Project Alpha

Chapter 2- Don't Give Up

Today was the day. I would either die, end everything, or live, and have my world flipped upside down. Dying today was tempting; it would put an end to the awful things done to me, but another part of me told me I had to survive.

A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts. The door opened, revealing the person the knock belonged to, Nat. "You ready?" she asked.

I hesitated, but still managed to say, "Ready as I'll ever be." Every bone in my body was bursting with anxiety, and I desperately wanted to scream that I wasn't ready. How could I, though? My entire life came down to this fight, and I was only fourteen.

How sick was it that at fourteen years old, I wanted to die? I wanted to be put out of my misery. I had all of these feelings inside of me, and yet part of me still wanted to live.

I wanted to make myself a better person but didn't know how to, or even if I could. All I knew was that I needed to get out of here in order to do anything, and that's what was going to happen. Nat was going to get me out of here, and then I could focus on being a good person and fix my mistakes. All I had to do was win.

"I'll be rooting for you," Nat said. "There will be a lot of people watching, but you just need to focus on the fight. Okay?"

"Okay," I repeated.

"Good luck," she said and walked out of the room, leaving me to drown in my thoughts once again. This didn't last long, though, because five minutes later someone came to bring me to the sparring arena. This was it. No turning back now.

We got there, and I saw my opponent. She was about my height, but was taller by maybe an inch or two, and had long legs. I noted this in my head along with a few other things. With long legs, she could kick harder, so I had to close in on that space to weaken any kicks.

She had someone right there with paddles on their hands that the girl was punching them. I also thanked the gods that I had never met this girl in my life because that would make this ten times harder. I have heard stories of best friends having to kill each other. One of them killed themselves afterward because they couldn't handle the fact that they had killed their best friend, but then again, what teenager could handle that? Here, the only family you had was the friends that you made. I was never very good at making friends, so it was a miracle that Nat enjoyed my company. I guess I was just way too harsh for everyone else, but I think that's because I had anxiety flowing through me at every moment.

Enough of those thoughts, though, I can do this. I know I can. Just this one last fight, and then I can leave. No more killing. No more sleepless nights. No more fights. No more anything. I'm ready to start a new life.

"Ladies and gentleman," Madam B addressed the crowd. There were a lot of people here, like a lot. I've had to watch this before, like when Natalia completed her's, but there weren't as many people then as there were now. I might be getting some of those details off, though, because it was a couple of years ago now. Something had to be going on, but I didn't know what. I tried to look for Natalia in the crowd, but couldn't find her anywhere.

"In two minutes the fight will begin and the subject will be chosen," Madam B finished her little speech, and walked off. Subject for what? What was she talking about? I had been so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even pay attention to what she was talking about. Crap crap crap. Where was Nat when I needed her? I continued to look for her but came up short. She promised she'd be here.

"Kid," a familiar voice called. I turned to find the Winter Soldier calling me over to him.

"What's going on? Where's Natalia?" I asked, sort of freaking out.

"Don't worry about it right now. You need to focus on the fight."

"She said she'd be here."

"Hey. Snap out of it. You need to win this," he said. I nodded, kind of scared of the man in front of me. He was very commanding and harsh with his words. "She fights like you, but the difference is she hasn't trained with a super-soldier."