Throughout the next day, Bronze ate and slept on the hospital bed. He was discharged later that night.
Bronze had just arrived at the dorm. He looked at his room number on the watch on his right wrist. Room 311.
He sighed. The first digit signified the floor. The ground floor was 1, the first floor was 2, the second floor was 3, and so on up till the seventh floor. He looked at the empty ground floor that only had fifty rooms as compared to the other floors that had 200 private rooms per floor.
Just the previous day, he had shared a room on the ground floor with give or take, a hundred other recruits. But after, standing under the sun for the whole day after a sleepless night, he now had his own room.
On the second floor.
"That is two flight of stairs to go." He murmured to himself. "That's too far!" He grumbled. He was still feeling slightly fatigued. The military hospital beds did not promote comfortability. Rather, they were only slightly better than sleeping on the bare floor.
Bronze began to walk up the stairs. Slow and steady. He reminisced on his time so far at the academy, as he went up, one step at a time.
Everything they have done so far. Everything they have been put through. They all centered around discipline, physical strength, speed and endurance, and in a way, covering one another's back and fostering some rudimentary sense of friendliness. He had made friends with lots the hundred or so people he was forced to share the same room with.
Their closeness was borne majorly from their collective hate and fear of Officer Bridgestone.
Personally, Bronze did not know how to feel about that flip-switch Officer. One time, he was speaking calmly, the next, he was yelling savagely, with spittle subtly flying out of his mouth. One time he would be asking for an answer, the next, he would be raging at you for giving an answer.
"Maybe he is bipolar!" That was the only conclusion he could come up with that did not seem too absurd.
He finally reached the second floor, slightly out of breath. Even his enhanced physique that naturally gave him greater strength, speed and endurance, as well as tougher skin, did not stop him from feeling fatigued. Only a good night sleep on a comfortable bed could relieve him of such. Luckily, for him, his bed was not far from where he stood. Only eleven doors away.
With that thought, he walked briskly to the door that had Room 311 boldly written on it. He opened it with his palm placed randomly on the door and immediately slumped on his bed. Lights out.
On the other hand, Silver, who had slept the previous night, through the whole day and did not wake up till the sun had almost set and was already out of sight, finally opened his eyes. He looked around the dark room. There was barely any light. Just a candle-like bulb that cast a gloomy shadow everywhere. IT gave the room a creepy feel.
Silver did not find it creepy though. He felt right at home. The shadows seemed to invite him for a dance. He smiled and tried to stand but his legswould not cooperate. They were numb and ached badly. His leg muscles spasmed consistently and annoyingly.
Then, his stomach grumbled, reminding him he had eaten nothing for the past two days. He did not even drink water after they were dismissed.
Groggily, he grumbled, grabbing his banging head. He forced himself up and went to the bathroom. He took a cold shower that did very little to improve his mood, then went to get himself something to eat.
The cafeteria was open very late unlike the other days, to cater for students like Silver that were just waking up. Silver had a huge dinner, eating a lot of everything until he was full, before returning to his new room.
He slowly climbed up the stairs, pleased with the dim lighting that seemed to cater for those with darkness affinities, without being too dark, such that even those with night blindness could still comfortably find their way around. It was very considerate.
He went up the first flight of stairs, then the second and finally arrived in front of the door to his room on the second floor.
He paused to take a good look at his door.
Room 312.
That was what the bold writing said.
He put his palm on the door and two seconds later, the door hummed and unlocked.
He entered the room, took a careful look around, burning everything in the room and their exact positions to memory.
He went to the small wardrobe by the bed and opened it up. All he saw were uniforms. Seven of them. Exact same color. Exact same size. They were his!
The seven were most likely the academy's way of telling one that they had one for each day and hence had no reason to appear dirty and or unkempt.
Like a kind senior once briefed them one night in their ground floor room; "After you get your approvals and are given your private rooms, you must ensure above all things that your rooms and uniforms are forever kept neat, pressed and well-kempt. Any blotch on your uniforms during the early morning inspections will put you under such consequent daily scrutiny, that you will develop OCD."
He ensured he was prepared for the next morning and the door was well locked. Then, he checked around for any camera signs before finally going to bed. As he slowly drifted to sleep, he thought of his mama. She was doing fine, right?
The next morning, at four in the morning, a trumpet sounded loudly in each and every private room that was occupied.
"Rise and Shine students." Officer Bridgestone's voice resounded through the halls, and passageways.
"You have until this music ends to clean your rooms up, put on your uniforms and stand outside your doors in a straight line. Your backs must be facing the doors and the soldiers on duty will be around to inspect you immediately the song ends. You will be duly punished for lacking areas and will be given a red strike. Three red strikes and your dumb asses will be kicked back to probationary floor."
And with that said, a tune began to play.
The fifty-three students jumped off their beds to their. They hurried through the cleaning and bathing and dressing up as they could not determine how much time it would take before the tune ended. Shirts were worn and tucked into trousers that were pulled and buckled, boots were pulled on and laced and hair were combed, brushed, gelled, oiled, whatever tickled their fancies.
