Abused

First thoughts

Morning light filtered through the shutters and landed on a crumpled figure on the floor. He lay next to River’s bed. He had a knife- again- but this time no one was hurt except for him. He had obviously been hit in the head and hard enough to knock him out. He was just stirring when River woke up the rest of the dormitory. To tell them how he tried to kill her but she kicked him in the head first. They all giggled, including Carla who had limped over to see. River had had many attempted murders before and was skilled at fending them off.

The boy was in fact 18 the same age as River and was one of the top in his class. Of course River was top and liked to provoke other dormitories about it. Because of violence and abuse in early life they tried to kill her. Of course Carla and the others were later to discover this but they began to see the kind of things which the school wanted to happen. The school also said it was part of training but often enough the people were killed. No one knew why the teachers seemed happy when there was murder or attempted murder.

They knew though that they would find out about it at the end of the year when the schooling was supposed to stop. They had about 600 people in the school and they knew that there were others were out there. River and her gang knew better than to believe that they were taught only self-defence and what seemed very similar to battle strategy and healing. They planned to wait to the end of the year, if their suspicions were true, and leave.

Despite orders from the nurse Carla went down to breakfast. The nurse gave her a healing pill meaning that after lunch would be fine. Of course no one had ever even known something like this even existed. The boy had woken up and scampered away, embarrassed. Nat was his name.

They walked down in a large clump of boys and girls walking down the winding stair cases to the hall. The hall had massive doors leading to a large wooden floored room. It had big windows and many tables dotted around the place. It had a large crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of the celling. A large wooden table was reserved for Humming bird and next to it was Hawk. The head of humming bird was a tall lad with blond hair and hazel eyes.

On the tables were bows of cereals and a glass of water, more than Conner could ever have imagined. He sat down next to Carla and Rowan. They had corn flakes and semi-skimmed milk to go with it. They were all in ore of how large the room was, as big as their house at least!

All the girls wore white and black striped dresses and the boys wore white tops and black trousers. River sat down opposite Carlos. They leant over and kissed before eating. “Yuck,” complained Kylie from the other side of the table, Melham laughed. Carlos had green eyes and blond highlighted brown hair. He and River had been together for a month and were completely into each other.

Carlos murmured something to River and she nodded then turned back round to eat. One look out the window and you saw a large green meadow with targets set out all around it. One might wonder why they are there but no one seemed to be looking outside anyway.

None of the new teens had ever had proper friends so they found they were actually enjoying it.

A thin tall man walked into the room just as everyone finished. He had black eyes which Kylie found disturbing. He also had green tinted hair and a small nose. He looked about twenty five defiantly not old enough to be the head master. He stood up on a chair and everyone went silent. “We welcome our new comers. Now, I will be taking your training from now on. This is a special year because at the end you shall find out our reasons for this.” He said and gestured to the whole boarding school. “If new comers will follow me please.” He shouts already making for the door.  Everyone had to run to catch up to him.

“Now, first we will do physical strength. Keep up,” he said impatiently. They walked up a spiral stair case then into a large room with weights, bars and God knows what else.

“You will push yourself to the limit. Otherwise there will be punishment. I understand some one has been injured.” He commented beckoning Carla forward. “So she shall be your referee. Of course she shall have her turn in the afternoon. Now who wants to go first?” He smirked as a thick set boy walked forward. He had bleached looking hair and pale watery blue eyes.

The man’s name turned out to be Storm. There first test was the monkey bars. The first boy took about two minutes. The next didn’t take to it and fell off after a few rungs and failing. He had a cold bucket of water thrown on him. Millie took four minutes and Tommy took five, Melham didn’t make it nor did Rowan and Conner took three and a half.

Next was climbing up a rope hanging from the ceiling. Many were burnt and the first boy, Harris, of course got the furthest. After that it was lunch. They had trays of soup brought up for them so they could watch Storm do a demonstration.

The soup was hot but good to taste. Carla and the others sat down together and watched Storm as he pulled himself up the rope with such speed that he was close to a blur. “This is how one of you will be, whenever either this session or the next. So far we haven’t found this person but we will. They come every ten years; of course I was the last. This person will be the most talented of you all. Now we must test out Carla,” he smiled with a glint in his eye.

She put her empty bowl down and walked over to the monkey bars. As soon as she started Storm started his watch but she was done in a minute! Every one gasped apart from Storm who just smiled. “Now for the rope,” he faked a gasp. The same happened and everyone knew she was the one: Talented. They are no different to other people but are much more talented.

After it was hand on hand wrestling. Millie was against a small girl with mousey hair, it took her less than a minute to get her to the ground. Conner was against Harris who beat him. When it got to Carla she was against a large boy with tiny mean looking brown eyes. He lunged at her and she dodged sending him spinning off in the other direction. She then kicked him and he went sprawling to the floor. Storm laughed “Try not to beat the crap of them Carla, I know it’s hard.”

After training they were given an hour before tea to go to their dorm. Many congratulated Carla whereas some slunk off obviously jealous. Carla wouldn’t have minded if she was worst of the group, but it was kind of fun being the top in class. They reached the dormitory and walked.

They opened the door to an empty room. It was completely silent, well only for a few minutes before it was filled with the racket of ten noisy teens. They sat in a circle on the floor and played dares. They had never played it before but had heard of it. After they just chatted mainly about their futures and what they thought was happening.

The hour passed quickly and they made their way down stairs to eat. On each table were hundreds of candles that flickered off the walls. On the table that Kylie sat on there was a large roast chicken and a good portion of veg. When they were told to tuck in nobody hesitated. Once full they were allowed to go.

In the dormitory Rowan and the others got ready for bed then sat chatting. This was also what River did; they sat there and giggled while talking about boys. Some boys just sat there staring at girls or talking about them.

***

Storm made his way over to Zaire. He had Red hair and it hung limply over his forehead and pushed back into a pony tail. “I’ve found her, black hair green eyes and called Carla.” Storm informed him. Zaire looked back at him amused “We must persuade her to join us, if not she must be killed for she is a danger to us if she doesn’t help.” He laughed. And walked off. Storm remembered his first day, everyone being in ore of him and practically drooling. Everyone had wanted to be his friend so boring.

He turned back and walked out the room smirking. How long would it take for people to guess? They were so thick.