She got up the next morning and went to the refectory. This morning, they were being served food first. It was a way to welcome them to the hardship that was about to begin, unbeknownst to them.
She sat at a long table with 12 others. The other 13 people were seated at another table. There wasn't any discussion between anyone. The situation they were in didn't allow it. Yesterday, they had trained and trained and trained. The witch, Faye had kept on screaming like a maniac; ranting on and on about how real soldiers never got tired.
She sighed and ate silently. The so-called meal was just a bowl of oatmeal. The plainest and most unremarkable of oatmeal. It had a murky white color, and had quite a coarse texture on the tongue as if the husks from the oats were present in it. Her taste buds were sunken from the blandness of the oatmeal. Noone dared to complain as they knew the consequences of it.
As she sat and ate, her thoughts drifted to the events of yesterday. All the people who were sent out_ what became their fate? She wondered. She remembered her 1-day friend, Leyla. If all went normally, they might have become real friends, but she had also been sent out.
The events of that day replayed in her head like an old movie.
"Hi, I'm Leyla." she said and smiled. She was very pretty with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was tall and slim with a tiny chest.
"I am Arianna."
"Arianna." She exaggeratedly gasped. "You have a beautiful name." she said and Arianna chuckled.
"Your name is also beautiful," she paused. "Are you a human?" She asked. She couldn't really tell the difference between the races as everyone looked like humans. She could only pinpoint it sometimes.
Unlike humans, other races had many different species. An example was the female demon, Shannon. She had pale dark blue skin, and thin sheets on her skin that looked like scales. They called her type, 'Daimon Caeruleus'. Every race had a particular specie that was characteristic of them only, and although many out of their populations all looked common, there were slight differentiations to them.
Humans had no species, but had very simple differentiations such as some with brown skin. These differentiations were too unremarkable to be classified as special.
"I'm half-human, half-fairy." she whispered. The ears of some wolves moved and they turned towards her sharply. Wolves had sharp hearing so they might have heard what she said. "Do not tell anyone." she whispered.
Arianna looked at her with question marks all over her face. She wanted to speak, when Leyla preempted her and answered the question on her mind. "Do not worry they do not know what I said. They heard something else. I learnt this spell from my mom." she said reassuringly.
Arianna still had a question on her mind, but because of the fear of being heard, she kept shut and to herself. She had no magic, so her words would come out whichever way she said it.
"Okay," she nodded in understanding and took the last bite of her meal_the one they were served during the recruitment. She was about to say something when a soldier came forth.
"You will now be divided into units of your races," he said and swept a look around all of them, sending shivers down their spines.
He began calling out first, the witches. With a high level of organization, coordination and skill, he completed the exercise perfectly, and within optimal time.
Back then, Arianna didn't see Leyla in their division, so she thought she had followed the fairies. To her, it was better because she wouldn't be discriminated and she would improve her fairy skills. But surprisingly, during their trek, she and Leyla had somehow met up again.
It was Leyla that made the journey interesting and not tiring for her.
Leyla had said at that time that she didn't want to go with the fairies because they would definitely cast her out if they discovered she had human blood in her.
Fairies believed in pureline and they wanted all fairies to grow in a pure habitat with no corruption. Humans were full of deceit and lies and they were the worst beings a fairy would ever match with. It wasn't usually spoken of, but everyone knew it was completely unacceptable.
Back to the real world.
"Would you not eat a little faster? Our time would soon elapse." A girl in front of her said, pulling her out of her reverie.
She looked up at her and for the first time since she came here, she actually saw someone. All the time, she had been looking at people and not seeing them.
The girl in front of her looked a lot like Leyla with blonde hair and blue eyes. The difference was that this girl looked a bit fuller in size and she looked more womanly. Maybe about 25 years old.
Her words made her remember her best friend Beth. Beth cared about her in the same way.
'Oh Beth!' She thought and cried silently in her heart.
"I remembered someone and it's quite disheartening." Arianna said.
"You are not alone." The girl said. "I could not sleep last night because I was thinking about my home." She said and sighed.
Arianna simply nodded.
There was a three-second silence.
"I am Eira, by the way. Eira Huffington." The girl said breaking the silence.
"I am Arianna. Arianna Thompson" Arianna returned.
The conversation ended there, and the rest of the meal was eaten in absolute silence. Arianna finished and handed in her bowl. She walked to the field ready for training. She was probably the last person to arrive as Eira had even left before her. She was surprised that she didn't notice that there was noone else in the refectory when she left.
The bell was rung that moment, signalling the end of the breakfast. She sighed in relief. She would have gotten whipped if she had been even one second late.
