The first week went by after that, fighting between groups became common, but by now a lot of individuals fought together in their respective groups. The trips back from the stream became particularly brutal as weak groups would band together to disable and slow a stronger group down.
If a weak group wanted to eat they had to figure out a way to not be last and all sorts of ideas came out, one group armed themselves with branches and aimed at the competitor's legs and ankles. They didn't want to win the fights as that would take too long, they only wanted to slow down another group.
Weak groups picked up the hit and run tactic against stronger groups. The whole week was a testing ground to see what the rules were, we couldn't completely disable a group, only slow them down.
The Sergeants were harsh to enforce the rules, anyone who broke the rules was given a beating and the whole group associated with the offender went without food, regardless of daily placement.
At the end of the week, we were very tired, had bruising over most of our bodies, and were very hungry, all this combined made us half-feral and more brutal then kids should be, but if we wanted food we followed the rules the sergeants had set out.
We didn't know this but they were training us to absolutely and instantly obey any commands given by the Sergeants, any less and we got a beat down like never before, regretting our transgression.
During the week a couple of kids disappeared, when we asked about it they told us that they didn't make it, leaving the exact definition up to our exhausted and wild imaginations. Did the army kill them? Did they run away? These were only some of the thoughts running through our heads.
When kids disappeared, personal items included, it made the teams weaker, but they still got five packs of food at the river every day, causing less infighting amongst the groups.
The groups of five became targets for the 'full strength' groups so fighting still occurred at the stream just not as much.
At the end of the last day from the first week, we ate like normal and went to our bunks after we made a stop at the nearby river to wash the day's sweat and blood off our bodies best we could before retiring for the night.
In the darkest part of the night, Sergeant Kace came into our bunkhouse and started to yell causing all of us to get up immediately in panic. He got us sorted out pretty quickly and demanded we all get dress and gather our kits to meet at the Training yard that had been collecting dust in our Bunkhouse as we weren't allowed to bring any of the supplies with us on our daily runs.
Once we arrived at the training in a mass of other irritated and confused trainees, we saw Kevin already at his podium so we double-timed it to our positions, a few gaps from the missing people were spaced around, the sergeants hadn't felt the need to change our positions as it was good to see who we had lost. A lot more empty spots would open up before the two years were up.
As we all settled down and quieted, Staff Sergeant Kevin started to speak "This introduction week has finally finished we will start second the next phase of your training now. You will be doing wilderness training starting from now on. A Sergeant will lead your group into the deep wood to the west. It is a massive untamed forest where you will be getting a crash course on basic survival training," he said with his accented voice once again as a cruel smile lit his face up. "I believe in learning on the job so, the sergeants will train you in the basics before taking a passive role and keeping watch to make sure most of you don't die. You will be gone for a month as this is the most necessary skill to learn thus we teach it first. Good luck." and then he left the field once again.
A lot of sergeants came over from the edge of the field and took individual groups of 5-6 depending on if a group lost a member or not. This was more than double the sergeants than we normally had but it made sense that a single sergeant couldn't look after 4-5 different groups of kids in the wild and have an acceptable dead to the living ratio by the end.
Kace was still in charge of our group and we were the first ones to leave the field at his urging. "what about breakfast?" I asked as we walked away from the yard
Kace responded casually "It's the middle of the night, do you think the kitchens have started cooking breakfast so early?" he asked before lighting a torch from a nearby hanging lantern before handing it to me. "You will hold the torch as punishment for asking a stupid question and because I really don't want to smell like tar for a few days after our walk through the woods." he laughed
We all followed the road out of the west gate till the road ended at the edge of a tall and foreboding forest, we found a game trail pretty quickly and started to head in, hoping we would all make it out alive we all kept close to Sergeant Kace who always pointed us down trails as if on a whim like he didn't care if we got lost or not. This was the point of leaving in the dark, Kace later told us, It wouldn't be true survival training if we knew how to get back easily and could fall back on that if needed. Kace stripped that reassurance from us as other Sergeants were doing to the groups that were starting to spread into the periphery of the large forest.
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