I was the first to wake up, as had become the usual standards. The others were faster now. Our first week had focused almost dominantly upon exercises and running. I had a feeling that today was going to be different, however. It was something about the way that the man was looking at us. He had a cruel smile upon his face, one much different from the cruel appearances of earlier.

When everyone was out, he led us to a different room. I had to look towards the floor for a long minute before putting two and two together. The sheen of red against the ground, with the men and women that seemed to be in the far edge. This was the 'culling room', something I'd heard an old soldier talking about once. A room they used to take out the weak.

Given how many people signed up for the drafts, it was definitely something they could afford to do. Our group was only so small because all of us were young. The older age groups had a plentiful amount of people in it. All people who'd die for a cause they likely only half-heartedly believed in.

The blood on the ground looked to be that of broken jaws and slit throats. All weapons were allowed in this room. If you had them on you, you could use them. In the past, the military would commission for people with higher abilities and better methods. Nowadays, any person with a slight bit of muscle on them was allowed in.

I looked towards the other people in the room. Only one of them looked prepared for the slaughter that was about to happen. He just so happened to be the kid standing beside me. He had his lips pursed, and his body was quavering. He understood.

We’d have two weeks after this to figure out how to use a sword. Two weeks to figure out how to draw back a bow. After that, we’d be thrown into the war. There’d likely only be three out of us, given how small the group was. Out of eleven kids, only three would be allowed to make it back in. Especially with how young we were, they’d want us to be effective. The biggest problem with all of this was that they could afford to have us killed off. We were just children, in the end, we wouldn’t matter if we didn’t make it that far.

Standing around the rest of them, I had to remind myself that I had something they didn’t. Even with the shivering now starting to occur around my legs, I had to keep it in my head. It wouldn’t do me well to get scared at this junction. I could survive if I just kept my wits about myself.

“Alright, listen up. I want all of you to branch off into groups of two. We’re only allowing three of you kids out of here alive. After that, you’ll get two weeks of Basic Training, and then you’re out on the battlefield. You’ll have a week of learning all of the calls you’ll need to know, so make sure you’ve got your head around that too. If you don’t, you could get your soldiers killed. Pair up!” The man shouted at us.

It was unspoken that I didn’t pair up with my friend. I wanted to avoid him for as long as I could. I walked across the room and grabbed a random kid by the shoulder. He looked at me with wide eyes, as I pushed the two of us towards a circle.

“Y-you’re that kid...Y-you said you’d be, be okay with d-dying, right? C-c-can you just…” The kid drawled off, his eyes wide, and his entire body shaking.

I was silent for a long moment, as I got into position. I stared towards the General, waiting for the call, “There’s a different between being okay with dying in a war, and being okay with dying before training starts. I have something that might allow me to make things work, and I’m not…” i breathed in, steadying the shaking of my legs, “I’m not willing to die here,”

The General held a whistle in his hand. He brought it up to his mouth, and as soon as he blew out, the world turned into a phase of chaos.

You could hear the children practically screaming. In a seconds worth, everyone was running towards their partner’s in desperation. Mine was the same. He ran with a complete disregard of how to fight properly, and threw his fists in loose stringents towards the sides of my cheek. I reacted by dodging around him, staring towards the calamity that was every other circle. Blood was already spraying across the floor. Screams were echoing out in horror. The one kid who’d been left out of the fight for now stared in absolute shock at the scene.

I reacted then, dodging another punch from the kid and pushing myself in. I whipped a hand out in a fist. I’d been taught to fight from the multiple beatings I’d gained. I threw out my fist in the way I first had when fighting in an alley. The kid didn’t react in the same way my assailant always had, he didn’t dodge. My punch connected to his throat, and he fell backwards. I didn’t wait for him to get back up, I didn’t have the luxury. I jumped on top of him, and pushed my thumbs into his throat.

Blood spattered against the ground as the squelching sound came from his eyeballs. I winced, but kept driving forwards. I punched the kid on the side of the face, basing it in. Yet I could still hear him breathing. In horror, I punched against his throat. Again, and again, and again. But I could still feel him struggling underneath me. I nearly puked as I threw my fist in, begging to bring the kid down.

Falling to the side, I stared at the body. Blood drenched my shirt, and the bashed in skull. A thick sheen of gore covered what had once been a child. His body was still intact, but his face was covered red. It gleamed against the floor as I stood myself up. There were six kids remaining. Some of them were still struggling against the floor. Others were nursing broken legs. One had blood falling from his eye, and a ligament clearly exposed. There were two others like me, who had no injuries whatsoever. One was the person I’d grown to consider a friend, the other was the boy shivering in the corner.

“You will now separate into groups of three,” The General said.

