Victory for the People

Chapter 9

Collin POV

I woke up sore- training has taken quite a beating on me these past couple of weeks. I glanced at my alarm clock. "Late again," sighed, "great, just great." I knew without a doubt Ava would have my head on a plate for this. I got up, took a quick shower, and brushed my teeth, then sprinted off to the cafeteria. Tripping over my shoelace as I entered the cafeteria, Ava caught me before I smashed my face into oblivion. Everyone in the entire cafeteria turned their heads to see what was going on

"Th-tha-thanks." I said, breathing heavily. As a response Ava let me fall on my snoz, of course as an immediate response, the whole cafeteria burst out in laughter.

"Ow! Hey, what was that for?" I blurted.

"Next time don't be late, and clean yourself up a bit better next time." Ava smirked.

I got up and walked miserably over to the breakfast line. The food looked like grey slime and mildew. Nothing new.

"Dude, I saw Ava assisted you with your faceplant." Aaron said coming down the breakfast line. "You looked so graceful, like a swan landing on a gentle lake."

I smirked. "Even more graceful than your little pow-wow with your instructor yesterday? Although from what I saw it was more 'Pow' than 'Wow'.

"Nobody's perfect." said Aaron, smirking, rubbing his bruise just above his left eye.

Aaron was always just a bit overconfident at everything he did, and even when he knew he couldn't do certain tasks he would still try to complete them with a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face.

"So you still haven't figured out your alarm clock?" Aaron said cockily.

I yawned."Of course I have, the hard part is waking up to it."

We both laughed and walked over to one of the tables and said some jokes while eating the drag of a breakfast. But I noticed something different, I just couldn't figure out until I realized that it was only me and him sitting together. Usually Aaron has a whole crew with him, but nobody was with him.

"Hey Aaron, where are your guys at?" I asked.

Aaron glanced around the room, with a look of confusion plastered onto his face. "Um, that is a good question, what time does your watch say?"

I pulled up my right sleeve and looked at my watch "It's 7:50 as of right now."

Aaron looked around for his friends but with no luck "Well that's weird usually they all show up at 7:30, I didn't even notice they were gone."

That's when I also caught another thing, why was everyone looking at him? Indeed every single eye seemed to be on him making himself feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Hey Aaron" I whispered, "Why is everyone staring at me?"

" Your guess is as good as mine, let's get out of this circus before the show turns its heel." Aaron said quietly.

They both got up and walked fairly quickly out of the cafeteria and headed to class. I had Physical Training first thing in the morning so he headed to the gym after saying goodbye to Aaron.

"Good luck in calculus, i'm sure they will take it easy on you!" I yelled walking away from Aaron towards his class.

I waited for a response but he didn't get one, he turned around and looked at an empty hallway.

"Aaron!" I yelled with yet no response. "He must have really needed to get to class this time."

But I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. But I knew I had things I needed to do right now, plus I didn't feel like being late for class for the second time in a row. I had to get through my next class. I stepped through the doors, there seemed to be a lot more guards out than usual I wonder what is going on, my sightseeing was ceased when Ava stopped me.