Palinoia

Chapter 20

A couple weeks had passed by and the training had intensified gradually and gradually. Week in, week out, I learnt a whole lot of techniques and continuously trained harder by day. I was on okay-good terms with most of my teammates. I didn't interact with all of them but that was fine by me.

Today's training was different. Each team was lined up in a row, from the first to the last team. According to the leaders, each team was going to compete with each other to demonstrate how much they have learnt.

Unlike the relay race, only one person from each team would be picked to represent the whole team. The activities we needed to do were basically all the training we did before so it wasn't anything so bad.

I stood in line and waited patiently for the games to begin. For some reason, this sent me back to my physical education class. I was the quiet kid who did everything with ease and never complained once how things were. My gym teacher who was supposed to be the reincarnation of a beast was scared of me because whatever he could never intimidate me.

Finally, Tuck came on with his mic and thus, the games begun. "Alright. I'm not going to say much because your trainers already did I assume. All I'm going to say is that if you cheat, we will find out and may disqualify you from the exam so don't pull a fast one."

He stood back and each trainer attended to their group. Nobody approached us and stared at each one of us with a calm face. When his eyes met mine, he gave me a nod and I frowned in confusion.

"You're up Turner," he informed.

I raised my eyebrows and stared at him in disbelief. "Me?"

Peter grinned and gave me an arm hug. "Knock 'em dead!" he encouraged. I gave him a strange look and turned to face Nobody who urged that I stood in the front.

Shrugging, I stood in the front row and prepared myself. I kept a calm look on my face and listened to some of the supporters thrown at me. Most were from Peter but I heard some from Velvet, Darius, Brie and even Lucas.

"Begin!"

There was no need to run. The first thing that we had to face were the tennis ball shooters. I learnt from my previous mistake and focused one hundred percent not to get t=hit. Each time the ball flew, the only thing I could see was Mari. Mari and her group charging at me with their claws. I dodged every one of them and even sent 'her' a death glare. The activity ended after a while and I could not recall if I even got it.

Moving on to the next one required speed. It was a lap. The lap determined how fast you were at running away from the enemy and if there was one thing I knew best, I sure as hell knew how to run away. What helped me was the constant adrenaline as I pictured a blood-thirsty Demolisher chasing after me.

The next task was a bit tricky. Climbing wasn't exactly my specialty but I was still good at it nonetheless. I had to climb over a rocky hill. Much taller than the previous one and if I had messed up once, well, I heard hospital beds were comfy.

The rock climbing shifted me to fourth place but I picked up the speed. The next thing was target shooting. With my rifle, I aimed for the centre and achieved the expected results. The target shooting took me all the way in the lead as I ran quickly towards the main building.

Using the VR was probably the favourite task we had to do. It reminded me of the time I was with Velvet which reminded me of Mari for some reason. In fact, while shooting the centre of those targets, I thought of what it would be like to shoot a Demolisher in the chest.

It brought me so much pleasure...Demolishers. They were helping me win the race oddly enough. Since I clearly had the desire to kill them it made me wonder why she wanted my help. And I was pretty sure that if she really was a stalker, she would've been watching me now and seeing how easy it was for me to release the bullet.