What are you afraid of? My inner voice asked. I had no answer. I was at the bottom of the elevator shaft leading to the fortieth floor, staring at my choices. My restlessness had escalated into a nervous shuddering of the legs.

The city is at war. The slaves need to prepare. I’ll visit another time. All were excuses; each one more concrete than the other, and strong enough to keep me from stepping forward.

It was the result of the cultivation, the mental hypnotism that ruled the social status of our society. Soldiers are better than workers; slaves are the lowest of the low; failure is unacceptable; these ideas had been planted so deep our minds, everyone believed them for the truth. Hence, workers didn’t go against the soldiers, and soldier’s favored death over life as a slave.

I fear of the slaves was also a result of the same cultivation. How could I be displeased with the soldiers when I had also accepted death to escape that fate? Though, in my case, I hadn’t stayed dead.

But your Princess won’t stay in the city for long. The voice whispered again, causing my heart to skip a beat. Precipitation dripped from my head, nervous temper causing me distress. She’s going to leave soon. You know it, and you can’t stop her. You can only go with her, or stay behind. The choice is yours. All that matters is whether you want her or not?

The steps felt heavy. Expectations and considerations chained my feet. I wasn’t alone last time. It had been Princess Tinbuji’s decision to bring me there, not my choice. This time the choice was mine, my decision. And it gave me the jitters.

Forcing someone through a thorny bush wouldn’t kill them, but the thorns will leave their marks on the body. And neither the person nor the bush remains the same afterward.

It’s all but a matter of perspective.

Sometimes you protect others by putting your life on the line. Other times you put the line behind you and make a new path.

I was in that kind of situation.

The fortieth-floor training ground was silent. It wasn’t empty, but the opposite of it. Soldiers lined the chambers back to back, waiting in patience for the morning light to shine, and the committee to announce its decision. There was however no fighting.

Training, the voice said. But where you are going there will be fighting.

Instead, there was a cold war in progress — a suppression of emotions so hard that the restless energy had taken a new form there.

There was no nervousness in the air, only dread determination. The soldiers were ready to earn their worth. They believed themselves ready.

The termites had broken all common norms by bypassing everything and directly attacking the mother city. Our opponents had shown unbelievable courage and tenacity. They had left us no place to hide or run. The embers might not be as hot as fire, but they were not cold either. A spark burned in the chests of us all.

This time would be different. This won’t be a war for the expansion of territory or a hunt for food, but cold and raw revenge. There may seem no difference between a war for revenge and food, but those who have lived long enough understands it.

There were almost no scents in the air. Everyone was deep in thinking. No movement I could sense or vibrations to sess. The city had lost its hum to the growing unease.

My presence broke the soldier’s concentration, and their antennae moved erratically at my entrance.

A questioning scent asked the reason behind my sudden appearance, and the chamber cackled with the clicking of angry mandibles and raging pheromones. I rushed away from them, down the path, on to the next chamber that was also occupied.

A new chamber had been carved into the wall and a pit dug in its center, opposite the site where marksman once practiced. There were soldiers standing at the rim of the pit, pushing something back inside that was screaming and scenting, hungry for murder, for escape.

It smelled of wood inside, of dead rotting wood. The same smell as the termites, the mad, crazy kind that couldn’t be killed with poison. Realization dawned over me. They hadn’t killed them all! Some had been kept! It was horrifying information. I sped up; away from them, from it, from everything, toward the 41st floor.

There were soldiers at the exit, but I wasn’t stopped. I almost rolled down the slope leading to the dark pit, the infectious hell. Pain exploded around me as I slid to a stop. The scents down there contained an unreadable degree of madness. It was a compound of everything nauseating and bad. There was no laughter there, neither anticipation and nor excitement. Only hunger lived in those tunnels.

The number of injured had increased and had the number of those recovering. I could have been one of them or one of those thrown into the pit, outside. If a soldier hadn’t timely killed the termites I had stabbed in a fit of emotional relapse, it would have certainly injured me at least.

