Chaper Eleven- A Place Without Fear

I wretched violently, leaning against the counter I had been using as cover. I could not control the panicked spasms that overtook my body. My sense of reality began to fold in upon itself, creating a box that separated me from the world outside. Now the screaming and gunfire and explosions were only background noise, muffled by the walls of my introspective prison. I leaned over and vomited upon the blood soaked floor. I had killed them. I had killed all of them. Dozens charged through that door. Now only pulp remained. Shards of broken armour laid across the floor, a giant puzzle left forgotten. My eyes rapidly danced over my masterpiece, rolling across the whole of the small, war-torn room. The tiny concrete space seemed to never end. Gore splattered the walls, bodies drawn into fetal positions laid over every centimeter. Limbs were discarded randomly about, torn stomachs spilled innards across the floor. So many were dead. How could I have done this? How could I have unflinchingly murdered so many? How could I have run away from my only home, to take on a life like this? How could I have destroyed that home, destroyed it along with every single one of my memories, and every tiny evidence of a life that I may have had before?

Chapter Ten- Boot Camp

I was sore.

Despite my recently acquired wounds, my malnourished bodily state, the searing pain from the stitches in my shoulder, and my general discomfort with the situation at hand, Colonel Wilde had immediately passed me on to training.

Training was grueling. I had spent the entire afternoon at a station learning the function of assorted weapons and gadgets, and how to perfectly prime, construct, care for, and occasionally defuse each. But this was not even the worst of it. During the monotony of training on several occasions, I was subjected to spontaneous masquerades of emergency situations, along with my fellow trainees. The most recent drill was the most terrible for certain, I had somehow ended up underneath the feet of several other initiates. I was abandoned, left dazed and bruised, but I was not alone for long. As the training area filled with a stinging poison gas, a  hulking gas-masked “attacker” appeared without warning, ripped me up to my feet, and a struggle ensued. If it hadn’t been for the initiate that had scrambled directly into our conflict and bewildered the monster of a man assaulting me, I may not have slipped away.

My knowledge of the weapons seemed to please the drill sergeant enough to allow me to pass on to the next station: target practice. I was excited by the possibility of something I might enjoy, and had just reached the armoury when it happened. Nearby, an explosion rang out, nearly tearing me from my feet. The concussive force of the blast rattled me to the very core, sending vibrations echoing down my limbs.

This was no drill.

Chapter Eight- A Second Opinion

The skirmish outside was brief. There was distant yelling. A heavy pounding began above my head. It rattled the supplies on the desk and shook clouds of dust from the walls. Other shots crackled, farther away and scattered, but they receded to nothing. It appeared the rebels had won another small victory.

Perhaps my observations of the rebels were wrong. They seemed to be taking out more Guards than I had ever remembered. And winning fights. Perhaps I hadn’t even seen this “Rebellion” before. Was it in other districts too? It had most certainly spread to E3. So did Major Neil instruct me to go to F2 because it’s some sort of base?

Chapter Seven- A Warm Welcome

There was a light. It triumphantly shimmered, blinking through whatever gap it had crawled through. My heart broke free from panick’s strangle hold, and I ran to the light’s sweet embrace. There was some sort of hatch directly over my head, white rays burst through the cracks, shimmering softly. I pushed the hatch. It wouldn’t budge. I pushed harder, with no result. I was becoming exasperated. 3 hours spent crawling through the dark, feeling my way through a claustrophobic, humid, wretched nightmare, and this was my reward? A closed door? My face grew hot. My wounds shot pain in circles across my body. I was sure the humidity had infected them, it was stifling. I thought I would collapse, it felt as if a massive hand was wrapped around me, crushing me in its grasp. I began pounding on the hatch, calling for a rescuer…

Chapter Six- The Embers of Hope

There are things that set a professional aside from an amateur. A professional knows exactly what he or she is doing, and reacts as such. A professional attends to his or her business with unflinching accuracy and skill, flawlessly carrying out the duty that said he or she labored over learning. The gunfight before me was professionalism in its purest form. 

Chapter Five- the Monster in the Mirror

Leaving a district was not a task to be taken lightly. It was a very rare situation a person even left their block. No one knew much about the other districts, except members of the Meeting, who weren’t exactly accessable. The towering walls shielded all of our view of the neighboring districts, save the peaks of the titanic buidlings of D4, the very center of Eden. As far as the assorted functions of the Districts, the Institution taught nothing of them. We did not communicate, function with, or encounter eachother. Ever.

Chapter Four- the Point of No Return

I vomited. Everything was a blur. My consciousness was slipping. I was a murderer. My mother was dead. I had killed four, mercilessly. I had fought two professional killers, and won. I had survived 3 gunshots and a blade wound. How did all of this happen? How was I alive?