Project Venom #Watty's2016

Basic Hell

Over the course of the next two days, the other eight recruits into Project Venom took up residence in the barracks. There would be two training squads, Shadow and Sabre. Like Carlos had said, most of them were only seven to nine, which was quite evident in the fact that when we would go to the cafeteria for lunch, in a room which was maybe, the size of two of the barracks, there were still shows like Paw partoll (yes, real show, Google it) Dora The Explorer (Fuck me) and Sponge Bob Square Pants (Nina and I even watched that, problem?). Over the two days before training started, Nina became a little less harsh towards me, which I saw as a good sign. I'm gonna tell you a secret here, it took me less than a day to realize I was in love with her. I tried to act like I wasn't interested, because it was very obvious that she did not like me back. I was a little worried that if she figured out I was into her, she'd put up a wall I had no chance of braking through, so I made sure I kept to myself for the time being. Also over those two days, I got to know the members of my training squad.

There was Nina, (yes), Jayden, who was 7, had blue eyes, red scales and a neon green underbelly and wing membranes. Like Nina and I, he was 6'5 with a skinny build and foot and a half long horns. Before he had been recruited, he was a Long Range Light Caliber Competition shooter with his Dad. He told me that he was quote "a little familiar with the AR-15 platform." I also learned, when I plugged in my Boom Cube so Nina, myself and the rest of the team could watch You Tube one night before bed, that the transformation had left Jayden with a complete inability to take loud noises. I swear I thought his head would explode when the video started.

We also had a 6 year old Native American girl named Arnett. She had gold scales and a silver underbelly and wing membranes and bright orange eyes. She had lived on a reserve on the Great Plains and was always complaining about the heat. She hated the sand, the bright sun and basically hated everything about the base. The one thing that had all of us envious of her was the fact that she seemed to know EVERYTHING everyone was thinking at any given time. How she did it, my guess was the transformation gave her the ability to read minds or some shit. Arnett claimed it was quote, "mischievous spirits tell me these things", which I thought was a load of horse crap. She also, as seemed to be the case in my squad, had a crush on Jayden and it was obvious to her that Jayden did not like her back, but not because he just didn't like her, as was the case with Nina and myself, he was clueless to her advances...that sounded bad.

And last but not least, was Mako, a 7 year old male. Mako was Mint green on his body, with a pink underbelly and wing membranes. He had silver eyes and light grey horns. He would much rather be around one of us than alone, and the reason for that became clear very quickly. He had told us the night before training started that he had come to the project because he had, literally no where else to go. His parents were killed in a car wreck, his grandparents didn't want him and the only foster family he had ever been with kept him locked in his room because they thought he was "problematic", though Mako refused to elaborate on what ever the hell that might have met. What Mako brought to our little band of misfits was the fact that, if you needed to know something about electronics for any reason, he was the dragon to see. Carlos came by the night before basic started while we were watching You Tube asking if any of us knew how to switch the processor of an Xbox 360 console so Morningstar could play Forza 4 at 120FPS. Mako spouted it off without missing a beat and had Carlos standing there going, "what?"

True story, I swear.

The morning that training was supposed to start, we went to the mess hall very shortly after wake up call, which was at 7:30, pretty damn late in the morning as far as most armies are concerned. The mess hall was about twice the size of a teacher's lounge that you might find at your school. The room was painted blue with black carpet and a white ceiling. There was a visible kitchen where two Marines cooked for us while there was a TV facing a few bean bag chairs with a couch and an Xbox and PS3 in the left hand corner of the room. There were two tables with ten seats each, which worked out well because each team could have their own table, as High School Stereotyped as that sounded. Shadow team was eating, while most of Sabre, who always seemed to be getting up before call time, was watching TV when Morningstar came in with a few papers and a pen in his hands.