At What Cost?

Initiation: Chapter IX

A/N: happy birthday Val! Thank you for helping us with the story through your art, especially with the characters and the cover for AWC. Hope you have a good one!

A/N 2: If you guys don't know, Val is the one who created the cover for this, so show her some love and follow her on IG at @fishysussy!
———————————————————————
20th December, 2010
1630 hours

While holding a stopwatch on her right hand and a clipboard on her left, Lieutenant Méndez began reading instructions for the APFT from her clipboard.

"Alright Karlos, this is where it all begins." She gestured to the space in front of us. "Your first test is the 1 mile run."

Is that it? I thought. "Sounds...simple enough." I nodded, oblivious of what was coming next.

Méndez looked at me in a no-nonsense way. "I'm not done," she said, annoyed. "You'll have to accomplish this in 8 minutes and 30 seconds." I nodded, not fully registering the words she said.

"I may have said it doesn't matter what score you get," she continued, "but here's the catch: If you do not manage to pass the test, you'll have to repeat it until you do."

I kept nodding.

...wait...

The words registered.

"Wait, WHAT?" My face went pale. I looked hastily at Méndez but all she did was wink.

"Better pray to your god while you still can." Lieutenant Méndez laughed as she took her position. "You ready?"

I stared at her incredulously. NO I AM NOT FUCKING READY HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE INTENSE PHYSICAL TRAINING WHEN MY STAMINA IS ASS

"N-Not really..." I trailed off, voice shaking. She seemed not to notice my fear, but if she did, she just ignored it.

"Ready." Lieutenant Méndez put her clipboard down in preparation to time me. I tried to plead with her but she simply stared at me. Eventually, I caved in and dragged my feet to the starting point.

"Set." Méndez stopped glaring at me and held her stopwatch, her thumb hovering over the start button. I reluctantly positioned myself to run, sweating despite the lack of movement.

Shit, I thought. This is it. This is where it ends. My heart was palpitating so much I thought it might beat out of my chest. It's just running, I kept telling myself. You're fast. You can do this if you focus. I was trying not to breathe too heavily, warily and worryingly waiting for the signal to start.

...

...

I looked at Méndez quizzically. As soon as I turned, she grinned at me and shouted.

"GO!"

Thanks to the terrible timing which was caused by Méndez's (I suspect intentional) delay, I was caught by surprise. My brain was jumbled up and my body was uncooperative. After a second, my thoughts got rearranged, my body started responding to my brain and I started running the one mile run.

It didn't take long for my body to feel the exhaustion; as I passed the 20 yard mark, I started to feel my body getting weaker and weaker each time I took a step. Please don't faint, I kept telling myself.

I passed 40 yards. My meals from earlier the day threatened to make a forced appearance but I barely kept it down while continuing my somewhat drunken-looking dash to the set finish line.

I passed 60 yards. Fatigue nearly overcame me five times, which made me lose speed each time. I had to fend it off each time, but I never fully got rid of it as I had a headache that grew each time fatigue threatened to make me collapse. I tried to shake it off and just tried to focus on finishing.

I passed 100 yards, then 200. Soon I was 500, then 1000, then 1500. As I passed each marker, I gained a small boost as it slightly rejuvenated my will to finish and get this done as soon as possible. As soon as those small boosts wore off though, I already knew my legs—and my whole body, mind you—were on the brink of shutting down.

I don't know how I managed to keep up, but somehow I did. After what felt like an eternity, it was the last 20 yards. I'm...almost...there! I realised. With this in mind, I gathered up all of my remaining energy and sprinted towards my opening to finally end this.

As I broke the invisible thread of the finish line, I heard Méndez's stopwatch click. With that signal, my legs shut down, leaving the rest of my body to collapse on the floor.

"Done!" she sang, looking at my dead body. "Well done Karlos!" I shot a tired smile at her. I was sure my eyes conveyed the exact stuff I felt: exhaustion, satisfaction and relief.

And boy was I relieved.

YES!! Inside my head, I was screaming in joy. IT'S FINALLY OVER!!!

Frowning, she looked at her stopwatch and addressed me. "Sadly, 9 minutes and 2 seconds is past the time limit, so you will have to go again." As I registered her words, the colour and warmth that was slowly returning to my face and body promptly disappeared again.

"W...Wh-what?"

Méndez looked at my collapsed corpse disdainfully and sighed. "Sorry Karlos. Now get up."

I didn't get up. Not to spite her, but because I literally couldn't muster the energy for the action of getting up. Méndez got impatient with me and eventually hauled me up to the starting position. I groaned in exhaustion.

"Again Karlos!"

I ended up going again.

"Again!"

"Not enough! Again!"

"Again!"

"Again!"

On the 40th attempt, I was on the verge of passing out for the next 24 hours. I gritted my teeth in exertion and pain as I crossed the 1700 yard mark. I gathered as much energy as I could and thrust my body through the finish line. My body collapsed on the cold, dirt floor that I was now used to and heaved great breaths, my eyes trained on Méndez.

She checked her stopwatch, then picked up her clipboard and wrote something down. She then went to me lying on the floor and looked at me, an unreadable expression set on her face.

"Karlos..." she began.

Great, I thought, on the verge of tears. I have to run again...

I resigned myself to the news and closed my eyes to stop my tears. I heard Méndez speaking but it sounded like someone speaking underwater as I was lost in my own head. I have to do it again...

Suddenly she shook me out of my stupor. "Karlos?" She crossed her arms, confused. "Come on, I thought you'd be happy! I mean, you did just pass the run."

"W-Wait...really?"

She nodded. "Yes. You made it in..." She checked her stopwatch. "...8 minutes and 13 seconds!"

I burst into tears. Happy tears, but tears nonetheless. I'm free! I thought while crying. I'm free!

Méndez clapped slightly but then turned serious again. "Yes, good job Karlos. However, we aren't done."

I froze. "...pardon me?"

Méndez grinned.

The rest of the day felt like falling into the deep depths of hell; the magnum amount of body breaking physical exercise the activities that would rival physical torture itself: 13 push-ups in 1 minute, 17 sit-ups in 1 minutes etc.

All of those arm snapping, leg shattering challenges took at least five times to complete. Each time got harder and harder with the stacking pain of muscle fatigue and pure exhaustion from the previous attempts. Half of the time, I felt like maybe digging a grave for myself wasn't so bad after all.

By the end of the day, I was beat; my arms were weak, my legs were heavy and—even though I was sweaty as hell—I was way too tired to hit the showers. Being clean can wait when you're on the verge of collapsing. With that, I crashed onto bed and promptly passed out for the next two days.

God forbid I do that again.