it's because I am usually so down and cynical yet she seems to be always happy and free spirited? It’s why I like Dimitri a lot, because he’s contradictory to my behavior, and it might be why I like Amara as much as I do. Whatever the case was, I quickly swept the thought aside and headed to the cafeteria to join the two.

I saw the two of them around the back corner of the cafeteria talking to eachother. There wasn’t anyone else. I quickly hurried along to them. They stopped their conversation as they looked at me.

“Hey.” I said as I sat down right by Dimitri.

“Hello, William.” Dimitri said in a very formal voice. It kind of annoyed me how formal he seemed a lot of the time, but I let it slide. He was eating the breast of a chicken which was laid on his plate.

“How’s it going?” Amara said. She was eating a pear while sitting cross legged on the chair itself. She bit into it with such a forceful attack, ripping off nearly a third of the flesh. I stared at her pale lips, looking at them in awe for some reason.

I shook my head. I needed to stop thinking like this. It was getting way too weird for me to think constantly about her.

“You know...good…” I said, trying to think of something to say. “So how was your first day of training for you guys?”

Dimitri interrupted Amara right when she was about to say something. She put a pouty face on when it happened. “Mine went fine. Not too bad but not too good either.” He said, leaving it at that with no explanation.

“My mentor told me that I was superb at my reflexes.” Amara said with a smug on her face. “He also said that I could maintain weapons really well while thrusting around, which is something most people can’t do on day one.” She had a very confident and smug attitude right now, obviously proud of what she did today.

I expected them to have done bad for some reason, but it looks like I was the worst out of everyone. I didn’t even pilot a Guardian with the thrusters. I just stood in a gym for five hours. I sighed at the thought.

“What about you Will? Are you going to be the shining knight in white armor we need on the battlefield?” She called out to me as she motioned herself speeding off. She had a very “bombastic” attitude for sure.

“Uh...I just went average like Dimitri.” I responded. I didn’t want to tell them what I actually did. That would be embarrassing.

Amara chuckled. “Guess I’ll have to be your shining knight in white armor then.”

I relished at the thought.

Dimitri laughed at her saying. “I better go.”

I started to get worried. “What, why?”

“I want to hang up some more of my possessions in our room. That’s why.” He said as he moved off towards the exit with a smile, not even giving me a chance to request for him to stay. I looked at Amara, who was staring at me with curious blue eyes.

I surprisingly stayed calm. “So how are you doing?” I asked.

“Good...good.” Amara said silently. She started to bite into her pear again while still looking at me.

“Why do you want to fight the Ventors?” I asked. Amara swallowed the piece of pear that she ripped off.

“Cause I want to fight for my country, why else?” She said with a smile. Something seemed off about that statement though. There was definitely a hint of falseness and doubt in her voice when she said that.

“Whatever.” I said while dismissing the thought. Amara probably wouldn’t tell me her true intentions. I tried to think of another subject to talk about. I wasn’t a really good conversationalist, especially with only one person to talk to instead of a group. Dimitri would be perfect at this. I need him right now.

“Listen.” I started out. “I better get going. That okay?”

“Awww.” She said. “But I like talking to you…”

I blushed heavily while biting my lip. I wanted to stay with her, but I knew I didn’t have anything to talk about. It would be really awkward just to sit there not saying anything.

“W-well I just have to help Dimitri with something.” I said while pointing towards the exit.

“Okay…” Amara said with a sad face. I bit my lip even harder, trying not to succumb to my feelings of wanting to stay with her. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t say anything else to her. I just walked away from her and exited the building. I usually had problems bringing up conversations with people, but it wasn’t as bad as with her.

I entered my room, where Dimitri was, indeed, hanging up more posters. He greeted me, but I didn’t respond as I collapsed on my bed. I had a long day, and I was ready to go to sleep.

l heard a light tap on my door as I got up fast with no signs of just waking up. I looked around and saw Dimitri still sleeping silently like the happy bear it seemed he was. Still in my old clothes, I opened the door to see Kyle.

“Ready to go?” Kyle called out to me silently.

“Ten minutes.” I responded.

I quickly got into the shower, washing my body and drying it off fastly. I got dressed into new clothes and saw Kyle waiting outside now.

“Let’s go.” I said with a grin. I was honestly quite excited for today, since I would actually pilot the Guardian properly now. We entered the simulation room at the early time of six in the morning, where mostly everyone was still asleep. Nobody was in the simulation room: it was pure silence and emptiness within the room. Kyle put on his headset and motioned me into the same sphere that I was in before.

“Let’s see what you got.” Kyle called out to me with a smile.

I got into the sphere smoothly, anticipating the pain in my neck as the door closed. “Gladly.” I silently muttered. A pain shot up in my neck. I flinched in silence as the same blackness overcame me. Suddenly I was back in the same white room with the familiar Guardian I piloted once.

Not even waiting for Kyle to signal me to do anything, I thrusted back. Even though it was a bit shaky when I landed, I still landed and didn’t fall on my back. It was definitely an improvement.from before.

A few moments later, I finally heard Kyle. “Good job William!” He said excitingly. “I knew it would work.”

“Hell yeah it did.” I replied. I was weirdly happy about how I improved. It felt really good now. I thrusted around more in different directions and every time I did it, my thrusting slightly became less shaky. Kyle let me do what I was doing for about five minutes. In mere minutes, I was now stable in the thrusting. It felt natural now and very tuned.

“Ready to fight some Ventors now?”

“Yes!” I said confidently.

Immediately right before me three Ventors spawned out of nothing. They rushed at me with immense speed and, before I even had time to react, they slashed me with their claws. My vision blacked out.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You...died.” Kyle responded.

So that’s how fast they were. I was just amazed at how deadly they actually were. Maybe I thought I would go off of beginner’s luck, but this scenario was definitely something that I would have to train at.

“Restart it.”

Kyle was surprised at my stark command. “But don’t you want to analyse this fir-”

“No.” I interrupted him. “I’ll just have to keep going at it.”

After a few seconds, my vision wasn’t black anymore and I looked at the same Ventors who killed me. They came at me with the same inhuman speed as before. This time I tried to thrust out of the way, but once again my vision blacked out.

