Starts with a Spark

Chapter 1

Thoughts

"Speaking"

Pain1.physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury."she's in great pain"

3rd Person POV:

2 YEARS AGO...

     Not a single person enjoys the feeling of pain. Being a child is hard enough and Ember's childhood was laced with enough trauma to last her a lifetime. Growing up in a place where it seems like the world is against you, thinking about your own actions or words before making choices is the only way for their survival.

     After some time on a barely populated island off the coast of Europe with an assassin group who trains you to not think and just kill, learning about the 'joys' of life is a bit difficult. Mara and Andras are two of the people who run the assassin group and making them angry is essentially asking for a death wish. Mrs. Mara is the head of the group, and  Sir Andras is their trainer who is mainly told what to do with the children in the experiment.  Umbra is the program that Sir Andras and Ms. Mara run, which six children total are included in. 

EMBER #001

HANNA #002

SANTIAGO #003

AKIRA #004

REBECCA #005

MARCEL #006

     These children were the basis of this organization. They were the first test subjects involved, taken from their families at birth to be in the experiment run by an unknown group to see what would happen if they raised these children to be the tools they needed early on. 

     Punishments were the regular for the children. At the young age of four, they had already experienced poison, torture and isolation to name a few. In the eyes of the adults this would be called training, to prepare them for missions and torture as their tests of loyalty to the group. Making perfect assassins was their goal, and to achieve this they needed to go to these extremes to reach it.

     As a child, Ember was not aware of anything. Her age, biological family and ethnicity, none of the children were told. Ember wanted to leave and be done with it. She was done with the killing, fighting, poisons and torture quite early on, but she did not have a choice on the matter. She mentioned this once to her trainer when she was three, and the result of her words brought a lecture about the world and how they would die much quicker than they would prefer them to. Training that day was much more difficult, resulting in them becoming unconscious and in the med bay. This was one of the easier lessons to the six children, which was the beginning of their list that continued on the longer they remained there.

1. Keep your thoughts to yourself

     They resided on an Island in Norway, North off the coast of Europe and due to its location it remained cold all year round. Spitsbergen was home to a secure facility called "Svalbard Global Seed Vault" built into the side of a mountain which is intended to safeguard seeds of the world's food plants in case of a global crisis. Though unknown to the world, this was not the only facility running on the island...

     Waking up early as usual, Ember blinked her eyes open, accustomed to the cold air and tattered blankets that they were given. Going over the information given to her the night before, she thought about what she was told earlier that night. Her biological family giving her away as well as her birth in Italy. Hanna, Santiago, Akira, Marcel and Rebecca were told things similar about themselves too. Santiago was from Spain while Marcel was born in France. Hanna is from Russia, Rebecca is from somewhere in America and Akira is Japanese.

     Marcel is really cool because he has better form and can beat almost all of us in fights because he's stronger too. Akira is still more smart though because he uses strategies and plans ahead a lot. Hanna's super nice, she always helps us with little things like first aid when the training causes lots of injuries. Santi thinks he's cool, so I think that's cool about him, I guess? Becca's sorta mean, because she gets mad and tries to bully Aki because he is smart. You know what I think? she's all jealous because she's not smarter than Akira. 

     By the time she had gone over the previous night in her head, Ember was awake and majority of the group was ready. Hanna was currently the only one still asleep in her bed, so Ember had taken it upon herself to wake her up early every morning. Hanna was one of the few who were not early risers, by choice at least, so instead of allowing her to sleep in and face those consequences Ember would wake her up every morning. Sliding away from her space, Ember moved slowly towards Hanna's bed, not wanting to spook the younger girl. Gently waking her up with whispers and small pats, Hanna awoke slowly. Small movements in her body notified Ember that Hanna was waking up, and eyelashes fluttering open to reveal sparkling blue eyes told Ember that her job was complete and Hanna would be awake for the start of the next day. The sun began to rise in the sky through the window, which told the group of children that their training with Sir Andras would start soon. 

"good morning Ember" was the first words said that morning, like every other, and the response was a few grunts and groans back in return. "Hey, Hanna! Come on, we have to go now". Once all of them were ready to leave, they stood quietly in front of their beds and faced the door. No one smiled, wiping any expressions off their faces because showing any type of feelings in front of others is considered showing weakness and they were meant to be anything but that. 

4 HOURS LATER...

Everyone was tired. With aching muscles, laboured breaths and exhaustion creeping up on them like it was their long lost friend, they were ready for food, sleep and the current day to be over. But alas, that was not going to happen as they had only completed the first half of their regimen for today. The next part was the one every single member had dreaded, hoping that distractions and concentration would it block out of their minds as if it never existed at all. This is torture, and no this is not a figure of speech. Everyone moved to a room a few doors down from the one they were in, mumbled hushes and slow footsteps the only thing heard down the long hallway. An all white room greeted them, quiet beeping and rustles from fabric felt much louder than it should as they were told to lie down on the pristine white bedding. "You should know the drill by now, this is nothing new to you all". Ember was ready to throw hands at the man in the grey lab coat. Torture is not something that anyone should have in their daily routine, a child no less. A small poke and a dull sting following after was the only thing felt, with a single thought going through all their heads.

Why? 

Then everything went dark.




Word Count: 1,199

A/N: Ok so i'm hoping to update somewhat regularly, but I cant make promises on a regular schedule. It'll probably be random, but pretty frequent unless I have writer's block lol. hope you liked the chapter!