It made the most collective sense. I walked away from the body against the floor in a haze. Hardly thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed the shivering boy in the corner. I could see the General looking at me as I did it. He struggled for a moment, but I managed to pull him to his feet. When we met eyes, I looked into those of the boy that I’d had that argument with on that first day. In a state of delirium, I could almost hear my brain saying, I told you so.

I grabbed another kid. He was taller than me, and seemed to be the least injured of the bunch. He was nursing his left arm, which had an entire bite chunked out of it. We moved into a circle. When everyone else was lined up in their proper circles, the man blew the whistle.

Almost immediately, a punch landed square to the side of my head. I staggered back, staring towards the one who had thrown it. It wasn’t the larger guy. The larger guy set to work almost immediately, punching the kid who had punched me. Than, he lunged forwards, clearly taking a trick from the person who had bitten him, and took an entire shred out of the other boy’s throat. I stared in absolute shock as blood seemed to cascade down the boy’s shirt, and he collapsed.

Two frenzied eyes looked towards me as the slopping skin fell down from his mouth, and onto the floor. An amassment of lungs and other arteries fell alongside that, as the boy spat them from his mouth. Than, without further a thought, he ran towards me. I fell towards the floor as the boy’s mouth opened again, and in a state of desperation, kicked the boy’s left foot out from under him. He went flying towards the floor, and landed straight on top of me.

For a moment, pain, raging through my gut. The world faltered and twisted out of sight as the air rushed from my lungs, and three cracks went through my ribs. In the next moment, a realization. I was being lifted through the air. With the force that he was about to exert, I’d likely end up with a concussion, or something worst. It made reaction absolutely necessary if I wanted to survive.

Weapon. I had a weapon. Something in the form of a mask. I’d hesitated to use it for a long moment, but I knew that I needed to now. It was something that could grant me rejuvenation. Something that could give me power. I reached now, desperately, as the world began to swim, and the air began to current downwards.

A mask formed in the air around me. A rush of magic seemed to move through my veins. New thoughts and clever ways to hurt moved through my mind. I reached outwards with the magic festering in the air around me, and I shoved it straight into him.

He screamed. I didn’t understand what was happening until I saw the collective swirl around me. A haze of pure rage that seemed to take the form of pain. I backed away from it, understanding but not quite getting what was happening. It moved around him, and then stuck itself into his ribcage. I watched the blood toil outwards around his body. The snapping of his spine, and then the inevitable dead body that sat against the ground.

When it was over, I still couldn’t understand. I knew it was magic, and I understood that I’d used magic, but other than that, I was clueless.

“Congratulations Knight. It seems you’ve managed Magic. You’ll be a rather useful asset,” The General was saying somewhere to my left.

I stared at the three bodies in the ring. Over to the right, in another circle, the Prince had dealt with his two attackers. In the last circle, a child with blood falling down his midsection had just snapped the neck of another. We stood there for a long moment, before I felt my knees giving way, and collapsed under my own weight.

-7

Two men sat across from the three of us. There were set frowns against their faces, and they were waiting. It was quite possible that they were waiting for one of us to speak. Yet none of us did. We ate, instead, doing our best to keep our minds from the current scenario.

It was a thick-slop, almost reminiscent of porridge. I ate slowly, doing my best not to focus on the present moment. That being, of course, the moment after the murders. I’d killed three children of my age, only to secure my own survival. I hadn’t had a choice, but that didn’t leave the sick taste in my mouth from growing. I just kept on eating.

“From this day forwards, a precedent will be set. Any failing on your parts will result in an execution, understood? If you fail to follow orders, we have no need for you. If you understand, nod,”

We followed orders. I nodded as resolutely as I could, whilst avoiding eye-contact with the men. Out of the two in-front of us, one of them was the man that had ordered the systematic execution of eight children. An order that I’d followed through with. My spoon fell back to my mouth.

“In two weeks time, if any of you are still alive, you will be sent to battle. The men there will have little sympathy for you. I expect each of you to be in as good of a condition as you can be when you leave. Now, in five minutes, you will each go to the showers. There, you will wash, and put on your new uniforms. They will be metal mesh, and uncomfortable. If I hear any complaints, I will have you whipped, nod if you understand,” We nodded.

With that, the two men stood themselves up. They said nothing to us as they left. I ate the rest of my meal as quickly as possible, before standing up. The other two did the same. The two of us with minimal injuries helped the third limping boy to the showers. Once there, we washed as quickly as we could, and grabbed out new clothing.

On the outside, it appeared comfortable. On the inside, it was anything but. A horrendous itch moved through it, piercing deep into our skin. Yet none of us complained. We understood the lack of agency we had in this situation.

“I want all three of you in the Healer’s Station, stat!” A man’s yelling voice suddenly said, “You’ll be checked over for injuries, and then brought back to your hole. Tomorrow night, real training will be begin. Do you all understand? I want vocal confirmation,”

“Yes sir!” I shouted as hard as I could, the other two did likewise.