“Again.”

I thrust backwards, gaining some distance. However, they pounce onto me. Blackness comes once again.

“Again.”

I thrust backwards, this time bringing up my machine gun at the same time. They charged straight at me, so it was easy to aim while thrusting. However, that didn’t help as the bullets did barely anything to help me. They ripped me apart again.

“Again.”

I was getting fed up with all this repetition with seemingly no progress. “Wanna give me some tips, teacher?”

“Hmm…” I heard him think about the question. “Give me a minute.” I heard him in the background fumbling with equipment. After patiently waiting for exactly a minute, suddenly something glimmered to the side of me. I saw another Guardian appear to the right of me.

“Hi.” I heard Kyle said casually say as the Guardian waved its hand. For such a dire scenario we would soon go into with real Ventors, Kyle seemed to be relaxed about everything. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

“So what are you gonna teach me?”

“How to move around like a true Guardian.” Kyle replied. “Back off.” I backed away as far as I could while still seeing him in detail, around twenty-five feet. Soon enough, the same Ventors that ripped me apart spawned.

The Ventors charged towards Kyle at full speed. Right as they were about to attack, he thrusted to the left. They didn’t stop their relentless attacks and followed him. It was amazing to watch how much speed the Ventors and him had. Everytime the Ventors would put out one of their deadly swift attacks, Kyle would just dodge and juke them easily. He pulled out his energy cannon and started to charge up. He kept on dodging their attacks until his energy cannon was fully charged. He pulled out his sword and on their next attack, skinned them all with the blade. The Ventors got startled and started to back away in a group but before they could flee, he finally fired his cannon, literally incinerating them all. He put away his weapons with the flick of his wrists in style.

“Thats how you do it.” Kyle yelled out nonchalantly to me. “Those thrusters are meant for dodging, not running away. You have to strike eventually.” He advised me.

I nodded. I had to be defensive and wait until I saw an opportunity to attack. It made sense to me.

Kyle’s form disappeared and a few seconds later he talked to me through his headset.

“Ready?” Kyle questioned me.

“Let’s do this.” I responded with now awoken confidence. The same Ventors from before appeared.

Dodge. The Ventors missed as I dodged to the left. I kept on thrusting to different sides in a neverending battle, waiting for my chance to attack. Sweat started to form on my brow as the toll of this battle was making me nervous and tired. I brought up my machine gun and blade to attack them. I barely hit the Ventors: my aim not used to the momentum I was going at. However, some bullets hit them and two of them got briefly suspended. With lightning fast reaction that I didn't even know I had, I charged straight into the final Ventor and impaling him on my blade with virtual blood spilling out onto the blade. The Ventor shimmered as he disappeared in which I saw the Ventors heading straight towards me.

Still using the momentum from the previous attack, I quickly ducked on the ground. Their claws and teeth were millimeters away from my face. Metal scrapped and made a horrible sound against the floor but it worked. I quickly slashed upwards while smoothly bringing up my energy cannon and charging it simultaneously. The Ventors were paralyzed. I slowed down and smoothly got up from my slide, turning around and blasting them to pieces with seamlessly no effort at all. I was breathing heavily from the actions I just did. I sat down on the artificial white ground in exhaustion.

“Holy shit.” Kyle said with awe. “Well someone’s a natural.”

“Thanks.” I replied, still exhausted from what I just did. I looked at my fist. I just did that. Granted it wasn’t the real thing, but god damn that was something that exhilarated me. It thrilled me and filled me with excitement. I wanted to fight Ventors now. It was a decision I made so fast, but I wanted to fight them. That feeling was unlike anything I have ever experienced.

“Ready for another wave?” Kyle asked me.

“Just...give me a...minute.” I said, obviously out of breath from the fight. It was very tiring to pilot the Guardian and I didn’t know why. It felt as if the energy has been sucked from me.

After five minutes of resting, I got up. I brought up my weapons once again, signaling my readiness for fighting. I stood there in a stance, ready for combat.

“Ready...g-” Kyle’s voice stopped right as I was about to pounce on my next prey. I stopped myself as nothing appeared in front of me. I heard someone else talking in the background.

“Kyle?” I asked him in a confused state. More talking was heard in the background. I couldn’t make out what the people were saying.

At last, I heard Kyle talk to me again. “I’m here.”“Are you okay?”

Kyle responded a bit ambiguously. “Yes…”

“What happened?”

“Just had to talk to someone.” Kyle replied. “Okay. Ready?”

I got into my position once again. “Yes.”

Without even giving me warning, four Ventors spawned. All of them were split up and in different areas. They slowly approached me. I looked around me, spinning in circle thinking of a plan.

The Ventor on my left tried to pounce on me. I quickly charged into the Ventor in front of me using my thrusters. It pounced on my arm as I slashed it with my blade. My arm was now torn up and disfigured from the claws that barely missed my vital area. I quickly turned around at the nearest Ventor who was to my right. From the corner of my vision, a Ventor tried to sneak up on me, which I dodged to the left. I shot at the Ventor with all the bullets I had in my machine gun. While slow, the Ventor eventually started to succumb to death as I kept on dodging. Two down. I turned around once again and-

My vision blacked out. My heavy breathing was the only sound. I died again.

The light came into my sphere as I saw Kyle smiling at me. He helped me up with his hand out of the sphere. I looked around and saw Blacksan looking at me with a pleased expression.

“That was some fine piloting cadet!” Blacksan eagerly to me, which felt unusual. I never really was praised for anything that I have done.

“Thanks...sir.” I said unsure of what to call him.

“You can just call me Blacksan if you want.” Blacksan replied.

“Okay Blacksan.”

Blacksan walked up to me and patted me on the soldier. I was uncomfortable with it but I let it happen. “I expected you to only be able to fight one or two, not four. I’m proud of you.”

Blacksan walked over to Kyle. “Good job.” He walked out of the building.

When he finally left, I talked to Kyle. “Why was he here?”

“To check on the simulation room. He’s going to get the cadets right now I assume.” Kyle replied.

“Okay.”

Kyle motioned towards his headset that he put off of his head and picked up his tablet again. He grinned at me.

