2

"Alright princesses, wake the hell up!"

I groan and rub my eyes as the searing beam of a torch blinds me.

“Morning training, lets go!” Sergeant Blax orders, standing at the front of the tent, clad in full uniform.

“Deqar. Deqar,” I mutter, sitting up and groggily slapping at his face.

“Huh?”

“We’ve got… morning something.”

“Morning what?”

“I dunno,” I respond, slipping into the rough military trousers.

We converse in hushed tones, so as not to draw any attention to the hulking men that bustle around us in the cramped tent, changing into their uniforms.

When we step out of the tent, the cold, fresh early morning air chills me awake. All I can see of the camp are sweeps of torches in the darkness. The rocky soil crunches beneath my books as we follow the others, merging with the girls into one group, standing before Blax.

He gazes at us evenly. “Route D1. I want you back before the sunset ends. Understand?”

The recruits let out a muttered chorus of yes sirs.

“Amethyst,” Blax calls.

She looks up from picking dirt from her nails.

“I trust you’ll show the new recruits where to go, and make sure they don’t fall too far behind, alright?” As he says it, a sickening smile creeps onto his face that makes a shiver run down my spine.

She rolls her eyes, and gives a halfhearted, “Yes sir.”

Deqar and I exchange glances.

The group break into a run. A steady jog that Deqar and I have no difficulty keeping, but we fall to the back of the group still. Unfortunately, this means I don’t get a good view at the glorious bouncing dick hardener behind Amethyst as she leads the way.

The run drags on, and the pitch darkness of the moonless night soon turns to the dull grey of predawn. I marvel at the landscape as the first sunrays break from the horizon.

Tall plateaus appear red in the distance. Massive rock formations look like mega sized modern art sculptures. Towering cliffs littered with caves dwarf the high-rise buildings that paint my memories.

The air, though dusty and dry, is free from the toxic belching of cars, planes, trains and factories. The sunrise ahead of me, though blinding, is infinitely more spectacular than the grey hued midday sun that peeks between skyscrapers. We snake through boulders, up sheer hills of brittle stone and crest into a location that looks like a giant hit it with a massive axe, leaving a crevice of space large enough five of us to stand shoulder to shoulder. Within it, is a series of elaborately set up pieces of metal and rubber. At first I’m confused, thinking it might be a wreckage or a ruin of some sort, and then I realize that I’m looking at an obstacle course.

“Alright, lazy twats,” Amethyst calls, turning on her heel to face us. “There’s no order, there’re no rules. Get to the other side first and you get Viinyar’s portion of the rations. Everybody clear?”

“Who’s Viinyar?” Deqar asks the short, angry faced man beside him, who’s name I read to be Ficlan.

“He’s dead. Shot two days ago on recon,” he mutters back with a shockingly deep voice.

“Alright let’s go!” Amethyst cries.

Everybody breaks into a run.

“Just our kinda thing, huh?” I tell Deqar before taking off after them. Maybe I can get Amethyst to notice me. Maybe she won’t think I’m some little kid if I win.

The first obstacles are tall stacks of tires. At first, everybody weaves through them with ease, but soon the tires become so dense, it becomes impossible to keep a pace, slowing everybody to stuttering jog.

Deqar and I quickly overtake Horgan and one other soldier who’re struggling to keep up. I see Lorick trip and fall into a tire stack, but instead of trying to stop himself, he lurches into it, toppling it down onto Weshleri, the thin black haired girl. Unable, nor willing to stop for her, I’m forced to leap over the scattered tires in my pursuit of the first position.

When I finally break free of the tire forest, I’ve slipped before I can register what’s happening.

I’m sliding down an immensely muddy hill, with no source of traction whatsoever, directly towards a gushing, white water river! At first I think I’ve taken a wrong turn, until I see several others sliding down ahead of me. I regain my senses, and see Janns, who’s just overtaken Amethyst in the slide, reach the edge of the river and grab onto a muddy rope, stretching across the water diagonally.

As I’m sliding, I see Amethyst reach the end of the hill, and somehow find the balance to pull herself into a frog position and launch herself at the rope, with Janns clinging onto it. She lands a solid kick to his back sending him plunging into the icy water, and manages to grab the rope in her fall, hooking her legs around and traversing on like a sloth.

Shit.

Others trail after her and she’s nearly onto the other side by the time I’m about to reach the end of the slope.

Unsure what to do, I open my legs, like as if I’m intending to crush my balls, but lean over to the left. When I hit the rope, I catch it under my right knee and swing around, over it once and wrap my arms around it like a baby to their mothers leg.

Sloth climb. Go!

The icy water hisses at me with frosty breath, licking at my back. How on earth can a river be this cold in the bloody desert? By the time I reach the other side, I’ve caught up to the guy ahead of me, named Cherthur, and see him trying to scrabble up the river bank. I pull myself as far up as possible, then flip down onto the precariously edge back, and shuffle up after him.

You know what? Screw this bastard.

I poise, then launch myself upwards, grabbing onto his ankle.

“You dick!” he cries, just as I yank with all my force.

