[Title Redacted]

Your training begins now...

I awoke with my head pulsing as though I was having a massive migrane. I felt my heartbeat in every limb. My vision was hazy as I lifted from the bed and looked at my surroundings. The room was painted white, it looked almost metallic. The floors were made of a nicely polished oak boarding. I swung my legs from the side of the bed and placed my bare feet upon the floor. The floor was freezing, it sent a shock through my spine as I quickly jerked my legs up to keep from freezing my toes off. There was a window on the opposite side of the room, as I placed my feet upon the hardwood floor and made my way over to the window I heard car horns honking and people going about their daily lives. I looked out upon the horizon and before me laid the most stunning city-scape I have ever seen. Chicago maybe? Or perhaps New York? Seattle? I'm definitely not in backwoods West Virginia anymore. What the hell happened to me? Where was I? And why am I here in this place? My questions definitely outnumbered the amount of furnishings in the room. There was the bed I awoke on, a simple metal desk over in the corner of the room, and a small nightstand next to the bed with a small rudimentary alarm clock blinking with the time 3:14 on it's read-out. I felt the goosebumps on my arm and I quickly looked around the room for my jacket and found it on the floor next to the bed. I picked it up, put it on, and started fumbling around in it's pockets. Nope, not a damn thing except for my gloves. Fingerless, which I had done when I first bought them. I put the gloves on as my thoughts changed from my jacket pockets to the ones on my pants. I fumbled around in my pockets only to find my lighter and my watch. No knife, and no cellphone. Damn, did I get drunk last night? Or get into a fight? No, there's no soreness at all so I was completely sober and fine. I heard a small cough as my eyes snapped towards the white door at the end of this room. I braced myself for the unknown as I slipped the door open and made my way out. The next room was just as bare as the last except for a large wall made of glass overlooking the city, a small kitchen area that formed it's own square near the side of the room, and two chairs with a table between them facing the windows. Then I saw him, a man sitting in the black chair staring out of the window. He gave a small huff as smoke billowed from his mouth. "About damn time you woke up, your training begins now."

At this particular moment in time my mind was completely numb and worthless. What the hell did he mean by training? And where was I? Did he live here? Who is he? These thoughts raced through my head just as a blur of black raced past my face. I looked up at the young male, clothed in carpenter bluejeans, Converse sneakers, a cheap, white,long sleeve, dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and a cigarette hanging wedged between his lips, and his arm thrown out as though he threw something towards me. Wait. Did he? I quickly looked back towards the last room. Holy hell he did, a tomohawk in fact. It was now wedged in the door frame, quite well in fact. The door frame had cracked and splintered at the force of the tomohawk embedding itself into the finely painted door trimming. I glanced back just in time to catch him throwing a punch square at me. As his fist made contact with my cheekbone he began laughing.

" C'mon man, you're better than this!" He kept swinging as he talked.

" I've seen you brawl! Fight back!"

I barely regained my footing as he planted his heel in my chest and knocked me back into the previous room. I lay there on the freezing cold wooden floor gasping for breath.

" Damn kid." He said as he took a long drag from his cigarette as he calmly walked into the room.

"You're tough, that much you have going for ya. But, you're not gonna make it long in this line a' business if you can't react quickly and fight back."

I rolled over to my side and coughed a few specs of blood onto the floor.

" What the hell do you mean by this line of business?" My jaw was killing by this point. I pushed my self up to a sitting position and slid back towards the wall as he walked over to the desk and grabbed a single file from the top of it.

"The line of business you want to be in, of course. The hell man? You wanted to be a 'secret agent' type right? An information broker?"

I coughed a few more times as he placed the cigarette back into his mouth and began flipping through the file.

" Ort, age 18, graduate from District 17 highschool, likes playing video games, smoking weed with his friends, and goes to a local card shop every friday to play Magic: the Gathering with other people that are 'like you'."

As the words left his mouth I felt a wave of terror come over me. He knew who I was, and what I do. How in the hell could he know this?

" Did that get your attention kid? How about this? You applied at 20 local fast-food joints and haven't had a single call back from them. Your girlfriend Selena is very upset with you and thinking about leaving your sorry ass because you can't work or fufill her needs as a partner and friend."

That was the last straw. Once he brought "her" into this I was thrown into a rage.

"Strike a nerve did I? Well, C'mon kid, I'm not gonna wait all day to kick your ass a second time."

I pushed myself up from the floor literally trying to claw my way towards him. After gaining my footing and throwing a wild right hook at him while running he side-stepped and let me crash into the desk. All while he still held the file in his hands. I spun around and tried to deliver a nice punch to his nose but he dropped the file and grabbed my wrist as it flew by his head.

"Lesson one Junior, fist fights are like chess." He tightened his grip and in a flash he was behind me with my hand up between my shoulder blades.

"Always plan your movements ahead of your opponent. Chumps like you are so predictable." He pushed up on my hand and it touched my neck as I wailed in pain.

"Who the fuck are you!?" Is all I managed to get out before being slung down onto the bed.

"Me? I'm your mentor. I will be handling your training, and by the looks of it, I have a shit ton of work to do on you kiddo."

My arm was numb as I sat up in the bed.

"Training for what, exactly?"

"Your survival. This is your room, lights out at 7' o-clock, breakfast at 6, and lunch at 3. You are subject to surprise drills at any time. It is now 4:18, I suggest you set your clock and get your bearings. Toilet is the door next to the kitchen area. See you in the morning, erm... 'Ort'."

He slapped the file down onto the desk, and put his cigarette out on the desk top before walking out of the room an shutting the door behind him.

The room, or my room I should call it now, was rather dim now. The sun was past my window and no light was coming in. I could still see, miraculously after that beating I had, anyway. My jacket had blood spots on it, that mixed with the light gray fabric. I decided to let it sit and not smear it, so I threw it off into the floor and walked over to the desk to inspect the file. Surely enough, inside was a picture of myself along with my name, or Alias rather, and my age. But the rest was in code I assume. It looked like a printer got a little too excited and came all over the paper as it was being printed, placing algebraic equations onto the lines of text. I closed the file and slunk off to the bed again to lick my wounds. As I sat down my head began pounding harder than it did when I woke up. I lied to myself as I slumped down onto the mattress.

"I'll just rest for a second and explore a bit later."

As the last word passed my lips, my eyes began to droop, and a slight consitent beep was heard as I lost consciousness.

[End of Chapter one] (to be continued.)