The Black Snake ☼ N. Romanoff

Chapter Two.

"No, No, No !" A scream was heard in the room. But Alaya paid it no mind, she knew it wasn't directed at her.

"You're slacking off, your shoulders aren't placed properly, and your pace is offbeat."

Another sound, a stick had slapped against one of the girl's thighs.

The room was quite pretty, one wall was covered in a big mirror, in which the girls could see themselves from head to toe, and the others were covered in a blue wallpaper. The floor was wood, and in the corner was placed a piano, on which Ms Selva, headmaster of the dormitory, was playing a piece.

"Look, Alaya here does the form perfectly." She knew the instructor only wanted to praise her, but she also knew that because of that comment the other girls would hit harder in combat later that day.

"Masha, that's not good enough, if your leg isn't centered with your waist you'll lose balance." Igor, the ballet instructor, had now gone on to pick on another girl, Masha, the second best trainee after Alaya.

The girls were now eight years old, and though it was strictly forbidden to appreciate each other, Alaya quite liked Masha, she was fierce, cold, and above all she never tried to pick on her.

She stayed in her lane and understood that in this place, favoritism was not a good thing.

The other girls displayed clear signs of jealousy, whether it was towards Masha or her.

But they never attempted to fight, or to kill, most of them were aware that both of them were more skilled than they were, and that the fight wouldn't be won.

There had been a time where four girls had jumped on Masha as she was leaving the showers, but when it became very clear that, even if they won, Masha had the clear intention of taking at least one of them out, they'd left promptly.

Thought Madame was quickly made aware, and the team up had been perceived as some type of friendship, and the next time the trainees had a fight to death, these four were put against each other, and the two that had survived never spared a glance at each other ever again, nor towards Masha for that matters.

Alaya, too, had managed to make a friend around some point, Aska, but, the same as these four girls, it was quickly discovered. And they were asked to fight to the death, naturally, with the training Madame had been inflicting on Alaya for the past three years, she won, snapped her neck in less than 3 minutes, she hadn't shown any weaknesses, she couldn't.

Aska was already gone, and the consequences would be too great to weep over a dead girl.

Although she did think of her sometimes, the glances they would share late into the night, as their beds were next to each other, or the look Aska would give her when she came back from her session with Madame covered in bruises and cuts, and in her pillowcase, she had held onto her hair tie for some time, just to have something of hers, of course, Ms Selva had found it one morning.

But, the girl had found the beating was worth holding onto her friend for a bit longer.

The program that had started with 28 girls total, now had only 16 girls left.

Most of them killed by either Masha or Alaya during death fights.

Those would occur every 3 months, and sometimes, one of the trainees would refuse to kill, when this happened, all of them would watch as that girl faced the consequences.

Sometimes, Madame wouldn't take Alaya to the torture room when she came to get her, but instead, she would take her to the cemetary, no far away from the academy, where all of the girls were buried, without headstones, but only a small rock implanted into the ground, mostly so they wouldn't dig up a body when trying to bury one of the dead girls.