He easily looses grip of the slippery surface and slides down into the river with futile attempts to grab me.

I haul myself onto dry land just as Deqar drops onto the river bank.

Scrambling to my feet and breaking into a run, I see the squat figure of Ficlan, neck and neck with Sekera, who I can easily identify by the flashing colors of her hair. Ahead of them is Lorick, and then Amethyst, who’s just reached what looks like a slanted rock climbing wall.

I pump harder, run faster and channel my mind into propelling me further. By the time Deqar is running after me, I’ve closed much of the distance between me and Ficlan and Sekera.

I hurl myself onto the wall, grunting as I smack into it with too much force, and begin to scale upwards like a spider. I see Ficlan literally stop halfway up and gawk as I overtake him. Sekera, crafty as she is, uses this opportunity to kick his knee, sending him tumbling down, nearly into Deqar.

I pass her just as I’m reaching the top of the wall, but as I’m clambering over the edge she grabs my ankle. I grunt and kick out, then hesitate as I see her grinning like a maniac.

She uses me to pull herself up, then literally grabs at my dick. I wince and thrash as she pulls my collar, then plants a foot on my thigh and shoots forwards. Recovering quickly, I spin myself like a top, managing to kick her ankle.

She yelps and tumbles to the ground as I scramble towards her. She pulls herself up, but I body check her back down. Crazy bitch.

Alright, it’s just Lorick between me and Amethyst now. I cross the bracing stretch of dusty earth to reach the next challenge. It’s a sort of elevated metal beam, crossing a wide gorge with a branch of the river running beneath it. Dangling from the beam are ropes with tires attached to them. Amethyst swings from tire to tire like a monkey, not as far ahead as I’d thought, while Lorick is pulling himself up onto one. There must’ve been a struggle between them, and Lorick had probably been nearly sent to a watery failure.

Thinking quickly, I don’t even bother with the tires, but leap into the air and grab the metal beam. From there, I move on like I’m doing monkey bars, going from hand to hand.

I’ve caught up to Lorick by the end. My feet are at his eye level, so I give him a nice kick for good luck and scramble after Amethyst. I’m just getting my pace when I’m literally slide tackled.

Sekera pulls herself off me and tries to escape, but I grab her by the calf and pull her down. She tries to knee me in the stomach, but hits my ribs instead. I roll backwards onto my upper back with my legs in the air and lock my feet around her chest. Before she can react I slam her down with all the force my core can manage, and hastily clamber to my feet again.

In the distance, I see the unmistakable triangular figure of Blax, next to a buggy. But between me and him, are a series of tall, wide hurdles. They’re too close together to leap over continuously, too high to vault each one without losing major momentum, and too low to duck under without going into a weird duckwalk.

Lorick, who’s overtaken me, is desperately vaulting over them at a laughably slow pace. Amethyst, is vaulting, then using her downwards momentum and ducking, then springing up and vaulting. A good tactic that keeps her moving much faster than Lorick, but not fast enough for me to catch up to her.

I tear forwards and reach the first hurdle. I beg whatever overlord there is to give me perfect accuracy as I fling myself up. I land perfectly atop the first hurdle with my right foot.

No stopping.

Loss of momentum means you’ve fallen.

I barrel forwards, running atop the hurdles like some sort of action hero.

I overtake Lorick quickly, but Amethyst’s still got a sizeable lead on me. Not that much time left. I run faster, gaining on her and quickly closing the distance between us. This will be tight.

As I cover the last few hurdles between us, the end of the course draws near. It’s on the fourth last hurdle that I’m at par with her, and on the third last I’m ahead by a fraction of a meter.

It’s on the second last hurdle when I’m kicked solidly in the ankle.

It’s on the last hurdle of the entire damn race that I land, ribs first onto.

I hit the hard dusty ground, nearly breaking my collarbone, and tumble to a halt. Through blurry, spinning vision, I see Amethyst reach the finish like as I struggle, weakly to my elbow, one arm holding the right side of my ribcage.

Sekera passes me, laughing and shooting me a hysterical grin.

Once I’m on my hands and knees, I feel the force of an elephant crush me down, and the wind pushed from my chest. From ground level, I see Lorick chasing after Sekera, but not managing to reach her before the finish.

Bloody hell.

Somebody’s hands scoop under my armpits and haul me to my feet.

Deqar cringes and swings one of my arms over his. Together we limp past the finish line.

Amethyst sits on the hood of the buggy, twirling two stones between her fingers. Sekera giggles with an apologetic look. Lorick sneers smugly. Blax’s face is blank behind his blue shades, but I feel an aura of disappointment or disapproval. Not sure which one.

Deqar helps me down, propped up against a rock as the others start to trickle in. I pull up my shirt, cringing through the pain of the action, and wince as I see a large, blue-black splotch from beneath my right nipple to the end of the midsection of my ribcage.

“Erk, that looks bad,” Deqar comments. “Think anything’s broken?

“The hell am I supposed to know?”

Deqar knees in front of me, then prods the center of the bruise. “Does that hurt?”

“Of course in freaking hearts!” I hiss.

“Can you breathe? Like, well?”