“Ready to get back at it?”

I grinned alongside him with the same expression. “Let’s do it.”

Chapter 6

For the past week, Kyle has been pushing me and raising my maximum power. It was surprisingly a strain to do the simulations repeatedly every day for around eight hours overall. Everyday I would fight more and more Ventors at a time, eventually leading up to six at a time. Kyle said this would help me in high stress situations. I was still shaky on five Ventors, but I could solidly do four or three at a time. Every time it would take me a couple of hours to get used to the scenario, but I would eventually master it.

Everytime that I would go to the lunch table where Dimitri, Lucia, and Amara resided, I would respond with the same, “I did average.” response when they diligently asked me about how my training was going. I’m not even sure they knew how much I was overachieving compared to the other cadets, according to Blacksan. Days have flown past as they all felt like one huge routine schedule to me. Wake up, fight, food, fight, sleep. It was ingrained into my brain and felt automatized now.

I heard a familiar knock at my door. I immediately got up in anticipation of Kyle taking me to the simulation room again. I let the door open to see Blacksan outside instead of Kyle. It struck me back.

“Get up, cadet.” Blacksan requested. “We’re going to pilot real Guardians today. Be outside in the hallway in fifteen minutes.” The door closed as he went to other doors and talked to the other cadets, telling them of the same news I got.

The thought of that excited me. I quickly got Dimitri up who was still sleeping. He got up with crusty eyes.

“Dimitri!” I yelled out to him with unusual amounts of excitement.

“What…” Dimitri replied.

“We’re gonna pilot real Guardians today! Let’s go!”

We quickly did our morning rituals of showering, hygiene, clothes, et cetera. All of the other cadets were outside as we followed Blacksan. Instead of going to the simulation area off to the right, we headed into the main dome that we only went in once at the beginning of our recruitment.

The same machines and people were in the dome’s interior, just like I remembered it. Blacksan made us followed him to the back of the room. There were two rooms with doors currently closed. Right by them were signs. The signs read men and women.

“Get changed.” Blacksan demanded of us. All of us stumbled into the rooms of our gender. Inside were simple lockers with no locks on them. There were benches going across the room around the center.

All of us, around twenty, looked at each other with the same puzzling faces. Eventually someone opened a locker. He pulled out the contents of what was there and showed it to us.

It was a white “suit” of somesort. A white skintight suit was present, covering the body from head to toe. There was then an “over armor” which consisted of white armor pieces on the forearms, legs, shoulders, and knees. There was a sort of plating covering the waist and groin area. There was black areas over the whiteness in some places.

A weird sort of helmet was also present. There was a back piece but it didn’t cover the head fully. Instead, it had six “grips” that looked shark and triangular in formation. When the person holding it tried it on, it fit snuggly onto his cheeks and face.

“So…” The guy showing us the uniform pondered. “Get dressed I guess.” He said simply. We all nodded and agreed.

I went to the nearest locker that wasn’t being occupied already by someone and took the contents out. Every one of us changed and headed outside where Blacksan was waiting patiently for us. Soon after, the women arrived and we started to walk down towards the same staircase that I had my “confrontation” with Blacksan about.

I started to question something in my mind. Why wasn’t I mad about being forced into this program anymore? Was it simply because I liked fighting Ventors that much? Was I just accepting that I would never leave? Whatever the case, I still stayed here for some reason. I haven’t even complained or tried to leave in some way.

We arrived at the same place where the Guardians were first shown to us. The Guardians were now complete, without anything sticking out awkwardly or seemingly being worked on. Stairs led up to small platforms beside the Guardians in the huge and illuminated room.

This room could literally hold thousands of people in it, but it’s sole purpose seemed to be exclusively for holding Guardians in. There was various people running around, shifting around the Guardians, possibly making final tune ups or something like that.

One of the mechanics talked to Blacksan. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but both of them were nodding, as if agreeing on something. The mechanic ran away, hurrying to his team of other mechanics and working again.

“So,” Blacksan started out with a smile on his face, which was odd considering he was a general. “Are you all ready to finally pilot some Guardians and head out onto Earth?”

There was a flurry of enjoyed yes’ out of everyone, myself included. It was odd how excited we were to pilot them. The thrill of fighting Ventors in the simulation room probably made us hyped.

“Mechanics!” Blacksan yelled out to them. A team of mechanics, all old and not like us adolescents, responded to his call by running over here. They seemed to be running all over the place.

“Help these young cadets into their Guardians please.” Blacksan requested of them. Each one of the mechanics grabbed one of us and lead us up to the platform which the Guardians were by.

“And make sure to stay safe out there!” Blacksan yelled over the mechanics. “Your Guardians are linked to yourself, so every hit and scar you take will be one on your actual body!” He reminded us.

“Come with me.” One of the mechanics obviously directed to me. I followed him across the huge room to the right, in which he led me up the stairs to one of the Guardians. They looked more intimidating on the outside then they did on the inside. It was still giant compared to my size. On it’s right shoulder pad was a big thick number that read 11-A.

“Get in.” The mechanic said when we reached the top of the platform. There was an opening on top of the Guardian. I carefully climbed onto the Guardian, making sure not to fall. I entered feet first into the Guardian. I sat down in a chair that was firmly placed right in the center. Within moments, the opening closed and I was left standing in darkness.

I could barely hear voices on the outside vibrating off of the Guardian. I was left in darkness, unable to see anything, for about five minutes. For that time I just waited with empty thoughts. It was cramped inside the area. I could barely move. There was room for maybe two people at max to fit awkwardly inside this.

The Guardian finally lighted up. I couldn’t see outside of it though. There was a huge thick wall of metal surrounding me. On the chair’s arms and legs were containers filled with something that glowed yellow.

A voice was heard from inside the Guardian.

“Place your limbs inside the liquid please.”

I slowly put them in, expecting something painful but instead receiving something soothing. Soon enough, I couldn’t feel or move my limbs at all. I was stuck there with my limbs being unable to function.

“Place your neck on the circle behind you.” A soft voice said. I looked behind me and, sure enough, there was a dark black circle. I backed up slightly to it and waited in anticipation. I think I knew what it was.

