Our Garden of Dismay

Part 1

My day begins before the sun even gets the chance to rise over the horizon, our drill instructor: Instructor Vidal, wakes the bulk of the 104th North Cadet Corps. We rise from our beds like zombies rising from the earth; Instructor Vidal tries giving us encouragement in the form of excessive insults and shouting that works fairly well. I proceed to get dressed in our cadet training gear which consists of my charcoal-colored button-up shirt and a tan long sleeve half-jacket that ends at my abdomen; the jacket has a large print of the cadet corps logo stamped on the back with smaller versions of the same logo on the shoulders and a pocket on the left breast(the logo is a gray background with two swords crossed over each other). The coat has no zipper so it is open down my center leaving my shirt exposed; a thin brown leather belt wraps just above a brown sash made of silk that wraps horizontally, covering my hips and waist entirely. Beneath that is a pair of white pants and then dark brown boots that go as high as my knees. Several belts line my legs and upper body for some reason I am not sure of yet but I still equip them nevertheless. After signing up to join the military we were brought to the training base which is a large camp in the middle of a forest with trees larger than any I have ever seen. We arrived last night, and we were given our uniforms and told to go to sleep, this morning would be the first official day of training. Just as everyone begins flooding out of the building, I take a second to look around for anyone I know; I recognize no one beyond Dietrich. The sky is dark and stars dot the sky with a small distant light peeking over the horizon between the trees as the sun begins to rise, but just barely. Several torches illuminate the camp with their orange and dim flames. We file into lines in a large clearing just outside of the cabin-like barracks from which we emerged. After we form into several lines, Instructor Vidal goes conversing with Cadets while the rest wait in parade rest which consists of standing with legs spread shoulder width and both hands at our lower backs allowing our elbows to bend. Instructor Vidal asks questions to every single one of us, one at a time, asking about various features of our lives in a rather rude manner. She arrives at Dietrich who is to my right, and she stares him down with an impatient expression.

"Are you dense, Cadet?"

Dietrich drops his stoic parade rest expression and furrows his brows in confusion.

"No ma'am."

He responds quietly.

"Speak up, appetizer!"

She screams into his face.

"No ma'am!"

Dietrich shouts and the instructor simply frowns.

"How am I supposed to believe that? Do you have eyes Cadet?"

"Yes, I do ma'am."

"Then why aren't you standing in the position of attention?"

Dietrich remained in parade rest when everyone had gone to attention during their conversation with the instructor, promptly returning to parade rest after the fact; Dietrich is yet to move a muscle. He quickly moves to attention and Instructor Vidal laughs.

"Don't correct yourself now, Appetizer."

She seems to have deemed him the nickname Appetizer, for what reason I have no idea.

"Oh you look real dense, I sure hope you make the top ten, or else you'll be a real good first course for the Titans!"

I don't understand what she means by top ten, but I do know about Titans. The little I know is as follows: they are dangerous and large, they resemble humans somehow and they are the reason we are surrounded by walls, to protect us from them. Without asking any further questions, she moves onto me and I move to attention.