I wake up to Sephora's familiar happy voice,
"good morning! It's day four of training! Report to the gym." she tells us.
We all get up out of bed and go to our regular morning routines. I'm the first done this morning. We all walk to breakfast together with no words to say and we eat our normal breakfast and report to the gym. These days are tarting to become dull and boring. The same grey and white rooms with the same people dressed in suits and dresses. And us in our casual clothes.
"remember the bet." Mack says
"oh yeah!" I say "I completely forgot."
"ha! Me too." axes says
"hide your issues." Conner says
"okay." we all reply. Then we enter the gym and come in happy as ever with a smile on my face and eyes wide.
"hi." Dron says
"hi!" I reply in the happiest tone I have.
"today we will be learning sword fight."
"okay." when I said it I sounded like an airhead.
He turns to a dummy with targets and slashes at it hitting its arms and legs then chops off it head in three movements.
"now all of you try." he steps on a button and four dummies pop out of the floor ready for battle. He hands each of us a sword.
"go!" he says I repeat each move he made but it's not as good as his. I've never fought with a sword unless you cout the plastic toy ones me and my cousin would use to "fight to the death" against each other I can hear her voice in my head, "the last one standing is the ruler." she would say it right before we battled because we where always queens fighting over some kind of land. The battle was always even because we where both the same age and the same size so either one of us would win. I shake the thought of my cousin and our memories out of my head. I can't become weak, I won't let the devil get to me.
"good! Except for you Ann." he says in his kindest voice possible.
"he's just trying to make you mad." I think
"what do I need to improve on then?" I ask in the nicest tone possible to escape my mouth.
"try to cut the dummy. Please."
"sure." I flash him a smile.
"go."
I go at the dummy and cut his arms, legs, and head clean off.
"better." he says through his teeth.
"I'm out!" Conner says, "you two are driving me crazy! It's so weird seeing you two being so nice to the other."
"same here. You two are scaring me." Mack says
I turn to Axes to see if he will give up or not.
"I'm still in." he says and I'm happy that it isn't just me and Dron. Now happy that I'm not alone I decide to rub it in dron's face.
"so how many days do we have to train?" Maybe I can win. He is so close to breaking.
"five. You have today and tomorrow left." agin he is gritting his teeth forcing on a smile.
"good." I wink and that's it, he explodes.
"fine you win. I can't take being nice to you. It's torture!" he is almost pleading.
I smile and go on to tear up the dummy with my sword. As I do I feel a longing for something. I want to dance. I need to dance. I haven't in days and I desperately need to. I meant to ask if there was a place to dance but I forgot. At the end of the day I can twirl the sword like the knights did on movies I watched before about princesses and princes with kings and queens. I feel like I can take down five men with one sword and I believe I can. After dinner we go to our regular night routines and then to bed and I sleep like a rock that night proud of myself for my achievement. The fifth day of training goes by too quick it's archery and I have done this at home and in p.e class before so it is no big deal to me I know what to do and I'm not too bad at it either I'm just better with a gun than a bow and arrow. As the day goes by arrow after arrow I begin to think only about tomorrow. We will be sent into Hell through an elevator like compartment that goes through the ground too the ashy and red Hell. I get more and more nervous thinking about it. At the end of the day I feel like puking. "what if I fail?" the question stays in my head like someone tattooed it on my brain. It won't go away and I've been asking myself it over and over all day long. It's the question that has been stuck in the back of my mind since my parents died. After training and dinner we are to go to our room but I don't. I go straight to the roof to get fresh air and to think. Once I get there I walk out to the end of it so I can see over the people as the sun goes down behind the Lincoln Memorial. I stand there for a while just thinking about tomorrow and what Hell will be like including the devil and what daemons await our arrival. When the sun disappears and the stars come out I lay down on the roof to face the night sky and I wonder how far heaven is from me and how much I wish I was there instead about to be thrown into Hell where I will have to kill to live. Then my question comes back to me, "what if I fail?" I answer my own question with another, "what if I can't do it?"