My suspicions were confirmed as a pain formed within my neck. I didn’t flinch at all, as it has become second nature due to the simulation rooms using the same process.

I felt disconnected from my body. There was no other way to describe it. Even though I did this same concept in the simulation area, it felt so much more surreal and special in this. My mind felt as if it was in a million places.

Then finally, my mind came back to just one place. I finally saw outside of the Guardian. I saw the dozens of other Guardians around me, all standing statically. The mechanics were now running to the side. Platforms were out of the way. The Guardians were the only thing in the room now.

“Engaging Guardians.” A virtual overlay of many things appeared in my vision. It was the same as it was in the simulation, except now I had pictures of all my other cadet friends. They were all lighted up blue. I counted about forty to fifty. Right below all of those was a picture of me and various things like my heartbeat, condition (which said unharmed currently), and core temperature.

“Hello cadets.” A man said to us. A video of a man came up in my upper left vision. I assumed it to be in real time and not pre recordered.

“What you are embarking on is a very serious journey. This is the start to your new life as a guardian of our civilization. To protect our world and to fight for it against the Ventors.”

The floor started to shake around us. All of us stayed still.

“We are now heading up to Earth. Once you are there, follow my orders.” The floor started to move up at surprising amounts of speed. I briefly saw the city that I now lived in flash before my eyes and leave just as soon as it came up. Now, all I saw was white metal around us.

We all waited in silence for minutes. Nothing but the metal to accompany our vision. I stood there in silence, keeping my head low. What would Earth be like? The thought of it surprised me. Nobody has really told me what Earth was like.

While I pondered the question, I felt the elevator finally start to slow down. I prepared myself for what I would see. At last, the visuals of white artificial walls were replaced with brown sleek walls around us.

“Walk outside.” I heard the man simply say. All of us started to move out in single file. The doors opened in a huge slow fashion, with warning lights illuminating the room slightly. It was an agonizing wait to see what was finally outside, but finally the doors let us experience it.

The first thing I noticed were the huge buildings out in the distance. They were partially broken, but mostly remained intact. It was a sign of old civilization, before we were forced into the ground. They remained tall and proud, albeit with shattered windows and pieces of them broken off.

The atmosphere had a weird orange hint to it, as if some chemical now covered the land. The clouds were something of magnificence; huge pillows of whiteness that flowed across the sky. The sun that I was promised shone upon the sun was invisible and hidden behind the endless amounts of clouds.

Around us in the distance were various houses that looked casual and recreational, not like the ones we have. They were surrounding roads that would go in all directions. Aside me, a sign said, “NWYK Camp.”

The area around me was full of huge walls with angled tops and covered with this energy of some sorts at the top. I saw various people walking around; normal people with uniforms and guns. They all saluted to me, as if I was a very important person.

“Head outside by going to the left and straight.” We all headed to the left and straight like the man said. There was a huge line of various cube houses with people walking everywhere in the same uniforms.

Someone finally spoke up and said something for the first time in what felt like eternal silence. “So this is what it’s like to live up here…”

This is what regular people did when they signed up for this? They literally lived on Earth? With all of these Ventors endlessly hunting for prey on the Earth? The idea of it freaked me out. We walked past all of the people, who spread out to the sides to clear the way for all of us. Five hundred feet ahead about was a huge door. We all walked up to it and waited for it to open. It opened with its loud gears working it.

Various turrets were surrounding the whole base on the outside. They were all automated and held some sort of energy cell for ammo. Did they possibly function the same as my energy cannon?

“Your mission is to simply head to the objective and sweep the area of Ventors, allowing us to secure it for expansion.” The man said.

A simple white dot mark appeared on our visors. It said that the objective was fifty kilometers away.

“I’ll now let your five team leaders take over. This is as far as communications go. Good luck new cadets.” The screen went blank and fizzled out as the man’s voice cut out. Five Guardians who looked the same as sus stepped up and pointed at all of us.

“We will lead you and direct you for what to do. Listen to us, and you’ll be fine.” One of them spoke up. The five faces of five individuals represents five leaders on my screen.

“Now, let’s head out.” They said as they started to run towards the objective. They sped up the process by using their thrusters to speed themselves up. We followed suit in silence past the houses and artificial roads.

It started to get hot within my Guardian after about five minutes of traveling straight with the thrusters on.

“Why is it so hot in this thing?” I asked our leaders. They stopped proceeding onto the objective and we stopped alongside them.

“Shit we forgot about that!” one of them said. Another one chuckled.

“Your Guardians will overheat overtime if too much stress is put on your thrusters, weapons, et cetera.” They said. “Sorry. We’re still training to be squad leaders.”

“It’s okay.” Dimitri said, who I realized was along me.

“Might as well take a break. Probably all of you are overheated a bit." I did notice my body felt hot. We all nodded in agreement. We were now out of the suburbs, about forty kilometers to our objective. All of us sat down in a group and rested for a bit to calm down the machines.

After about a minute, one of the leaders finally got up. “Let’s get moving.”

It was smooth sailing until the checkpoint. Overtime, I asked the leaders some questions.

“So how long have you guys been here?” I asked them.

“All of us have been around for about two years.” One responded.

“What’s it like overall?”

Nobody answered me for a while, pondering the question and thinking of a response.

“Dark and sacrificial, but worthwhile.” One responded to me harshly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“For all of you cadets,” One called out to all of us. “Dark times will be ahead. You may lose friends and people you hold dear to you, but the hope of finally reclaiming our land someday keeps us going.” They said in an inspiring speech. Nobody responded, but I could tell everyone heard it clear and loud.

We finally reached the checkpoint. The long grass soon disappeared, and where the objective is was a huge crater. It was around a fourth of a kilometer in diameter. There was debris of rocks everywhere. It didn’t look man made, as if something caused this.

And at the bottom of the crater, was a huge cluster of Ventors. About two hundred were spread apart in the crater.

“You know the drill.” The leaders said. “Kill everyone one last of them. Make sure none of them are left alive.”

All of us slid down the crater in a group. It was our first battle against real Ventors. I naturally grouped up with Dimitri, Amara, Lucia, and a few others for battle against them.