Officer Bridgestone stood at the end of the second floor's corridor right above the stairs. He watched quietly as the two soldiers inspected the students' outfits and three third-year students inspected the rooms.
"Student Brady James. Step forward. What the hell is this?" A student asked as he came out of room 319, holding a strand of hair. "Is this your definition of pristine?"
"It… it is just a strand of hair, uh, sir?" Student Brady James said.
Big Mistake!
"Bwahahahahahahaha!!! Just a strand of hair!!" The soldier laughed out loud. "Drop down and give me thirty."
"What?"
"Oh dear motherland!" The student exclaimed. "Make it forty."
"For… forty?"
"Still asking questions? Make it sixty."
"I… I don't understand, sir." Brady stammered. Too bad his words infuriated the senior even more.
"You still dare to play dumb?"
The Thin blond boy beside him who was a head taller than Bronze could not take it anymore.
"Goddamnit, Brady!" HE cussed. "Just do the damn sixty pushups before you get the rest of us in trouble."
"Oh!" Brady exclaimed and immediately began pumping the pushups, his long hair covering his face and rubbing the floor like a mop. "One… two… three…"
"You!" It looked like the senior wasn't done. He pointed at the thin tall blond hair. "I like you. What's your name?"
"Greenwood, sir!" Blond-haired Greenwood responded proudly, standing straight and tall as he responded.
"Greenwood?" The Senior had an odd, judgmental look on his face as his head slowly bobbed downwards and back up. He had just taken a thorough scan of Greenwood's body.
"I don't know where your parents got the 'green' idea from but I can understand the 'wood' part of your name. From today henceforth, you will be regarded as 'Wood'! Any objections?"
"No. None, sir!" Greenwood, sorry, Wood responded shaking his head.
"I like you more and more." The Senior said, his eyes scanning through each of the fifty-three in the corridor.
Just then, Officer Bridgestone arrived in front of them. He looked at his watch.
"The time is exactly thirty minutes past four. You have three minutes to meet me out on the field. A second later and you can forget about breakfast. And you better not think of leaving anyone behind. One slacker and you are all slackers. Do you understand?"
"Yes Sir!" The group of first-years roared in response. Their voices echoed through the corridor.
"Your time starts now!" Officer Bridgestone abruptly disappeared in a cascading blend of thin lines and dust-like dots made up of blue lights. Officer Bridgestone's image disappeared into millions of pixels that quickly faded out as well.
The students froze. What the heck? That was merely a hologram? Why was it so realistic?
They were all frozen in shock and awe of the technology available to the military. All, except the guy who had his left eye punctured on the first day of running. Training usually only began for the first years after they had survived the stance and endurance test. This meant that today was their first official day of training.
The guy now wore an eye patch over his left eye. He reached the stairs and looked behind him only to realize that the others were still standing, stupidly looking at the same spot.
"Hey!" HE yelled. "I do not intend to miss breakfast because of you lot."
That woke them up. Brought them back to the present. Cursing aloud, they all scurried for the stairs.
Eyepatch led the way, because he was already very ahead of them to begin with, while Bronze stayed behind to help whoever was moving too slowly. After all, Officer Bridgestone had said, 'One slacker, all slackers'. And he did not intend to miss breakfast either.
Many of them practically jumped down the stairs. The stairs were built in a way that they had to run down the first flight of stairs, run through the corridor of the first floor to the other side to reach the second flight of stairs that linked them to the ground floor.
"One minute left." A lady screamed as they reached the bottom floor.
They all sprinted towards the field. This field was different from the ones they had used all these while. The field they were headed towards was located farther away and was a lot larger.
As the first person, Bea, arrived at the field's gate with thirty seconds to spare and almost immediately, she saw Officer Bridgestone standing in the middle of the field.
At the same time, Officer Bridgestone saw them and yelled; "I said in front of me!"
"F*ck!" Wood cursed loudest and dashed alongside the others. They had less than twenty seconds left and more than three kilometers to cover.
They were yells and groans and chants of sh*t, sh*t, sh*t.
"Sorry guys!" Bea said and suddenly sped up, leaving the rest in the dust.
Officer Bridgestone looked at his watch and loudly counted down.
"Five… four… three… two…"
Whoosh!
Bea's petite body arrived in front of him, skidding to a stop and blowing some wind in the Officer's face.
"… One!"
Silver appeared beside Bea.
Officer Bridgestone looked at Silver with an understanding look. Silver had hitched a ride in Bea's shadow. Very practical, very resourceful.
He looked at the relatively fast-approaching fifty-one and sneered derisively. They arrived in front of him, wasted, exhausted but none dared to show it. They kept a proper posture and stood in a straight line.
"Too slow!" He yelled. "You are all missing breakfast which is good for you. Why? Because since you will have nothing to do within that time period, I have taken it upon myself to lecture you on the rules binding the military and its academy students. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir!" They all yelled their response unanimously but many of felt like bursting into tears. Already, some of them were hungry. Their developing bodies and awakening gifts required various nutrients and lots of it. Not to mention, hunger wasn't a good feeling.