The Soldier

CHAPTER SIX

 I don't know why I still stand in front of the doorway of House Five, my hand on its brass door. It's like some invisible force is trying to hold me there; as if someone is warning me not to take another step, my feet glued to the wooden surface.

Minutes pass until I finally get up my courage to try to open the House Five door. It's locked. I sigh and sit on a wooden chair on the porch by the door. That's just when I notice Commander Blue coming up the hill.

I never realized how young he is, probably about eighteen, or my age.

A gleam fills my eyes as I happily standup. Slender, lean Commander Blue saunters up the stairs, wobbling. He's wearing his dark aviators again, his blue eyes don't focus on me, and still I ignore the sense of danger that radiates around him.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here, Commander Blue!" I beam.

That just seems to trigger him.

The next thing I know, I'm up against the wall, his elbow digging into my neck. He glares at me, and I desperately try to push him off me, but he's too strong.

"My name is not Commander Blue, you got that?" he says through clenched teeth.

I gasp, my eyes wide. It just has to be him. He looks just like Commander Blue.

"I-I," I stutter. I can't breathe.

The boy just digs his elbow deeper into the hollows of my neck. For a minute, I think he might actually kill me, but just when I'm about to pass out from shortage of air, he snatches his arm away, as if he didn't mean to hurt me.

My hands can't gather up my luggage fast enough as I head into the now-unlocked House Five. I don't go fast enough for the boy, as he curses at me, and I just nod, hurrying into my new home. I certainly know that he could kill me otherwise. I'm enrolled as a Soldier now. Not First Daughter, June Castor. He has every right to do what he wants with me.

I find a chair, that's made for people much taller than me, and I sit, trying to keep my tears in. I don't want to show any weakness, it would make me a target of just about every cadet and soldier of Camp One. The boy, a pale-blonde strand dangling over his left eye, limps and wobbles towards an apartment office door from me, enters it, and slams it behind. That's when I let it all out. I hate it here at Camp One already, and my bruised neck agonizingly aches.

No one else has come in yet, and I wonder if I would just live alone with this boy. I hope not.

I am just thinking about the possibility of it, when the door opens. It's a good thing that I've wiped away my tears because a whole group has come walking through the doors of House Five.

A girl struts in, looking about the same age of the boy who I thought to be Commander Blue. She talks to the group of cadets, her back to me. The girl wears all black, including her combat boots; long, black braids, streaming down past her shoulders. When she turns around to beckon me to join the group, her bright smile actually lightens up my recently dark mood. The girl's face is shade darker than mine; her slanted blue eyes-despite her daunting tall, muscular figure-gives a soft glow of gentleness, unlike the boy who choked me.

"All right, then. All of you follow me." the girl says.

I step in line with the group with the other cadets, luggage in hand, next to a girl with creamy-colored skin and dark orange hair. Her eyes are blue. The girl's about four inches taller than me. Her smile seems to brighten the room even more. "Hi," we both say, following the others.

"My name's Kira, what's yours?" she asks.

"June," I reply.

Kira nods, and then we turn our heads in time to see that all of us are getting onto the elevators. Two to three people get on the elevators at a time. The elevators are unlike anything I've ever seen. Not only the walls, but the base of the elevators is all made of glass. And the box goes down and up in seconds flat. They must be very thick sheets of glass because when a group of immature boys jump on the surface, it doesn't break.