My first Ventor encounter. One was approaching fast towards me with its crazy amounts of speed. I quickly pulled out my blade, and sidestepped it with my thrusters when it tried to attack me. I slashed it straight in the middle and it immediately dropped to the floor. I guess all that training was really helpful.

Soon enough, it turned into a battlefield. Everyone was fighting Ventors across the whole crater. The sound of gunfire and people yelling out commands to each other filled the air. Even Dimitri flew me a couple of ones when a Ventor tried to sneak up on me. He yelled out, “Behind you!” to me with clenched teeth and fighting his own battles. I quickly thrusted forward and shot it with my machine gun, startling it. I blew it up with my energy cannon right as it was about to charge at me.

I quickly responded to one cadet’s cry for suppression fire. I brought up my machine gun and shot at the Ventor that was battling him a ways away. It got startled and the cadet quickly slashed it with her blade. She didn’t give me a thanks or thumbs up, only rushed into the next battle.

No Ventors were around me at the moment. I grabbed my energy cannon and helped some people out from safety by shooting at the Ventors around me, focused on killing other people.

“Keep it up and we’ll capture this area! Only three people are dead!” That statement took me off guard. Only one dead? I couldn’t believe that even as we were dominating the Ventors, people were still dying.

I quickly shook the thought away as more Ventors approached me. A horde of seven of them were charging full speed towards me.

“Backup needed!” I yelled out to everyone amidst the various other sayings getting thrown around.

“We gotcha!” I heard Amara yell to me. Amara and Lucia quickly approached the Ventors with cannons raised as I tried to distract them by dodging and shooting them. They took three of them out with just one blast of their cannons as I stuck my blade into one of them who dumbfoundedly charged at me. Lucia kept on shooting them from a distance while Amara pulled out her blade and slashed two at once while shooting the third one. She pulled her blade out of the dead Ventors and quickly did a one-eighty; killing the final one.

They quickly sprinted away to fight their own battles again. “I really am your shining knight in white armor!” Even in a time like this, Amara was taking everything so light heartedly. I chuckled at the thought of her attitude.

“Help me!” Someone yelled out. I realized that they were right next to me as their Guardian flashed yellow on my overlay, signaling danger or threats. I sprinted over to them and saw them pinned by a Ventor. It slashed into his arm and chest. I heard his cries of pain through my speaker clearly in my ear. I knocked the Ventor off, literally charging into him and then slashed it while it was down.

“Hey you okay?” I yelled out to him while looking out for any more Ventors approaching us. They probably didn’t see us as a threat right now.

“Hey!” I yelled out to him again. Even with the dozens of voices shouting commands at each other, he should hear me. I shook his body, looking around again for any Ventors.

He must be dead. I didn’t it let it faze me. People die in war. It would happen. I’ve experienced death from others. I quickly got up and looked around me. I sped back into battle with no hesitation and weapons held high. We would finish this fight.

One of the leaders shouted out something. “There are only a couple of stragglers left! We shall win!”

Before I could find any Ventors to kill, I realized the battle was already over. Some people were picking off ones that was still going at it, but they quickly fell onto the ground with blood splattered everywhere. The fighting finally soon came to a halt. We had finished.

“Good job cadets.” The leaders proclaimed to us all. “Only six cadet fatalities. Once you have passed your first mission, it will only get better.”

We all shouted victoriously. It was our first battle that we have partaken in. My breathing started to steady. I wasn’t sweaty but it definitely did a toll on my body. But then Lucia spoke up to the leaders.

“Only six fatalities?”

There was silence for a while. I looked off to the left of my vision and I indeed saw six cadets’ faces colored in red, signifying death. More were yellow as well. I didn’t even notice it. “It could be worse. Remember you will face death and fear now.”

“Now what?” One of us asked.

One of the leaders started mumbling to himself. “There.” A white dot appeared in our vision behind us. It said fifty kilometers, like last time. “Let’s get out of this crater, tell the officials it’s clear, and then they can further secure the area with checkpoints.” All of us nodded as we started to head towards the white dot. We walked at a casual pace to the wall. We were now about halfway to the crater wall.

The ground beneath us shook violently. I felt the ground shifting and moving under my feet. All of us stood still, anticipating what was happening. Shocked expressions filled our faces, unable to move in fear like moving would be the last thing we would do. Then, just as soon as the rumbling began, it stopped.

We all stood there for a couple of seconds, shocked at what happened. Finally, we let our guard down.

“Well that was stra-”

I heard something erupt from the ground, followed by the screams of cadets behind me. I quickly turned in response.

Chapter 7

Something huge erupted from the crater’s center. Millions of tentacle-like tendrils came out of the ground. They had barbed ends with dark red blades on their obsidian purple tendrils.

Another part erupted out of the ground. Three huge “holes” came out and made a bloodcurdling roar throughout the land, being able to be heard by probably anything on this earth.

They were all filled with black razors that extended all the way around the holes and outside of them. They were all able to rip us apart with one fell swoop. The tentacles all protected the holes on the outside, making a barrier with them.

It has various “blobs” around its body. Some were on the outside, poking out of the ground. There was one huge one in which the holes circled around.

Looking at the whole thing was terrifying in itself. It took up a third of the crater in it’s diameter. I was more than one hundred feet away, but some people were literally five feet away from the monstrous unknown creature.

Guardians were launched into the air when the thing erupted. About five Guardians were snatched up into the air, flying up to heights that are fatal. Their screams were ones of imminent death, knowing their fate.

The tentacles shot up into the air at unimaginable speeds, possibly faster than those of Ventors. As soon as I saw them shot up, my eyes lead up to the Guardians free falling in the air. Their screams still present.

All at once, the tendrils pierced them directly through their chests. Most of their screams were cut off as blood exploded out in a shower of them. Four of the pictures of cadets turned red on my screen and one turned yellow. The Guardians were placed on the tentacles like kababs, waiting to be eaten off of with their dead, limp, useless bodies.

And all we did was stare on in horror. The blood from my body was suddenly gone, making me pale and shivering in fear. So this was death. It seemed...so surreal. The fact that those cadets were just talking and conversing with us earlier, full of life, and now they were like this was unreal.

I couldn’t stare away though.

