I stand as straight as I could while giving my best not to pay attention to people looking and whispering things about me. They were asking as if I wasn't listening to them whispering my name or not seeing them looking at me and then whispering something to the person beside them. I always know it when I am the one people was talking about.
But I should care less, it's not like their words can kill me. I have always lived like this. having people talk behind my back and I grew up suppressing the urge to talk to them because I know it would just be a waste of time. People won't change their minds even if I talk to them.
"Are you okay?" I heard Yves' voice from behind me. When I looked back briefly, she was looking around. Even Yves knew those people were talking about me.
"Why shouldn't I be okay?" I asked her as if I never knew what she was talking about.
Today is the best day of my life. I shouldn't be paying attention to those people trying to break my happiness.
"I heard you made a commotion last week, " I shouldn't also be paying attention to the person standing tall next to me. "That must be the reason why they were talking about you,"
I snapped.
"Maybe they were talking about me because I got the lowest ranking vampire?" I said. Sarcastically. It made him look at me but instead of giving me an annoyed expression, he smiled at me. Those huge smiles he makes.
"I guess you were right, I'm sorry about that," he smiled at me. I don't know what it would take for him to be angry. Whenever I shoot him the most annoying things, someone could ever say to me, he just smiles as if it was nothing wrong. And it was annoying.
Given the fact that I humiliated myself by talking to the deputy in front of his juniors last week only to get turned down by him. I got mad and did things just what he deserved.
And then I get to stand here, next in line with the most annoying vampire ever. It's only been minutes and I still couldn't get over the annoying smell of his presence. And given the fact that I told him that I wouldn't be seeing him again and then appearing here means I didn't get to do anything about it.
Humiliating. But I couldn't care less. He's just an annoying piece of trash right beside me. I might as well just try to ignore him as much as I could.
The thought of dying on the battlefield because of a vampire like him still haunts me. I don't care about it anymore. I just want to go outside the barrier. Away from anything else. If I die, I might as well just accept it.
But not the fact that it would be because of this smiling machine in front of me. I'm gonna haunt him on my deathbed.
"Attention!" we all stood up straight and stopped talking it was as if a cold wind just passed by in front of me. The hair on my arms started to stand up as the Deputy looks at me while walking. My pride wouldn't let me look away so I continued looking at him the same way he was looking at me. I was forcing my nervous feeling not to show until he looked away and stood right in front of the huge line of Combat pairs standing in front of him.
He said things I couldn't pay attention to. I just stood there thinking about how he turned me down that day. And that I was humiliated in front of my juniors who looked up to me because I stand on top of my batch.
"Now if you have any problem with this system, you may freely leave this stage," he said. he was looking at me. He's trying to humiliate me again.
No one said a thing. Neither did I. I would rather accept that gaze instead of leaving this stage facing the way out of the barrier. Now, I couldn't do that. All my life I've been training. To see what the outside world looked like. And the intense battle outside. I wanted to see real Mages and see how they do battles. I wanted to see how vampires fight with magic.
Though I wouldn't be expecting more from my Vampire.
I unconsciously glanced at Hunter standing next to me and he was also looking at me. He gave me a huge smile but I looked away immediately,
Now that I think about it, I never saw him when we were training with other vampires from the same batch as him. I have never seen this face before.
"Now, if not," he glanced at me again. "I wish you all the best on your journey, Come back Alive batch FCB-302," he said. It almost sounded remorseful. It was as if reality hit me that the chance of dying on this trip is higher than making it alive for the next month.
I wanted to go back for a second. When the huge door opened and the light from outside shone on us from inside made my knees tremble. For an unknown reason or a reason, I'd rather not accept.
"Feeling scared, Human?" I heard him say.
"I'm worried you might die before me," I said. Even though I was terribly trembling inside.
"That's lovely," he said. A response I wasn't hoping for him to tell me. I thought he'd think of it as an insult but he put malice on it. To annoy me. I shot him a quick glare and moved my gaze to the huge door.
A loud noise rang in my ears when it opened completely. It was quiet. Too quiet than I have expected.
I want to go back.
No, I can't. I'll be humiliated.
The platoon leader started walking outside. I followed him while thinking of my life choices. I was trying not to show everyone my knees trembling. I want to go back.
I continued walking outside with the rest of the platoon. My eyes adjusted to the light. And all I saw was a place. All brown. I couldn't see any green, no metal, no houses, just brown, sand.
Sand. It's a thing called sand. I heard the loud noise of the gate closing up. I bent down to touch the sand. It feels good. Just like soil but it's finer and--
I stopped when suddenly, red towels started falling off from the sky. I looked up and saw thousands of them. And I could hear the sound of people wailing inside. They were shouting words I couldn't understand. It took me time to realize that they were waiting for us to go outside and were cheering for us.
They were from the people inside the barrier.
My heart felt warm. this is why I wanted to go out. To protect. To help humankind strive for the future. I suddenly felt excitement overcoming everything I was feeling just earlier.
I held out my hand and caught a red towel. I looked ta it and there were letters written on it.
'WE ARE ROOTING FOR YOU' it said.
"Are you ready to experience real fun?" I hear his voice tell me. I was looking up but I turned my gaze to him. He was looking at me intently while waiting for my response. I looked around. It'd take a few hours to walk to the outside base. With the scorching heat of the sun. "Are you afraid to die?" he suddenly asked me.
"Why are you asking me?" I asked him. My brows started to connect together.
"Well," he stopped midway and slowly looked back at him. I could only see his shoulders I moved back to see what he was looking at and then I heard someone shout.
"We're under attack!!"