They Bite

Chapter 20- Training

I sat on the hard wooden chair next to her hospital bed. Her breathing was regular and slow, just like she was sleeping. Her greasy blonde hair lay in limp strands framing her face which was gaunt and ghostly pale. I was staring blankly at the gap between the bed and the small table, where I put a small bouquet of yellow flowers, thinking about nothing. My eyes slowly slipped into an unseeing “X-Ray vision” state and I saw the various medical supplies they kept in the draws under the table, Scissors, scalpels, notes and all kinds of medicine. We only said “X-Ray vision” as a joke, but most people called me “X-Ray” anyway, it’s easier to remember what people do than their name.

I didn’t even notice the tears running down my face until someone walked in, breaking my trance and I quickly wiped away the tears with the back of my hand.

“Oh hey,” the girl said, I had seen her around but never talked to her, I guess we were still pretty small “settlement” (again settlement was another joke), only 100 people, when Mel and I went to this school before there was nearly 1000 students. It has been a bit over a month since we got here. She was holding a small bouquet of flowers similar to mine but a deep purple colour. She looked older than me, probably about 14 or 15, but I was taller than her. Her bleach blonde hair, showing the brown regrowth, in a high ponytail.

“Um, Mark wants to talk to everyone out in the courtyard. And these are for her.” She said, then she explained, “I was going to be her leader.”

“Oh. Um where did you get those flowers?” I asked, “Purple was- is her favourite colour.”

We walked out to the courtyard together, I saw Felix and Ryan sitting on one of the circular tree beds, made of bricks piled about half a metre above the black bitumen, and went to sit with them.

“Where were you?” Felix asked, “We had an intense game of touch on the oval after training, and by intense I mean-”

“QUIET!” Mark yelled to get our attention, everyone fell silent, “Now I’m guessing you are all wondering why I brought you all here, but let me just tell you, its bloody important,”

He said it in a weird way, calmly, it could have easily been said in a harsh, angry way, probably easier than the way he said it.

“So a couple things have changed,” as he said it an excited murmur spread through a small group of people sitting opposite us, as though they knew, somehow, that it would be in their favour. Mark continued, “Someone has fixed the solar panels on one of the rooves, don’t get too excited, it will only be used for lights at night, at the moment, we are working on getting more fixed so we can eventually get fans and hot water working.”

The murmur grew slowly to a roar as everyone was talking about the prospect of fans in our rooms working, even though they were just crappy, white, ceiling fans it was definitely a step up from trying to get to sleep in 20+ degrees Celsius, heat. Hot water was just like an early Christmas present. It was December and stinking hot not to mention the rigorous training schedule, so we were sweating in no time, and it had been over a month and a half since any of us had a hot shower.

It got so loud that Mark had to yell again.