Guardian | Camp Cretaceous

Secrets

Sweat trickled down his brow as he pulled his body above the bar and paused before sinking into a pull-up. Ten or so more repetitions later, Azriel dropped from the bar and fell into a push-up, breathing in deeply as he lowered his body slowly until his chest touched the rubber mats before pushing up explosively.

It had been an hour since he'd started, but even though his muscles were screaming at him to stop, Azriel fought that searing pain and pushed on. His nightmares had come back for a full-frontal assault, and they'd always been a grand motivator. Training was how he made them stop, and so he trained until he dropped, until the terrors ceased. Though it didn't always work, Azriel hadn't found another solution to banish them yet.

Last night's terror had been the worst by far. Had Atlas not beaten it into him to always be silent, to always expect the enemy was within earshot, Azriel might have screamed when the dream finally startled him awake. He'd been in here since then, training until the memory of the dream faded into the din of his thoughts.

Perhaps he'd been at it for longer than he thought, for he hadn't expected anyone to be awake when someone pulled the door open. Azriel looked over his shoulder, pausing mid-pull-up when he noticed Brooklynn. "Oh my god," the girl exclaimed when she saw him, turning around quickly. Azriel dropped from the bar, wiping the chalk from his hands.

"Good morning," Azriel greeted the pink-haired girl, picking up his shirt and slinging it over his shoulder. He loosened the wrist wraps and rubbed his hands to get the blood flowing—he'd tightened them too much in his hurry. The young vlogger glanced over her shoulder, a faint dusting of pink covering her freckled cheeks. "What do you need?"

Brooklynn swallowed her breath and turned around, crossing her arms and looking at him. "So, uh, erm," the vlogger muttered awkwardly. "We're heading out after breakfast, so I came to ask if you ate anything beforehand." Brooklynn stared at him as Azriel leaned on the wall beside the door, crossing his arms and looking down at her.

Azriel glanced at himself, at the faint scars dotted across his body. "Are they ugly?"

She blinked at him, reddened, and looked away. "Nah, nope. Definitely not." Brooklynn cleared her throat. "Where did you get them? They look like... Erm, they look like they hurt." They looked like knife wounds. Azriel saw that she was thinking it, and knew that she knew they were knife wounds, too.

"Plane crash." She nodded, but he knew she didn't believe him. No one was gullible enough to believe that excuse. It was just that normal people would rather not know the nitty-gritty details of things like that. Not that he didn't think the girl would be extremely curious about it from now on. "I'm going to go take a shower now."

"Yeah, uh, sure."

Azriel gestured to the doorway after a long pause, and she yelped upon realising that she was standing in his way. A quiet chuckle escaped him before he walked past her—he felt her gaze on his back and heard her gasp when she no doubt saw the other scars, the older ones from when he was still a recruit and didn't know how to treat them right. He had learned quickly, after the third punishment for disobedience, that it was best to obey.

After showering and brushing teeth, he threw on a pair of black chino pants, a white button-down sports shirt, and the white cap his mother had given him for the Christmas he'd miss while he was away, as well as a pair of white trainers from his aunt. He picked up his necklace and tossed it up and down in his palm, staring at it for a while before putting it on. As much as he detested wearing the symbol of Atlas, he couldn't shake the odd feeling of going about without it on—like it or not, he hadn't gone a day without wearing it for the last decade.

Shaking his head, he made his way towards the recreation room, finding the others waiting for the counsellors.

Sitting on the lime-green couch beside Yasmina, Azriel ignored Brooklynn's glances as he looked at Kenji and Darius across from him. "The self-deprecation worries me. What happened?"