The night had passed quicker than I had expected, and before I knew it my alarm was ringing loud and clear, startling me awake. Eyes blurry and voice groggy with sleep, I released a groan as I shifted just enough to turn my alarm off and then took a deep breath, letting all tension leave my body.
Relatively calm, I swung my feet over the side of the bed and stood, the frigid ground against my bare feet startling me awake once again.
Just as I finished dressing for the day and pulling my sweatshirt over my head, Millicent barges in, fully clothed in her usual classic schoolgirl attire. She dropped her book bag with a sickening thud next to the door, which was now swaying on its hinges in the gentle breeze.
"Oh my GOD, you will not BELIEVE what my team just did!" Millicent exclaimed, obviously seeking a vent for her anger. I just looked at her, signaling for her to continue.
"Okay so this bastard that bumped into me yesterday at lunch is unfortunately on my team." She shivered in disgust, "He came into my dorm room while I was sleep last night! That nasty pervert would have seen me in my underwear if I hadn't tackled him and beat him up again. I put him on laundry duty all week!" She finished, nodding in satisfaction at her own remark.
"Wait a second...Oh my god! Won't he see all of the girls undergarments on laundry duty!?"
My eyes widened, that much was true, he WOULD see all of the girls undergarments on laundry duty! I made sure Kristine was still sound asleep before speaking. "But at least he won't know who's belong to who. Besides, I thought the girls had a separate laundry room."
"Oh yeah, that's true. Phew, I panicked for a minuet there." Millicent replied, obvious relief overtaking her expression. "Shouldn't you wake your teammate up? She overslept."
"She could sleep all day and I still couldn't care less." I replied before going silent once more and picking up my book bag. My last words to Millicent before I left the dorm were, "see you in math, I guess."
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I arrived in the cafeteria and simply sat alone at an empty table and watched as Millicent laughed and talked with her teammates, constantly scolding them.
I decided I wasn't hungry; or I just didn't want to stand up and risk having to talk to people, both were technically true.
As I scanned the room, observing, I accidentally made eye contact with Calcifer across the room. He refused to drop our eye contact as he approached me and sat across from me at the once-empty table. He held his eye contact with me until the last moment when he began eating, after setting his lunch tray down that is.
He ate disturbingly quickly, finishing before I had time to shoo him away.
He began talking, spewing from his mouth nothing but cheesy pick up lines and flirtatious nonsense, which I ignored as usual.
I resisted the urge to strangle him until the first period bell rang, but as soon as I thought I'd found some relief, I remembered that I have every period win him, and my heart dropped into my stomach, possibly sinking and disintegrating in my digestive acids.
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Nothing unusual happened that day, with the exception of the flirting Calcifer following me around all day. It was official, I was never letting myself eat breakfast near him again.
I met with Millicent right before lunch, and told her about my problem. She wasn't much help. She couldn't stop giggling like a maniac and it was making me uncomfortable.
"Oh me must REALLY like you!" she said between rushed breaths and hysterical giggles.
Seeing as she was no help, I turned and walked away, greeted once more by Calcifer's flirtatious nonsense. I sat exactly where I sat the previous day, ate my lunch, ignored Calcifer's cheesy pick up lines, and waited for the monster bell to ring.
Nothing unusual happened, except for the flirting Calcifer. Oh, and the magic.
The Blair of the monster bell rang out, echoing loud off every pillar on campus. Some particularly pathetic students ran and hid; in fact, few stayed to stand and fight.
I remained sitting on my bench, not planning on getting up, but Calcifer had other ideas.
He snatched my wrist tightly, refusing to let go no matter how much I struggled and squirmed. As soon as we reached the field, we stood, as if waiting for the monsters to drag us to our deaths. In fact, that was pretty much precisely what we were doing.
I realized this, and struggled violently, begging with my non-visible eyes for him to let me go. He continued to refuse to oblige. He snatched my other wrist to keep me put, and then he went even further.
Just as the monstrous creatures were released from their metal imprisonment, Calcifer used the grip he had on my wrists to pull me close to him. He then leaned in close and whispered, "Gotcha."
That did it. I'd had enough. I forcefully yanked one wrist away from him and used it to slap him as hard as I could, sending him rolling onto the ground. He whimpered, cowering, before stumbling to his feet and tripping over himself trying to get back to where the rest of my teammates hid among the practice courses.
Simply angry at the world, at Calcifer, at Millicent for dragging me here, I fought, hard.
I realized something that day, something important that I hadn't realized before.
The survivors are the victors.
The survivors are the victors.
At this academy, we are all players in this big game, being watched over by the leaderboard and whomever decides the ranks. Each day at lunch, I realize, there aren't any staff members or people with district authority to stop these monsters from killing students. The weakest students are obviously the ones who die first, so the survivors are the victors.
That was the day I decided...
I was going to win.
YOU ARE READING
Call Me Echo
Random14-year-old best friends apply to go to a combat school on a desolate island not known as any one name and, fortunately, they make it in. Unfortunately however, the difficulties and drama are through the roof.
