The Circle

4.Arbitration

"Everyone up. Follow me" Isaac tells us again in his commanding voice. All the recruits that survived the maze get up and follow him into another hallway.

We walk down it and then to the left, at the end is a set of double doors, here he opens them to an open space bedroom type room, there's bunk beds and single beds and number plaques at the end.

"We have to share with everyone?" Someone asks.

"Yes. Until you prove yourself worthy of being a sentinel you will all share a room. Girls bathroom on the right, boys on the left and each of you has a small space in them boxes beside your beds for you clothes. Which have been given to you, so if you'd all empty your bags and pick one thing to keep we can get settled in. Train-"

"We have to now get rid of everything in our bags apart from 1 thing" I reiterate.

"Yes"

"This is cruel. How can you expect us to 'settle' in when you take everything away from us. At the end of our letters The Circle wrote 'May the decision rest in your hands' and it's an absolute lie. We don't decide to become a sentinel, we're given the choice of banishment or join you. We leave our homes, friends and to what? Battle for the 34 spots that will dwindle because of MK-175 and fatalities from protecting the colony. We shouldn't then have to choose 1 thing that we deem special enough to keep."

"Fine, don't choose anything and I'll take your bag from you"

"Fine" I say and hand him my bag before walking off and finding my bed. It's a bunk and I'm on top, I wait to see who my partner is and thankfully it's Kayla.

"Hey chicka, you either have a death wish or some serious balls" she tells me.

"Am I wrong though?" I ask her feeling deflated.

"No way. I had a picture of my housing and a small hairbrush I loved and I had to pick and it's bull really. I didn't want this life and now I have to give up my most precious items" she tells me while looking down at her photo.

"Well it's not like I had anything sentimental in there. Just a book from before the world went to shit"

"OMG! You had a book! From before?!" She screeches.

"Shh. It's illegal to have books from before, but yes I found it a couple of years ago while I was, um, hiding" I tell her, trying to avoid the subject of how I came to find the book.

"What's it about?" she asks intrigued.

"A war breaks out and a family of children get sent to a house where the youngest finds a secret world in the back of a wardrobe. There's a bad witch and a talking lion. It's about sacrifice and family" I tell her trying to remember what happens.

"Sounds interesting. Maybe we should try get it back" she grins.

"You just keep getting better" I tell her, "who took the bags?" I ask.

"Well some sentinels came and took ours but Isaac took yours". Great, I groan.

"Lovely. Now I'm never going to get it back" I tell her whining.

"Suck it up. We will get that book back, be patient my child." She says and we both burst out laughing at her accent.

I jump down from my bed and locate my box, I look inside to find clothes in my size. They're all black - how original.

I grab a pair of pyjamas and walk to the bathroom and when I take off my top I turn with my back to the mirror to see the cut on my back. There's blood on the gauze and I search the bathroom for another one. Finding one I hold my top up by my teeth and awkwardly try to swap the dirty gauze for a clean one.

After it's all done I look in the mirror, I still have blood on my face from where I smacked my nose. I splash some water on my face to try clean up a bit and once it's all done I look back into the mirror to see my face.

I look out of place. A dainty 5ft3 girl that can barely throw a punch. I'm already on bad terms with the instructor. It finally sinks in that I'm not going to make it out alive. I stand there for what felt like hours just looking at my reflection, studying it and wondering why in the hell did The Circle pick me as a sentinel.

Training began at 6am and we were all rushed into a room that spanned a whole floor, well that's what it looked like. There was a fake forest, climbing rock wall but with real rocks not then silly foot holder ones, there were dummy's and a boxing type ring for sparring matches. Weapons lined a wall and from where I was standing I could see an array of different artillery; bow and arrows, hand guns, rifles, knives, spears, swords and grenades.

"The guns have been given plastic bullets so they will only moderately hurt you instead of kill" Isaac tells us.

"Like that's any better" I murmur to Kayla.

"Today we will be running"

"Just running?" I ask.

"Basically"

"Fun"

"It's not meant to be fun Kira. It's meant to build your stamina so you can outrun you're opponents if you cannot fight them. You will all be split into two teams A and B, one team will run and hide and the other will have to track them down. The aim of the game is to not get caught or shot" Isaac holds up what looks like a gun but with a weird bullet chamber. "this is a paint gun. The bullets are small pods of paint and will bruise only and splatter the target with paint. This is how we will know who has been caught. Last one left without being shot gets an item from their bag back".