The tendrils slowly hovered the bodies over the monstrous mouths. The tendrils scraped off the Guardians from their tentacles and they dropped into the caverns of teeth. I could very vividly hear the sound of teeth against flesh. Teeth against metal. Teeth against bone. They were being eaten. I cringed as the sound of screams and life being taken away was complimenting each other.

One of the cadets was still hovering over. For some reason, the tentacle didn’t drop him in.

“Help me.” He said. It sounded like he was drowning, possibly in his own blood. The thought sickened me. Blood kept on dripping down onto the tentacle that was holding him. The tops were covered with liters of his own blood. It was sickening to look at his crimson blood cover the obsidian purple tentacle.

“HELP ME!!!” He yelled out to everyone. He put all of his life force into what he was saying. It was obvious he was clinging onto the very thin fabrics known as life, soon to be crossing over to eternal death.

And yet, all we did, was still stare at it in eternal horror, not doing any actions.

My body now had goosebumps; scared and dead cold from all that was happening. The tentacle started to drop him in. His body landed right into the mouth.

“HELP M-”

His screams were soon cut off abruptly, being replaced with the sound of teeth tearing through his body. Nothing else was heard. Only that horrifying sound.

At last, one of us finally snapped out of our fear. “R-r-run!” was all he said. There was nothing more to say. Many of us responded.

But I stood there, still shocked with fear. What was the point? In the middle of everyone running past me, I just stood there. The tentacles came whizzing past me and shredded through people closer to it, ignoring me completely since I was in the back. More screams followed suit, sounded by the sound of people's radio cutting out and crunching filling the air. Eleven of us were down, thirty nine left. The tentacles were too long and fast for us to escape them. It would take us too much time to go up the crater wall with how tall and steep it was.

In other words, we would all die here.

Though nobody was thinking about that. Everyone just wanted to run. Escape to live another day. They were blinded by the hope of unreachable life which, in reality, was hardly possible.

I only could think of one thing that might save a couple of us, more if we were lucky today and fate was on our side.

I quickly pulled out all of my weapons and prepared my body. I was no longer in fear, for I have suppressed it within the back of my mind. I had to focus on what was happening now. I couldn’t let my fear and doubts get the best of me. At least some people could make it.

A newfound confidence was burning within my body. One of desire and hope. One of determination. I couldn’t just try to flee away from this thing. I had to face it head on. Otherwise, what other hope would we have?

This was reality for me. I had to accept it. Fight.

“Go! I’ll hold it off!” I shouted out heroically to everyone that could hear me. If I was going to die here in this pit, I would at least go out with a fighting chance. I thrusted into battle, the tentacles still ignoring me. The creature felt so big compared to me, but I knew that everything had a weakness. I would just have to find it.

They must of seen what I was doing and heard what I said to them clearly. “What are you doing cadet!? Fall back now!” One of the leaders demanded.

His voice was merely a whisper in my ears as my focus was on the monster. I quickly started to shoot at the monster, charging up my cannon at the same time and firing that whenever possible.

Several tentacles came at me, flying at speeds incomprehensible to one that wasn’t as trained as I was. The blades, being the only barrier in limbo between life and death, now were hurtling towards me. I quickly thought and anticipating their movements, preparing myself. As soon as they came close enough to me, I quickly thrusted to the right, slashing them off.

The tentacles fell to the ground. However, when I looked back at the huge creature, it simply regenerated more to take its place. I couldn’t keep this up for long. It would be a short lived life.

“Cadet!” He said, literally shouting directly into my ear. “Fall back now! Do you hear me? Cadet!”

“No! I will fight until my body won’t allow it!” I shouted back at him, dodging more tentacles. They were coming at different angles now, as if trying to trick me.

“William! Stop trying to be a hero!” I heard Dimitri call out to me. It didn’t make me stop my actions. It made me only want to continue them. Nobody else would take the initiative to do this. They weren’t determined to fight, only gliding along with false security.

I chuckled at the thought.

Ten tentacles quickly came towards me. They were all in a straight line. I was starting to get smug. I swiftly and easily thought of a plan to defeat them as in the same one I have been using.

Before I could comprehend it, the tentacles all split into five directions. Each one for each limb and my head. It knew my plans. It was adapting to my moves.

I quickly shielded my head and thrusted away while trying to slash away any of the tentacles. I managed to slice away three of the tentacles but the rest kept on coming at me. I kept on dodging, but the tentacles would always keep up.

One of them burst with more speed than the others. It quickly pierced my Guardian’s leg while the others retracted. The blade slashed upwards on my leg and flew me backwards from the energy into the air.

My head landed on the hard ground of the earth and I heard a crack. I screamed out as I crumpled to the ground. The pain made my already hurried breathing faster and more scratchy. My HUD was cracked in various places, mostly in the upper right. My vision was starting to faze on the HUD.

It felt like I was going to pass out at any moment. My heart was working overtime and then suddenly I couldn’t feel it’s inhuman beating anymore. My breathing suddenly became uneven and at some points I couldn’t even breathe. I was barely clinging onto life. My head felt broken and uneven within.

“He’s in a critical condition! There’s nothing we can do for him now! Leave him cadet!” I heard someone yell faintly in my time of need.

“Leave him!”

My leg felt hot and wet. I couldn’t move from my position or even stand. Instead of trying, I just laid there, waiting for the inevitable.

Within my fuzzy and blackened vision, I saw the tentacles from before with their sickening blades closing in for the kill. They were definitely taking their time in doing so.

I chuckled at the thought. I started to laugh hard even though I had barely any energy left within me, all of it being knocked out of my body. I went from one-hundred to zero so fast. I tried to laugh off what was going to happen to me, but I knew that even I wasn’t the brave, unstoppable hero I thought myself out to be during that fight.

Even though I was chuckling at the situation, my body shivered and started to become pale. I couldn’t yell out anything, saving my breath. If I could, I would be screaming like a baby. I had tears start to form in my eyes.

I was scared of death. Even though I’ve seen it many times, I haven’t ever experienced it myself. Would it be painful and long? Something that would just be painless? What would happen after I died? Was heaven and hell even a thing? Or would I just rot away in eternal darkness, entrapped within my own body?

