Brain and Heart

XII: Victim

The following events may be triggering to some readers. (Violence)

Tommie's POV:
I dragged my feet across the gym floor. I wanted some action or whatever—I wanted to learn how to do what Victor did.

I stood up on a bench and started swinging an invisible stick around with my eyes closed, but then immediately stopped after I realized how stupid I must've looked.

I coughed and looked around to make sure nobody saw me. Then I started walking around and checking things out.

Don't I need a spotter for this, I thought while touching a bar.

I examined it for a while and found my way across the room. I liked looking at all the equipment. Not that I planned on using any of it.

I skipped around on all the stuff and played "The Floor is Lava" with myself for a while.

Then, after a few minutes of counting how many treadmills there were, I heard the sounds of people entering the room. My first instinct was to hide, so I crouched behind a strange bicycle machine.

"I can deadlift 405 lbs," I heard a voice say, with a bit of a laugh behind it.

"That's not even impressive."

All of a sudden, I felt incredibly aware of all my surroundings. And immediately felt embarrassed to be hiding about I slowly crawled out, hoping no one would notice me.

"Tommie!"

I stopped in my tracks. Damn it.

I turned around and was met by a familiar face. Lonal, right?" I asked while wiping the dust off my pants, trying to remember our brief conversation from yesterday.

"No, it's Liam." He said, clearly offended, that I didn't remember his name.

I tried to laugh it off; I was clearly nervous. Hehe, "I was just joking..." I looked around because I couldn't hold eye contact.

He smiled at me. "Sure..." He gave me a pat on the back that almost sent me to Jupiter.

Ouch

"Where's Victor?" He asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, "He said he was going to take a nap."
I looked around at the friends Liam was with. They all had green or yellow tags, so I'm guessing that they weren't much of a higher rank.

I accidentally made eye contact with one of them, and he slowly walked towards me. I took a few steps back, bumping my head on something metal.

Double Ouch

"Well, I should probably get going," I said after noticing all the weird looks I was getting. For some reason, nothing enhanced my anxiety more than being in a room full of people I didn't know.

I quickly walked to the door, trying not to look behind me. Before I put my hand on the doorknob, I heard someone yell back for me.

I turned around slowly.

"Wait!" He yelled. I noticed that it was the same guy that was walking towards me earlier.