"You killed us" my father said with multiple wounds on his body.
I backed away scared looking at his broken body, multiple kunais and shuriken going through his body.
I felt something grab my ankles "Damn murderer!" my mother said under my feet.
"You killed us!" my parents' faces began to deform until they were unrecognizable.
I woke up sweating profusely and looked around with adrenaline running through my body.
".....it was a dream" I tried to calm my agitated heart and clenched my fists, my eyes looked at the wall for a long moment.
After a few seconds I managed to stabilize my breathing and looked around, the place was still the same, a small room with a dull color and two bunk beds taking up most of the room.
My eyes looked tiredly at the two young people who were sleeping peacefully.
Takuma was sleeping downstairs, his breathing was calm and soft while Riyuu was snoring loudly, his body was without its grey blanket... It's probably lying somewhere in the room.
I stared at the ceiling for a few seconds and decided to go back to sleep...
Less than 5 seconds later the lights came on and I saw everyone getting up almost robotically and getting dressed. It took me a little longer but I was finally standing next to them as we looked at the door.
Just then a man with the classic mask arrived and dragged us out of the room.
We went through several hallways that led us to a small clearing with many trees. A nauseating smell reached our nose.
"Your mission will be to survive for a month" the voice behind the man's mask was monotonous, voiceless, without a sense of life "each of you take a katana" the man said as he took out a set of katanas and handed one to each of us "put this on too" he said as he showed us a white porcelain mask.
"There will be more groups in the forest and they will be carrying various items, such as rations or camping houses.
"You can fight them for the supplies" he said as he unstrained a backpack and a scroll.
"The mission will not end until the month is over, remember the mission is the most important thing..."
He disappeared in a blink after that. My eyes looked at the mask as I traced the edges of it with my finger.
"We should get ready... The door will open in 5 minutes" Takuma's voice brought us out of our trance and we all nodded in tacit agreement.
I placed the katana on my back and looked at the porcelain mask in my hand, I turned it over and placed it on my face gently. To my surprise the mask adhered to my face easily, my vision was not affected at all and I could even see a little better.
"Ready?" Ayumi asked with a tremble in her voice. We all nodded and right then The doors opened.
We ran into the forest, we entered deep into the woods. My eyes looked around in alarm, but nothing happened.
"We should look for shelter" Takuma's voice caught my attention, making my gaze focus on the front again. Without slowing down, I stood next to them and this time Ayumi was the one who spoke.
"Takuma... What did we get in the backpack?" Right, that was the only thing we didn't check, we were so hasty that Takuma was probably the only one who remembered and carried it on his shoulders.
"We should probably check somewhere safe" he said as his gaze wandered to the trees with distrust.
"Well then we have another burden here" Riyuu's mocking tone surprised me and I looked in his direction. He looked in my direction clearly referring to me.
"Riyuu..." Ayumi said irritatedly.
"Why do we have to carry her? She barely arrived, we have months of learning with this stupid katana" the venom in his voice surprised me, I could have thought he was an energetic and direct boy but the harshness of his words was enough to make me stumble.
"We could hear your stupid whining last night" he pointed at me with his finger.
"That's enough" Takuma's voice cut off Riyuu's argument. "We're in the middle of a mission, Riyuu behave.."
Riyuu scoffed but stayed silent. Ayumi approached me with a half smile "He didn't mean it that way, you know? We're just nervous.."
I looked away and simply nodded, Ayumi looked at me for a few more seconds but then we had to resume our search for shelter.
After a while we came to a small cave big enough for all of us to fit into.
"We'll stay here while we make a plan and check our supplies" Takuma said as he entered the cave.
I could tell that Takuma was a born leader. The four of us entered the cave and settled in together, it was at that moment that Takuma took out his backpack and put it in the middle of us.
"What's in this backpack will decide our course of action," he said with barely concealed nervousness.
We nodded with the same sentiment, Takuma gently opened the backpack and with bated breaths we looked inside. A long sigh came from us as we saw that inside were two packages of food rations.
"That's great!" Ayumi was the first to speak with a big smile.
"It probably won't last long enough..." Riyuu said skeptically. Takuma took out the rations and looked at them for a few seconds.
"It'll be 3 or 4 days at most, if we ration them into 4 portions..." He put his hand on his chin as he thought to himself.
"We can go a day without eating and still have the strength to fight, so we probably won't touch the rations today and instead, search the surrounding area." Takuma spoke with resolve in his voice.
Ayumi and riyuu nodded in agreement with Takuma's plan.
Just like that we decided that riyuu and ayumi would go look for more food while we lit a fire. I looked around outside the cave looking for something that could be used to make a fire, my eyes fell on some wooden logs so I took them. When I arrived I saw that Takuma had already put some dry wood. I put the logs aside and put them as small seats, it was at that moment that Takuma spoke.
"Don't worry about what he said, he just said it because he's scared"
I looked at Takuma for a few moments before nodding "lose.." I sat down on the small log and we stayed in a comfortable silence.
A scream brought us out of our thoughts, it was ayumi. We quickly ran in the direction of the sound, we arrived at a small clearing and saw her standing next to riyuu, they were completely fine. "What's happened-" His words were cut off when he saw the body of a boy our age lying there, without his mask. The small body was cut at the throat, blood filled his face leaving a gloomy aura on the scene.
Takuma grabbed Ayumi by the shoulder and slowly pulled her out of there, Riyuu after a few seconds followed them too. I looked at the body and knelt down next to it, I offered a small prayer and then stood up to leave. A soft red light illuminated my eyes before disappearing..
_________________Day 1 (End)______________