So many questions flew by in my head in the little time I had. The blades were practically approaching me in slow motion, as I ticked away the time I had left. I could see them clearly heading for my head, to swiftly kill me and eat me. I closed my eyes as I let death consume me and take me away. My body was tired. My leg was slashed up. I could barely breathe. My head felt like it would burst. I felt sweat cover my head. My body was hot from the Guardian overheating too much.

Eternal death would take me away now.

“Will!” I barely heard someone shout out. I opened my eyes very briefly to see the blades less than five feet away from my face. I briefly saw a Guardian tumbling into the ground at high speeds.

Dimitri screamed out as he stood up. I saw marks in his arms and legs. There was a huge slash mark in his left arm, going all the way from the shoulder to the fingertips. He collapsed to the ground. The blades were coming to attack him and he couldn’t deflect or dodge them in time. The blades were coming straight for his vitals.

Even in my weakened state, I mustered the courage and power to stand up for life once again. I quickly stepped in front of him, ignoring the searing pain within my leg and head. I stumbled on my leg, only to get up once again and slash the blades quickly out of the way.

“What are you doing!?” I yelled out to him. “Are you stupid!?”

“Both of us are stupid!” Dimitri yelled back to me with clenched teeth from the pain. I smirked at that, even in this dire situation. My body was going into overdrive.

“Fight! We will not survive if we run. Our only option is to fight!” Dimitri quickly inspired everyone to do. Even though he was collapsed on the ground, he still sounded confident and brave. Most of the Guardians just stood there as I kept on deflecting the blades. I could barely keep this up. I started to fire upon the creature, trying to make it stop its relentless assault. That only angered it.

I started to collapse and buckle from the weight of the attacks. My leg was growing with pain exponentially with every attack that drove it into the ground harder and harder. Every one of my defensive parries felt weaker and weaker than the previous ones. The attack from the blades were now starting to slightly push me into the ground and back.

“Fight or we die!” I screamed out to everyone. That statement pushed them over the edge somehow. The sound of Guardians climbing was now stopped, as I heard people sliding over rocks.

They were following our order.

“Charge!” One of the cadets yelled out victoriously. Most of the Guardians started to stop their effortless climb up the wall and joined us quickly. We were getting reinforcements. Their thrusters were on full charge, sprinting towards us as fast as they could. Confidence and hope filled the air.

“Stop it now! I order you cadets!” The leaders said. They simply stood there, halfway up the crater wall. “Now!” Their voices were to no effect. This was a mutiny.

Then, in a move I didn’t expect at all, they kept on climbing up.

The scared bastards were running away. Our leaders were running away while we still fought.

Everyone starting to fire upon the tentacles on the monster. The tentacles headed full force onto them. Most of the Guardians were dodging them. Some were helping others who were otherwise ineffective in killing the tentacles.

“Heads up Will!” I heard Amara yell out to me. In my distracted state, blades were rushing at me. A shot of energy blasted right by my face and exploded the tentacles. Lucia shot them out of the air from a distance. Amara came in front of me and started to defend against the blades that were heading my way.

“Get Dimitri out of here!” Amara yelled back as she fired upon one of the tentacles that dropped right in front of her. She kept on slashing at them.

“I got it!” I yelled back. I quickly bent down to grab Dimitri. The added strength of the Guardian allowed me to carry him in my arms like a newborn baby; fragile and defenseless. I awkwardly stumbled back to a safe spot and looked back at any approaching threat. The Guardians were all keeping the tendrils out of the way from me.

I set him down gently and looked at his wounds. There were six wound spots with metal ripped out from the Guardian. One huge one on his left arm, two on his right shoulder, one in each of his legs, and one in his side. Even though it didn’t look painful, I couldn’t imagine how much his body was in infernal pain.

“Dimitri?” I said confusingly. I tuned out all of the other voices on the radio, listening carefully for Dimitri’s.

“Yeah I’m here.” Dimitri said clearly. I was surprised at how there was no hint of pain in his voice.

“Are you oka-”“Listen William.” Dimitri interrupted me. “You have to aim for the center, in that huge mass.”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“That has to be where a weakness is. Most animals will protect their vitals and where else would it be? In the very center.” What he said did make sense; humans have hearts around the center of their inside.

“But what if it isn’t there?” I questioned him.

“Then we die.” Dimitri responded harshly. “Simple as that. It’s our one chance.”

“But what about you? Aren’t you bleeding ou-”

“Get a majority of the cadets to distract the tentacles. Then you and a small team will go into the mass and destroy it.” Dimitri said to me quickly.

“B-bu-”

“Just go.” Dimitri responded to me.

I sighed as I figured I couldn’t reason with Dimitri. “Don’t die please.” I said surprisingly casually.

I heard Dimitri chuckle. In such a time like this, it was weird for him to be laughing. “Don’t worry.”

I pulled out my weapons and started to thrust into battle, lifting my bad leg alongside it so that was fortunate. Everyone was scattered alongside the battlefield as I re-entered, looking back at Dimitri with a cautious attitude. He wanted to seem fine, but I knew he we in pain. Nobody can shake off wounds like that.

I focused on the task on hand. I stopped to look at everything that was going on. The monster was still in great condition, while more and more cadets were dying. I had to command them fast.

“Cadets!” I shouted out. Nobody stopped, but they did listen to me as I said my request. “Group up and distract the tentacles!” I looked at the names of who I had to help me with my assault on the core of the creature.

“Lucia! Amara! Matthew! Casey! Ori! Come with me! The rest of you, start getting their attention!” I heard a stream of agreement as I saw most of the cadets all clumped together. Most of the tentacles started to form on the front side of the creature, attacking the bait. We had to act fast, otherwise more cadets would die meaninglessly.

The five cadets that I requested all came to me while dodging the blades. Before I knew it, we were directly behind the creature and it was wide open with only a few tentacles protecting it.

“Good, it doesn’t notice us from here.” I mumbled to myself. I looked at what I had at hand. I noticed everyone had wounds within their limbs.

“Are you guys okay?” I asked them, legitimately caring for their safety.

They all nodded at me in silence. Lucia stepped up to ask me a question. “So, how will we go about this?”

