I awoke. Really? I'm alive?
My whole body ached, particularly my back, which I thought was broken and I glanced, without turning my head, at my hand with its ripped nails. The blood had dried and crusted, I hoped it wasn't infected. It was not a pleasant feeling, although it was better than the next feeling I felt. Despair.
As I slowly and rather reluctantly widened my eyes to look upwards, I saw a huge gaping hole above me with a tiny speck of light, about the size of a grain of rice at arms length.
"Great... just great," I complained in a strained and painfully dry voice. I tried to turn my head and was met with resistance from my body, which screamed at me not to move my head or any muscle in my body for that matter.
But I relented and turned my head against the wishes of my groaning body, I couldn't just lie here. Not now. I still had some people that I needed to talk to. To ask questions to. To deal with.
I used this as my motivation and turned my head, only to discover I was lying face up on a huge geode shaped like a dome that stretched for miles in each direction. I couldn't tell where it started to curve into its dome shape, but I had assumed it was a dome, considering that the part I was laying on wasn't exactly flat.
My neck seared with a red-hot pain as if a branding seal had been heated in lava and placed against my neck to brand me as some weakling. But I did not cry. I merely gritted my teeth and forced my body to move. Move you stupid body, I cried out in my head as I pushed myself to move and sit up.
Every fibre of my being, muscles, bones, joints, everything, ached and burned with the same red-hot pain my neck had just seconds ago. I cried out in agony as my body trembled with fragility, my fingers burned with the recent pain of having their nails ripped off by jagged stones, then I heard a crack.
Shit, was that my body? No it can't be... the floor?!
I looked down at the geode beneath me, causing me to grimace with pain, and, sure enough, it had cracked and it was spreading out at a worrying rate to a concerning size. I sighed and gave up. Whatever happens now... that's the end I guess.
I couldn't help but think that, I'd tried my hardest all my life, so could I say I hadn't lived to the fullest? Others would say I'd wasted my life, on a bad day I'd be inclined to agree. I thought to myself, throwing my thoughts into self-doubt right before my death.
My past came back to me, but this time, I didn't shy away and push it out, I accepted the memories as my final thoughts.
--------------------------- 6 years ago:
My alarm buzzed in my ears and I reached over and slapped it as hard as I could. "Shut up will you..." I groaned sleepily, but I was met with an all too familiar voice, "Hey now, you shouldn't break that, it was a gift, not to mention you'll be late for training you lazy dumbass, so get up!" This voice was none other than my general's voice. General Connors. He was in his mid twenties and had short blond hair with sharp green eyes that had a strange duality of kindness and ice cold fury in them. His lean muscular build proved he was worthy of his title of Genral and I didn't doubt his skill after witnessing it first-hand.
"Yeah yeah I'm getting up, stop your whining at me" I retorted as I slipped out of my bed and threw on my combat gear. "Why do I even have to do this?" I grumbled quietly, hoping for it to be only for my ears. Only it wasn't.
"You have to do this Private Freed because your general said so!" Connors replied sharply, putting emphasis on my position as a private, then his sharp face softened at me as he looked around and then back at me. "Look, I know you can easily beat even some of the elites, quite frankly it's a scary fact that you can, considering you're only..." he trailed off, having forgotten my age.
"Thirteen" I reminded him.
"Ah yes thirteen... wait you're thirteen?! Anyone would think you're a seasoned veteran with the way you fight, jeez!" He said, looking at me as if I was lying.
"I mean you did take me in when I was ten and it's been three years so usually ten plus three is thirteen... unless you have a brain that can prove otherwise" I said in a half joking half serious tone. He looked at me and sighed with a wry smile, "Yeah, suppose that's true... well either way, I can't have you going rusty on me, so freshen up and get training, you want to contribute to the war don't you?" He asked seriously. I nodded sharply and he nodded back. "Then keep training till your ass falls off" he commanded, but in a lighthearted way. Then he was gone.
I casually walked out of the tent I'd been sleeping in and looked around at the containment camp. Camps that were built and designed to train people to be able to wield artefacts and have enough combat prowess that they could efficiently kill enemies. However that wasn't all it was just built for, not a lot of people knew that it was also designed to keep track of declining strength and dispose of them, along with beating out any forms of sympathy and empathy out of their soldiers, creating apathetic machines that just followed orders and killed because our government had deemed it 'a necessary step forward'.
Feeling bile rise to my throat at the thought, I pushed it down with a difficult swallow just as I saw a group of people just above my age walking towards me. There were three of them and each of them were friends I'd made here in the containment camp.
The first of them was a girl named Lillie, she was the oldest of us at sixteen. With shoulder length blond hair that cascaded across her shoulders, her deep-brown eyes radiated happiness despite being in a place like this, which spoke volumes about her strength to me each time I saw her. It took a lot of effort, admittedly, to look away from her captivating beauty, causing my cheeks to heat up, and to the people beside her.
To Lillie's right was Marcus Lott, he was fifteen and had ginger hair, more red than orange though which I thought was cool. He had a good build, broad shoulders and a well refined back and arms. He gave a friendly wave and I waved back. He was secretly a softie for his friends but was an absolute monster on the battlefield, rumors spread across the camp claiming he was a true beast since he fought like one. He'd managed to earn the nickname 'The Hunter' due to his violent fighting style. But we were chill so I wasn't scared of him.
And finally to Lillie's left was Jason Bartlett, a rather reserved guy, same age as Marcus but was skinnier and a little taller. He was the brains of our group, a vastly knowledgeable boy. His brain confused me, the way he solved almost every problem without issue was baffling to me as a thirteen year old. But he was nice, sharp and critical in his gaze, but nice nonetheless.
I walked over to them and gave each of them a wave, albeit my wave to Lillie could have been a little more confident, and I did my secret handshake with Marcus who grinned at me. "You're doing well remembering that," he said with a warm smile.
"Better than you could hope to you muscle brain!" I retorted with an equally warming smile which resulted in us laughing and Lillie sighed, as did Jason. We both noticed this and turned to the two of them, "Can't you just be a little more relaxed?" I asked.
Lillie gave me a deadpan look, "relax? I mean don't you think you're a little too relaxed for where you are at your age?" She replied. I simply shrugged. "Not like I need to worry about falling behind".
Marcus gave me a hard pat on the back, "That's right little man, you're as strong as Jason over there, maybe not me though!". I raised a brow and turned to face Marcus with a devious and mischievous grin, "Is that so? Wanna test that?" I asked with a hint of challenge in my tone.
Jason and Lillie began to interfere but Marcus held up a hand and maintained eye contact with me.
"Lough... you're on!" He yelled with a massive smile on his face which warmed my heart seeing my friends happy.
Just as I began to walk alongside them, laughing and talking, the ground shattered like glass beneath me and I fell into an endless abyss of blackness. I felt wind whipping at my hair and my clothes as the light of my friends grew smaller and smaller until it vanished completely and, to my surprise, I realised that my cheeks were getting wet with something... my tears...
Then everything went black.
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