Cassandra

Fixing things

When we were back in the dorm I put my headphones on and completely blocked out any ideas about making up, that Aurora tried to give me. I saw her walking around the room, talking, occasionally looking at me. I wasn't sure if she thought, that I could hear her and just pretended not to listen or she just didn't care whether I listened or not.

Pretty soon I started yawning. That fight had taken a lot out of me physically and mentally. I knew Patrick wanted to do some tests on me, to check if I was alright, but I didn't let him. No way I was going to let that crazy scientist anywhere near me, especially after knowing, that keeping me in that box had all been his idea. Besides I felt fine, just a bit tired. Okay, a lot tired. Exhausted actually and my entire body hurt. Probably should have stretched or something.

When I was about to take my headphones off, to go to sleep, Aurora stepped in front of me and offered me a giant sandwich. I looked at her surprised. I hadn't even noticed, that she had left the room.

"I know you must be so tired right now, that you don't even realize how hungry you are, but you should eat, if you don't want to pass out again," she explained.

"How do you know?" I asked crabbing the sandwich and putting my teeth in it.

"They put me through this training every month to see how much I've improved. I know how it feels afterwards."

"Put they've never tried to actually kill you, like they did with me. All you do is train." It sure seemed pretty easy, when she was in there, like it needed no effort, but maybe she just made it look that way.

"That doesn't mean, that they don't push me. Also, I'm pretty sure, that they wouldn't have killed you."

"They sure seem to enjoy watching everybody suffer. One day I'm going to put those two in that box and turn the training program to a maximum." Being evil was still fun sometimes.

"Haven't you heard the saying "hard in training, easy on the battlefield"? They aren't doing it because they don't like us or because they enjoy watching us fight for our lives, they do it, so that they wouldn't have to see us get killed by a bad guy."

"What they did today was completely scientific. It had nothing to do with training. They wanted to push me, to see how crazy I'd go, so that they could just throw it in my face and call me dangerous for society."

"Well, it was your first time. Aren't you glad you found out you can shoot fire?"

"If I have to almost die in order to do that, then no," I said, angrily taking another bite out of the sandwich. Aurora had been right about me being hungry.

"Just think about it. They meant no harm. You're just freaked out about what happened and you want to blame someone. It's understandable. But next time, you'll be ready."

"I'm too tired for this philosophical-psychological crap. I don't think I'll ever be ready to die. I have way too much to do in life. For example, I need to get a good night sleep, so I could throw Alice and Patrick into that box tomorrow morning." I had finished my sandwich now and started looking for my PJ's.

*

I was having a really good sleep, no dreams, just nice deep sleep in my comfortable bed. It didn't last very long though. I was woken up by my phone beeping. I might have been in a deep sleep, but every little noise always woke me up – call it a survival skill. I looked angrily at my phone – there was a text message from an unknown number. I put the phone back down and turned around to go back to sleep, but after a few minutes I turned around again. Curiosity really got me. I just hoped it wasn't a stupid advertisement.