I started to scratch my nose, out of force of habit. “Well we got to destroy that center blob mass thing.” I said as I pointed it out. “For how we do that, I...don’t know…”

Lucia sighed. “Ori, Matthew, and I will shoot the mouths wide open, allowing you and Amara to go in for the killing blow with your swords. It’ll probably be too cramped to get an accurate shot into the core from here.” She suggested. “Casey will be on back up duty, watching for any tentacles that might approach the two of you.”

I nodded at her plan of action. “Every second we waste is another cadet possibly dead.” I said as I stepped up towards the creature, which was still distracted. “Let’s do this!” I shouted in a victorious attitude.

The people backing me up also shouted similarly. With wings of hope, we shall fly into this creature and defeat it. I wasn’t fearful anymore. It seemed to be on and off with me. Now, I had allies to back me up. And we knew how to possibly defeat the monster. The key word was possibly.

The three people from afar started to shoot at the mouths with their energy cannons, while Casey, Amara, and I started to rush in. The energy shots started to whiz past me as I sped up towards the monster with teammates at hand. The energy shots started to land on the mouths’ side. The skin started to burn off, leaving a weird yellow flesh underneath. Bit by bit, the monster was being subject to the energy cannon’s shot, slowly eroding away the mouth until there would be an opening big enough to enter.

One-thousand feet away.

The tentacles started to come into us at full speed.

“Casey!” I yelled out to him. “Up ahead!” He started to lunge towards the tentacles, pulling away the attention from us onto him by shooting at them. He was holding up quite well, dodging and slicing the tendril’s blades off so that we could continue on with our objective.

“Keep it up team!” I yelled out to everyone. “We will seize the day!” I felt like a leader, one that was willing to go into battle with his own brethren and fight alongside them.

Seven-hundred-fifty feet.

Internal temperatures at ninety-seven. Cool down now. A mechanical voice told me in my head. Shit, I was overheating. I couldn’t stop now. We were on the verge of finally achieving this goal of victory. We couldn’t stop.

“Amara, how are you doing on your temperature levels!” I yelled out to her.

“At around ninety!” Amara replied back as we kept on speeding along with Casey backing us up. I looked back at the goal.

“Faster!” I yelled out to Amara.

Five-hundred feet.

Core temperatures at one-hundred-seven. Reaching energy threshold. The same voice told me. I quickly looked towards my core temperature to see the bar filled in red, signifying that this was crucially dangerous.

I just can’t stop now. My goal was so close.

The endless barrage of energy cannons kept on coming in. The hole inside the mouths showed teeth and yellow charred flesh. A tiny spec within that hole showed a deep red color of some kind of object.

That had to be its heart of some kind. Dimitri was right. “Keep on firing!” I yelled out to them.

Three-hundred feet.

The hole was now about ten feet in diameter. I could clearly see its weakness now. There was a single red “sphere” which was illuminating the dark container it was being held in. Amara and I kept on speeding up faster towards the objective. I kept on periodically shooting at the tentacles, helping out Casey in his quest. The tentacles couldn’t even reach us as Casey was very quick and responsive.

The creature seemed disorganized, as if several beings were controlling it. For some reason, all of the other tentacles haven’t attacked us yet. It’s only been the ones in the back that have noticed us.

Core temperatures at one-hundred-eleventy-two. Refrain from usage soon. I felt my body start to literally burn from the inside out. It felt like torture. My guardian shook a little as it happened, but I tried to concentrate and remain on course.

The tentacles were coming at us in greater force and quantity now, as if it just realized that we were a threat that should be dealt with. Casey was starting to struggle against all of them.

“I can’t hold them off for much longer!” Casey yelled out to us. “It’s now or never!”

One-hundred-fifty feet.

Core temperatures at one-hundred-twenty. Critical condition. Stop the Guardian now. The numbers were growing exponentially. I was literally getting cooked in this metal suit. I could feel it on my real body.

The core was now fully exposed from all of the fire. The energy blasts stopped coming in as that team realized they have done their job well.

“Finish it now!” I heard the other cadets yell at me. I realized more and more people were getting injured as I looked at my profiler for the cadets. Many of them were filled with yellow or red. I imagined triumphant sounds backing me up in my mission, as I sped along.

“I can’t keep it up!” Casey yelled out to us. I realized he was backing away. The tentacles started to follow him though. He started to speed off towards the distance.

One of the tentacles hit him straight in the leg, piercing it and sticking the blade within the dirt. It went clean through his leg with no hastle. Casey screamed out in pain as I saw what was happening before my eyes.

“Casey!” I yelled out. The blades were heading at him fast. He would die.

I started to see Amara back off and slow down. “What are you doing!?”

“Helping him! Finish this Will!” She yelled out as she started to slash off the blades while protecting Casey. I didn’t dare stare at her as it was now only up to me. I didn’t want more to die. I didn’t want anyone else to die. We had to finish this now or else it would be game over for all of us.

Fifty feet.

Core temperatures at one-hundred-thirty-three. Maximum energy output imminent. Immediately shut down. The voice egged me on to do. I wasn’t following it though. My body was becoming extremely shaky and disorganized as the burning was only making this harder. I dared not scream out, as I did not want to seem hurt or weak in this very critical moment.

Instead, I only pushed harder. The core was right in front of me, with the tentacles distracted on the majority of cadets while Amara was pulling the ones that were trying to get me away.

It was right within my reach. I finally readied my sword against the core.

“Die!” I screamed out.

My blade went clear through the core, splitting the huge thing right in half. It sprayed a white liquid over my blade, which was almost invisible due to the matching color. I heard the monster finally scream in pain. It echoed throughout the whole land, letting everyone know that the mighty has fallen.

Its whole body started to evaporate into purple “specs”. The monster was disintegrating. The specs flew off into the air, letting the wind carry them wherever. Soon enough, its whole body was gone, with only the several hundred specs left signifying a presence.

“We did it!” I heard a cadet scream as I saw many of them standing up proudly (with a similar amount dead on the ground, devoid of life). They pumped their fists into the air in proudness and happiness, as we have survived.

I collapsed to the ground and passed out instantly afterwards.