On the very first day of initiation Travis could tell that this was going to be far harder than he imagined when he signed up.
Every platoon recruited in the same patch of land reserved for the military on that day. While the others were merry with slight shouting and clanking of what the new recruits could only assume to be mugs of beer to welcome the newcomers.
Theirs was comparably solemn despite the fact that they had almost double the number of new recruits of any of the battalions here. It was almost as if they walked into a funeral procession, but they were the corpses on display for others to pass by and offer their condolences.
They stood there in rank and file, waiting under the beating sun which washed over them like waves. The heat so relentless, the slightest wind felt like chills upon their skin.
And yet, after an hour or so all of them began to wonder if they were at the right place.
Another few hours pass, some of them decided to sit and wait, others decided to look around the place to see what the others were experiencing.
"Hey, hey man..." a voice whispered in Travis's ear. It was low but soft somehow not fitting of a soldier's voice. He ignored it at first, but the person behind him kept pestering him, poking and prodding him all the way.
He stood there in his statue like state, ignoring the urge to turn and pummel whoever this busy body was.
But alas, somehow the person behind him found a spot in his armor which gave access towards his side, causing him to almost jump from the jolt.
At first he tried to keep his reactions to a minimum, but his resistance seemed to only draw that person's interest even more, causing him to renew their effort to try and break him.
"Hey, hey man..."
"What!" Travis replied, finally breaking under the constant pestering, baring his teeth.
In front of him his vice captain stepped back cautiously. "Sorry sir, I just saw you standing there a little dazed and I thought I'd check up on you." A curly headed youth looked at him with two doe eyes. "Are you okay sir?"
He looked around realizing he was back in the present. Taking a deep breath he sighed before replying, "... I'm.. Okay.." Travis brought his palm to his head, massaging his temples with his thumb and middle finger. "Just remembering some unpleasant memories."
His hand reached out for a bottle where he usually stashed it, but he only grabbed air. Turning around he finally had a sense of what he'd been doing the past few minutes and lamented the passing of some very good wine.
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There was something wrong with Zhao Wei.
Thirteen could tell, or more like she could smell it. It helped her with her job in a way. It was always nice to know that the person who's throat she was about to slit was a piece of cr*p and that they deserved whatever hell she was sending them to.
Whether they were bad or good, they always gave off a certain kind of smell. It wasn't like a scent more like a feeling, the kind like when she felt a job smelled fishy.
For him, the smell was suffocating like thick smoke seeping through his pores. Just standing near him made her uncomfortable as her muscles twitched constantly, telling her to turn tail and run.
And the worst part was, this was what he was like when he was trying to suppress it. Like a caged beast rampaging in it's cell, threatening to break out.
Besides that, she could tell something was wrong because they now stood face to face with a beast. And that smell just started gushing out from within him.