The general and the other officials were already present. The general stood up from his chair, with four whips in his hands, and four men accompanying him.
He raised his hands up and the four men took the whips from his hands. They immediately walked to them, whipping them.
Shrill cries were heard every now and then. You wouldn't know when you'd be hit and why; so you could only endure the pain.
Arianna hissed as she felt the whip wrap around her neck and loosen. It happened in a second and after two seconds, she felt the pain of being whipped. She hissed in pain. It was so painful. She had never experienced such. She held her neck and almost cried but another whip hit her back. She fell on her knees.
Those men kept whipping people. If you had fallen on the floor, they would whip you harder. The air was filled with cries of pain.
Arianna was about to faint when she saw someone who had fainted being kicked to a wall at a far distance. The man kept kicking that person, and it was obvious that if he didn't wake up anytime soon, he would kick him to death. Arianna didn't want such a fate, so she clenched her teeth and stood up.
She stood still and withstood it. The moment she stood and started taking in the floggings without falling, the general told her to walk out of the crowd.
She felt satisfied. She walked out weakly and stood at a far distance from the crowd. Soon, many noticed what was happening and they replicated what Arianna had done.
The man raised his hand at a point and the whipping stopped. The four men walked over and handed him the whips. Two people had died from this treatment. Their bodies had been disposed already. Such cruel fate. Some others were severely injured and lay sprawled on the ground in their own pool of blood. Everyone had sustained countless injuries. Such unfair treatment.
"Whenever you gather at the training grounds, you must line up and stand like a soldier because that is what you have become!" the general's voice rang throughout the grounds.
The four men made to take back their whips, but everyone quickly understood and arranged themselves in lines_ even those who were severely injured. The lines weren't straight and so the men resumed flogging.
The flogging went on until everyone on the grounds stood straight and tall like a soldier. The crowd was quiet and the former chatter was gone. The general had a satisfied smile on his face.
"Soldiers must be ready! Soldiers must be organized! Soldiers must always be prepared for whichever situation they are in! And that is what you all are going to become!" The general forced out every single word from his throat, with a scream.
Arianna sighed heavily. The army was tougher than she thought. Truth be told, it had exceeded her expectations.
Whip! She got whipped again for sighing.
The general sat back on his chair and looked at them for 2 hours straight. Their legs were shaking and their whole body was sweaty. He laughed coldly and suddenly pointed at someone.
"You! Run ten laps around the lines!" the man he pointed at came out and immediately started running round the lines. He ran the complete ten laps and stopped.
"Applause!" the general stated and everyone clapped two times simultaneously. They had learnt it last night.
'That is not an applause!' Arianna thought.
"You! Run ten laps around the lines!" he pointed at another person.
He kept up with this until all 24 of them had run ten laps.
Then they began marching. They marched around the entire area of the unit. They marched for nearly five hours and people started to faint.
Arianna thought she could hold on. She tried to keep her eyes open, but her head was spinning rapidly. In about 25 seconds and after a few more fierce fights between extreme fatigue and the will to stay awake, she succumbed to exhaustion and fainted. The last thing she saw was the disappointment on the general's face before she fainted. She knew she was done for.
...
Screech.
Her eyelids shook. She woke up groggily and was confused for a moment. After a few seconds, she remembered the events that occurred before her death. The marching and running and whipping. They all led to her almost inevitable death.
Speaking of death, had she died? She touched her body and looked at her surroundings. She was currently in a Hamada desert. The air was hot and dry.
She had heard many tales of the afterlife. One which she heard was about how one would journey in the wilderness and struggle to survive until they got to paradise. Was that her fate after she died?
She had been too busy thinking and didn't realize that a vulture had been pecking at her leg.
She was afraid of many animals. Vultures were no so exception. She frantically kicked it away and stood up to run. She saw that many bodies like hers were scattered on the floor. These people hadn't woken up yet.
Of one of the bodies, she saw Eira, the girl who had spoken to her earlier. She limped to the her and tapped her to wake up.
"Eira, wake up. Eira, wake up." She said.
After three failed attempts, she turned around and limped away. She had no recollection of where she was at. It wasn't the path she and the others had followed when going to their unit, so she didn't even know where she was at.
She decided to go wherever her feet took her. Due to a severe case of hypoglycemia, and the injury on her ankle caused by the vulture, she could only weakly limp. She even felt a dull pain in her stomach as she limped. It seemed she was kicked. It was possible that one her kidneys had become swollen.
As she walked on, she saw the two hundred or so bodies piled on the ground like clothes. People who were initially recruits for the Ayshan army.
She sighed and once again thought, 'Such cruel fate'.