“That hurts too.”

Sekera, with her colorful hair pads over to us. “Eesh, bad first day, huh?”

I show her the middle finger, and she holds both hands up in defense. “Hey man, there’re no rules, remember? Anyway, you did more damage to me than I did to you. Amethyst got you real good, didn’t she.”

I grunt.

“Yeah, she usually wins the races and gets the extra food. That plus how much she exercises is probably why she’s so… filled out,” she says, biting her lip.

“Would you buzz off?” I sneer.

“Don’t be such a dick,” Deqar tells me under his breath.

Blax clears his throat, and silence quickly envelopes the group. “Good run today. One of you, as usual, managed to make the set time. Congratulations Amethyst.”

She gives a strong salute. Freaking teacher’s pet.

“And two of you,” Blax continues, “Managed to get the threshold time. Congrats, Lorick and Sekera.”

Lorick smiles, and Sekera gives an exaggerated sweeping bow. I growl.

“The rest of you, however, need to work on that. I expect extra practice from you lot. This is unacceptable by all standards.”

The group are silent and dip their heads in shame. Blax nods, clambers into his buggy and drives off.

“You’re a dick and a half Amethyst,” Janns laughs, finally reaching us. A puddle forms where he stands.

“Sorry you couldn’t make me wet if you tried,” Amethyst says back, then slides into a lunge.

The group laugh and start trekking the long way back to the camp.

Deqar moves to help me, but I swat him away. “I’m fine.”

He shrugs. “Suit yourself, macho man.” He trails behind the others.

It’s just me, trying to get to my feet through the pain, and Amethyst, who’s just finishing up her stretches. I can’t help my gaze. It’s as if she’s taunting me. In a gimmick to try and prolong my view, I slump back down with a sigh.

She finishes and looks over at me. I resume my struggle to stand.

She walks over to me, looking like she’s about to kick me back down. She stops and stares me right in the eye. “Sorry.”

“What?” I say, blankly.

“Sorry about earlier. It was a dick move, I know.”

“Yeah you battered me real bad,” I say, treading carefully so as to not insult her.

“D’you want me to check if anything’s broken?” she asks.

My heart races inside my chest, despite my exhaustion. “Um, yeah. I mean, if you want to. If you know how, that is.”

She gets down on her knees, and moves up, my legs between hers. She leans over, like as if she’s about to suck me off. Her long, gentle, perfectly maintained, hands slide over my chest.

Butterflies are taking a mixture of meth, cocaine and heroin in my stomach.

It probably did hurt as she prods me, but I barely felt a thing, struggling not to stare down her cleavage. “Looks like you’re good. Strong of you, most people would’ve broken a few ribs in a fall like that.”

She’s complimented me. She’s basically crawled on me. This can work. I can make this work.

Just as I’m thinking, she stands up and offers me a hand. I take it and let her pull me to my feet. My legs, jelly from the amount of running I’ve done, collapse a little, making our bodies touch. Her incredible hands catch me at my sides. It tickles in the most orgasmic way possible.

“Do… do you want to…” my breath is ragged as I try to form words, lost in her hazel eyes.

“Do I want to?” she asks, a sly smile creeping onto her face.

“Do you want to… you know… shag?” I muster the confidence to pull one of my trademark lopsided smiles.

Hers disappears, and one eyebrow shoots up. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, shit, no sorry I meant-”

“What the hell do you think I am? Some sort of city slut? I’m freaking twenty seven, you’re like twelve.”

“I’m sixteen,” I correct.

“And you look like a goth scarecrow,” she takes a long step away from me. “You haven’t even got a hint of facial hair.”

My hand moves defensively to the whiskers on my chin.

“Maybe we can talk when you grow some pubes,” she says, turning away and striding after the others, now mere dots on the horizon.

My gaze trickles down her back, to her…

“Pervert!” she hollers, looking me directly in the eye.

Shit.

She walks on, and I’m left alone, too bruised to keep up.

You’ve really messed that one up, Kallix. You’re used to slutty city girls. Your perverted sack of bones can’t get a goddess like this. Hell were you thinking? Deqar stands a better chance of getting her now, and he’s freaking gay! Blasted shitty hormones.

I look down, to see a tall standing cone in my pants.

“What the hell?” I ask my dick. “What the hell was that? You blew it for me, you know that? You too brain, you’re a real twat, you know that?”

I lift my hands, then let them fall to my sides.

Nice one.

A familiar throbbing tension ache seeps into my shoulder. I groan. At least that hasn’t ditched me. “You’ll stick with me until the end, right horrid throbbing tension pain?” I ask, slamming my fist down into my shoulder, cracking my neck and stretching my head as far as I can to the right. Screw this. I pop a pill. No, you know what? Screw all of this shit. Screw them. Screw Blax. Screw Amethyst.

I limp around the rocks, until I find a particularly comfortable spot to recline on. Or at least as comfortable as it can be when it’s made out of rocks. I don’t need those damn bastards. I got myself. That’s all I’ve ever needed and that’s all I ever will need.

But maybe I should’ve brought my sunglasses.