Constellation of Stars

Chapter 2

I kept walking, with the rest of the group, still feeling horrible for what I did to Bella. She never really trained since she worked in MC, so that made it even worse that I attacked someone unarmed and untrained.

When we reached the dining room, we all separated into a single file line to accommodate to the super narrow and small door to the room. We all had to duck to get through, the door was only 5 feet tall. That's the Constellations for you, always so considerate of their human slaves. Surprisingly, once you get past the tiny door of the dining room, it's actually opens into a pretty big space, easily fitting about 100 kids with room to spare. Although it seems huge to us now, back when there were way more of us, we had to eat in shifts and even then it still felt crowded.

The room was entirely steel, as if we were all just turned into criminals whenever we wanted to eat. About 20 yards from the door was a large counter with huge bowls of food and a 20 gallon container of water on the far side. In case you're wondering, the Constellations do not make food magically appear for us, we have to cook it ourselves. Every month, 10 people have kitchen duty to help make the food so it's not the same people every time, except for Corey.

Corey is our head cook, he pretty much makes the best food I've ever tasted, which is saying a lot considering I've had Constellation food before. Corey's 6 feet tall with brown hair and brown eyes. He's a decent fighter but he has this qualm about killing that's super rare for a Chosen. It's seriously weird he doesn't like hurting people because he's a Taurus and Taurus is one of the most violent Constellations. Trust me I've met him before, not a nice dude.

Once I entered the Dining Room, I immediately ducked my head when I saw Corey and tried to shield my face with my hair. Crap. He saw me and came over.

"Hey Dylan," he said with false sweetness, "You know, it's been a while since you like, actually showed up for morning kitchen duty." I looked up and shook my hair out of my face.

"Yeah well I've been a bit busy."

"And what exactly have you been busy with this morning?"

"Sleeping."

"That's what I thought."

"It's not my fault, I was up all night training. Shall I remind you, you who sits around and does enjoyable stuff all day that some of us need to be able to fight to save your scrawny-"

"Okay okay, point taken," Corey cut in, putting his hand on my shoulder, "Sorry, but seriously, you need to quit training so much. You're gonna die of exhaust before a time to fight even comes." I rolled my eyes. Corey was like a big brother to me, always super overprotective and worried about me. I don't get him. Does he not understand that I can protect myself?

I laughed and grabbed his wrist, lifting his hand off my shoulder. "Get your head outta the clouds Corey. Do you find it likely that at some time in the near or distant future, I would ever cut down on training?" He laughed, but shook his head. "Just be careful okay."

"Fine, whatever," I sighed walking past him towards the food. "What, no hug?" I heard him call out from behind me. I groaned and turned around, seeing Corey looking ridiculous with his arms straight out in front him. He was pushing it, but then again, Corey always pushed it. I walked back over to him, somewhat reluctantly, and let his arms fold around me for a second before I hugged him back.

We both let go after a few seconds and walked away in the opposite direction from one another. See, with anyone else it would have been awkward, but Corey's my brother, or might as well be, and the only person I allow to hug me.

Once I reached the counter, I grabbed a tray and a fork, eager for some of Corey's amazing food. Fortunately, although the Constellations didn't send us already prepared food, they did send us daily supplies to make the things Corey wants to make. Corey just writes a list of everything he needs in the evening, and by the morning, all the pantry's in the kitchen are fully stocked for another day.

There was all kinds of stuff laid out today. I was starving so I grabbed anything that looked appetizing. After I had grabbed all I wanted, 3 waffles, some scrambled eggs, bacon, some kind of quiche with spinach, and a cup of water, I went over and sat by my team. The dining hall is set up in three sections, MC to the right, Action to the left, and Specialty in the middle. Specialty is the people who have jobs that are singular jobs, like we have a Mechanic and a Weapon Designer. Each team only has 10 people so we only take up 3 tables out of the 30 tables in the Dining room. The leaders each sit at the end of each table, second-in-command to their right, and everyone else on the team fills in the rest of the table as they please.

I walked over to my table and scooted out the chair with my foot. Then I sat down at the end of the table with Tracy to my right and my friend Rebecca on my left. Rebecca is one of the prettiest girls in the facility. She's Indian with long curly black hair and brown eyes. She seems super sweet and innocent but she's a killing machine. No wonder Capricorn chose her.

"You guys would be so cute together," Rebecca said, looking at me and smiling, her eyes shining. "No way he's basically my brother." Did I mention that Rebecca likes to make matches that half the time make no sense. I rolled my eyes and started devouring my waffles. "You're gonna choke if you keep eating like that," I heard one of y teammates, Brittany call from the other end of the table. Gosh Brittany is annoying. She's only 14 but I'm pretty sure she's convinced she knows everything in the world. Either that or she thinks she's my mom. Dylan do this, Dylan do that, don't do that Dylan. I think she's forgetting who the real leader is around here. Moi.

I kept eating the same way I was, just to be annoying. God forbid if I did actually choke, there should be nothing that that girl can say "I told you so" about. Before I continue I should probably tell you who all is in my team and what they do. There's me of course, I fight with a bow and arrows and I'm the team leader. There's Tracy, he's second-in-command and fights with katana blades. There's Rebecca, who fights with knives. CC who is the best shot we've got on guns. Brittany, unfortunately, has swords. That's our whole team. There was 10 of us but now we've been narrowed down 5. I wish there was just 4 though, that would make operations a whole lot easier without Brittany tagging along.

Brittany, CC, and Rebecca were all talking to each each other, but me and Tracy just sat silently, enjoying finally being able to eat a normal breakfast without having to rush to training. Me and him usually train together so we can create new strategies for battle to teach to the others later. Little did I know that this would be the last breakfast like this I would have for a long time.