The wounded had doubled since yesterday. It was sickening, this dark side of the war. Anyone who wasn’t strong enough was shoved away down these sewers of the city and left to rot or die.

The scents were searing all the way. After a point they grew so heavy and dense I had to tuck my antenna away. It was cold there, shivering.

Why leave the wounded there to die? What did it accomplish? Was this a warning to the soldiers so they won’t grow lazy —an emotional determent for the slaves so they won’t try anything oddly brave? It was a show of authority and it had me afraid, so it clearly worked —at least on someone like me.

My head buzzed; a notification covered my sight, and instantly I felt a cold relief wash over my mind. The relief was paltry but enough to get me going again.

You have already been through this once, so why does it overwhelm you? I don’t understand you sometimes.

You have acquired a new skill: Overwhelm resistance.

[Overwhelm][Tier-1][Lv-1/10][Resistance]

[Mind is a sensitive faculty. It works best under suitable condition but put a bit more pressure than the threshold and it easily breaks.]

[Effect: protects your mind from various kinds of harmful auras and energies.]

[Reward: Your intelligence increases by .1 points every skill level.]

The mercenary cavern was warm. It was a blessing in disguise that they had the cavern. The soldiers would have already taken over if it was any other place, but not from them. The odor of fungus was strong here. It was a source of food and not the parasitic kind. The slaves ate the green. That was their food, their way of keeping alive. Protein was sent down, but only sometimes. The city wouldn’t waste its resources on them. Only their numbers matter to her, not strength.

It was finally their time to be tested and a few of the survivors would be allowed back into society. Unlike the soldiers, they were hard at work. Twice as hard, I should say, because they were training, —Fighting, corrected the voice— with even more vigor. Their bodies glowed under the bright crystal light. The soldiers would have a future if they returned intact in one piece, but they would need to show their vigor or it was back to the slave pen with green fungus and death’s odor for company.

These recovered slaves, both foreign and native, hadn’t set up rings like the soldiers above but were simulating a real war with real consequences.

No deaths, but real pain.

The marksmen —the scant few that had lost their identity as soldiers or raised as slaves from the beginning— were raining poison upon the warriors, the lot of them that was trying to pass the trenches dug in the ground and pebbles put as obstacles, and reach the other side of the cavern.

The poisons odor wasn’t strong, meaning the marksmen weren’t using a concentrated mix but a diluted solution, one that would sting for sure, might even take the soldiers out, but not kill or injure them. The purpose of the activity was to gain experience, and nothing else. There was only one place they would be allowed to die, and it was not here.

Further past them were two opposite groups of soldiers rushing at each other and taking each other out with strength alone. There were a few cases where mandibles were used, but tackling each other was the only option allowed.

The captain or the leaders among them were also hard at work to keep the slaves motivated, giving them hope, and even cheering them up.

"You only lose when you admit defeat. You won’t think on the battlefield; you won’t feel on the battlefield. That is not a place for emotions. Cry now if you have to. Fear now if you have to. Think in the middle of a battlefield, and you die. Show compassion, and you die. Become emotional, and you die. You act, you kill, you check if your opponent is dead, and you move onto the next one. Don’t dally, don’t dwindle. Keep your heads up and keep pushing forward."

There is no other place for you lot to go. Is this where you want to come back to?’

NO!

Do you still want to be treated like vagrants with no future?

NO!

Then keep moving. Don’t stop. Forward is the way. Forward is the only option! You open a way into the enemy forces and a way to the city will open for you. Remember: Do not die!

I got Goosebumps all over my body. It was not a speech, but raw and bloody truth. Forward is the only option. The saying was delightfully rich in both sentiments and experience.

I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. I jumped. The aged warrior was standing behind me. When did she get there? She surprised me.

You surprised us both. It was a different, much younger scent. She wasn’t alone. The soldier I had fought and wounded —it had almost healed, but the grey scar that was left behind would keep his arrogance in check in the future— was with her. And he seemed embarrassed to be there.

So what do you think? She said, tapping my head with her antenna. Believe you have what it takes to be one of them?

No. I answered, and kept it short. I had no word to justify the feeling I felt for the slaves.