Anomalous (REWRITING)

Chapter Five

Darkness rushed in before my eyes and the air raced along beside me, my stomach jumping up and down and not stopping when I hit the texture of the hard, roped net.

The room I was in was very dark, but it looked a little like a cave.

“Follow us,” One of the guards said. He took off his hat and sunglasses and I saw that he was only about seventeen. He led me out of the room and into another that is probably the opposite.

It had a giant meeting table with screens all over the walls showing kids fighting each other. Their ages ranged from about twelve to twenty and it looked like pretty hard core fighting. Some of them were wearing heavy armor and sword fighting, while others had nothing but regular clothes and kicking and punching each other. The table wasn’t exactly a table though. It showed each person’s face and a paragraph next to it.

“This is the progress viewing lab,” the guard said. “This is where we study the progress in the training they are in.” He walked over to the table and picked up a part of the table with a boy about my age on it. My heart stopped as I recognized the appearance. He was the boy on the roof. “As you can see this shows all of their information; their name, age, where they come from etc.”

I tried to read the name but I was so out of focus right now that my vision was slightly blurred like this was all just one dream: Like I’ll wake up and takes and pass the real test.

The only thing I noticed on the tablet was one word: Anomalous.

“When you are training, you will train in different groups. These groups will be based on age and skill. I will have to test you to see what your skill level would be.”

I groaned at the word test. It makes me think of all I’ve been through today. I could be at home with my mother and father and my sister but no. I have to stay here and get punched in the face.

I followed the guard to the next room. It had tables like in the progress-viewing room with the holograms, except these looked like they were turned off.

“This is the dining hall. You will eat at the table with your skill level group.” The guard walked over to one of the tables and flipped a switch so the table turned on. It glowed brightly and had a list of food names. He touched one and it showed a picture of a sandwich. “This place is pretty high-tech if you haven’t guessed yet. You can order your food from here and it will come to you. You can view pretty much everything about it. How long it takes to make, the ingredients, you can even send a review about it with suggestions and such.” I raised my eyebrows. Even if I hated being away from home, I had to admit this was pretty cool with all the technology here.

“Come on, I’ll show you the training arena. By the way, my name is Alex and no I am not a guard,” he said chuckling.

“Okay can you read my mind or something?” I asked.

“I’m part gifted,” Alex said.

“Gifted… Like superpowers?” I asked.

“Yes, there are many different skill groups. There is physical fighting like punching people in the face; there is old fashion sword and bow and arrow, elements, and supernatural. I’m actually a sword fighter though. Some people are born with a simple power like mine that doesn’t help in combat and do better in something more natural,” he replied. I just nodded in response.

I followed Alex to the next room: The training arena. It wasn’t high-tech like everywhere else but it was big. It had two big blue mats in the middle: One with two elementists fighting, the other with two people with superpowers. On the edges people were fighting physically; some with weapons and some without. On the far right there were target boards with people throwing knives, shooting arrows and firing guns. Add that to a bunch of screaming, cursing teenagers and it sounds as if we were at war with each other.