SKY ⇻ [ bertholdt hoover ] ▼

[ 2 ]

After a week of rigorous routines, tiring training, and cyclical studies, your body, nearly broken from exhaustion and exertion but still pushing forwards nonetheless, had grown rather accustomed to the recently-imposed repetitive sleep schedules.  As such, you found yourself awoken with the slow rising of the sleepy sun, scarcely yet cresting the soft surface of the slim grass stalks that stippled the fields beneath it.  You slid out of bed like featherweight fog.  The hazy morning air was you and you were the hazy morning air, slipping out of your fellow female cadet's room with calculated quietness and drifting into the nearby washroom, from which you soon emerged, fully dressed fit enough to pass any unforeseen inspection that may or may not have awaited later on in the day.

Soon enough you'd reached the cafeteria and grabbed a grossly meager few morsels of grub masquerading behind the faux facade of 'breakfast.'  Yet another thing you'd needed to adjust to - although, in all honesty, you weren't quite as ready to let go of a full stomach as you were an ingrained dormancy duration.  Homemade biscuits seemed like such a silly specter as you sat down at an empty table in all your absent-mindedness. Homemade anything, for that matter.

"Homesick?"

A swift sound graced your ears, gradually shaking you from your mental memorandums.  Your curious eyes drifted upwards to find a familiar face that had fashioned itself directly across from yours, innocent interest incandescent behind freckled cheeks and deep, brown eyes.  The pure look caused you to avert your gaze back to your scanty plate.  "I suppose you could say that."  After a breath of silence, you returned your gaze, before smiling, "Good morning to you, too."

He let out a small chuckle.  "I'm surprised I woke up this early."  You nodded in agreement, remembering how, for the previous six days, he'd always been one of the last people to dash through the doors to the mess hall, wolf down a meal, and clean up in that flurried, furious order before Commander Shadis and his punishment of doom would arrive to all those who had 'slept in.' 

"I'm glad you did," you replied, beginning to eat.  Perhaps the prime reason - or only reason, for that matter, you thought to yourself with acidity burning in the back of your throat - you'd gotten used to such an odd arrangement of life was sheerly to dodge another dropkicking session with the Commander.  Ever since that incident, you'd attempted to keep your head down, behave yourself, and stay under the radar.  You were a wisp, watching and imitating the handful of well-behaved cadets.  Mamie had offered all the same advice, of course, but you felt it necessary to employ it in all possible enhancements, especially due to the exiguous chance of ever appealing to Commander Shadis. 

"He'll pick and choose his favorites," she'd told you, "and there's a high chance that you won't be one of them.  I sure wasn't.  But that doesn't mean everything will be bad.  If you keep to yourself, he'll leave you be."

So far, it was working.  By presenting yourself similarly to the girl Shadis had skipped on introduction day - Annie - you'd successfully escaped any further punishment.  You weren't perfect.  No, you still had your fair share of slip-ups or relapses, but you didn't mind if the other cadets saw you as your true self; at least, you minded far less than if your commander would've been the one seeing behind your disguise.

For whatever unpredictable reason, you'd acquainted yourself with a few various people, one of them being the boy across from you. "Now you get to eat without worrying about choking."

He laughed, swallowing a piece of bland, boiled potato.  "That's why you always get up early, then?  A thirst to take your time while eating?"

"Something like that, I suppose," you shrugged, ignorant at his attempt to lighten the mood.  Even Marco's usual sunshine routine wasn't working its typical magic charm on you.  With a brain as stormy and unpredictable as yours, the hope of sunlight poking between your thoughts was quite slim, if at all possible.  But after you'd cleared your plate and saw the reserved look on his face, a twinge of regret tugged at your side.  "Thanks for keeping me company."