The Awakening

Chapter Four

I wake up at 7:04am and rub my eyes until they adjust to the darkness. I feel my way around my bed until I find my towel, and the set of clothes that has been laid out for me, then I move towards the light switch and flip it on. The light is blinding, so I squint until I reach the bathroom. I can hear the other girls moaning at the sudden light. I close the bathroom door, and turn on the hot water, letting it warm up before I strip down, and slip inside. The hot water warms my cold body and wakes up my closed eyes. I stand there, letting the water drip down my body, before finding the soap and starting to clean myself off. When I get out, I notice that what I am wearing is a one piece black jumper made up of a shiny material I have never seen and trimmed with the same colour my gemstone is. I guess they are taking this training thing seriously. By the time I am done, Sophie, and Kate are up, getting their stuff together, while Jane and Emma lie in their beds, trying to shut the light out. I roll my eyes at them, and grab my pillow, and smack Emma in the head with it.
"Get up, we have to be ready be ten remember?" When she moans in response, I smack her again, and she sits up.
"I hate you," she mumbles before noticing my outfit. "You look like somebody from a weird video game I have never played," she tells me, and I smack her again, but this time she laughs.
"You have one too," I tease, pointing to the end of her bed, which holds the identical outfit to mine, except with red trim.
They better not dye my hair that colour, it would look so weird on me," she jokes, pulling at her strawberry red hair, which is really just a more natural colour than the trim on her suit. I don't bother hitting Jane because I know Kate enjoys getting to wake her up. I open one of our many cupboards in the kitchen to see it lined with cereal. I pick one at random and pull our the milk. I am just pouring them both into a bowl when Sophie joins me. I hand her my bowl, and she takes it willingly, as I am already getting another one. I sit at the table with her, and she gets us both a cup of orange juice. I wish we had coffee here, but I guess that is a luxury we can't afford. I eat with Sophie, not talking until everyone eventually joins us. Kate pours me some more orange juice, and I get a banana before sitting back down. I peel it open and am just starting to eat it when a conversation finally starts to unfold.
"Anyone know what time it is?" Kate asks. I guess not really a conversation, but nobody likes to talk much in the morning anyway.
"Quarter to ten," I tell her, after glancing at the clock on the stove.
"I hope we don't suck as bad as we probably will," Jane says, "maybe it will save us a beating or two." I try to laugh, but nothing comes, because this is probably true. I try to ready myself for more pain in the future. Fifteen minutes pass all too fast, and soon enough a panel is opening on the wall next to our beds. Frost stands in the doorway. I'm a little surprised by his appearance, but he is a familiar face, and even though he is the one who captured us, I feel somewhat bad for him, even though I don't know why.
"Come on girls, time to meet your trainers," his voice still holds a raspy, unsettling chill to it, and we follow him through the panel, into a hallway lined with white walls, and floors. The hallway is wide enough for all of us to stand next to each other, and walk side by side, but instead, we walk in pairs of twos. I walk next to Frost, and the other girls follow behind us. The hallway is lined with doors, but they have spread out quite far away from each other. There must be very large rooms. I know I am right because when we get to the door marker Assassins Training Facility and walk inside, the room is gigantic. The room is actually a large dome shape, and hold everything, from gun ranges to punching bags to wrestling arenas, the room is filled with everything an assassin would need to know. It is also filled with everything I don't want to know. The room itself even feels deadly, and I shudder. About ten feet away from standing a group of three men, and two women, all in identical black suits that we are wearing, only with no colour, and no gemstone implanted in their chests.
"These are your training instructors," Frost begins to tell us. "Each one of them has a specific skill that they are going to teach you, until you have mastered it, and are better than even them. You will be learning the skills of hand to hand combat, shooting, knife-wielding, and throwing. You will also learn the skill of seduction, and will go with one of our artists in order to become beautified, at the end of training," he smirks at the last one, and I bite my tongue knowing it won't be fun. "The last thing that you will learn to do is control your elements, which power comes from your gemstones. Refuse, you will be punished, attempt to escape, you will be punished, fail-" Sophie interrupts him.
"Let me guess, we will be punished?" She asks, rolling her eyes at him.
"Precisely, and you know what we are capable of, don't you sweetheart?" He asks in a superior tone. Yes, we do know what they are capable of. They are capable of strapping an 16-year-old girl to a table and hitting them with something so painful it scars their memories and leaves their bodies unmoveable for days. "One last thing, if you get injured, you are to heal yourselves. You will not be helped in any way. All necessary medical supplies can be found in the drawers next to the examination table in your room." So that's what that table is, a cold slab of metal that we will use to stick bloody wounds up with. You may get a couple days off training, but the only way you will heal is by yourself, or your roommates, are we clear?" We all nod our heads, understanding completely. "Jane, you're at knife throwing, Emma shooting range, Kate hand to hand, Sophie seduction, and Ella, you're with me. I look at the girls, and everyone gives the same look, the one that says good luck, without ever saying it. I follow Frost to a boxed in a glass room that seals me off from the noise of the other girls, but not their faces. I can see them moving over to their stations, and I watch as Jane picks up a knife, and holds it like her trainer is doing.
"You are quite interesting Ella, quite interesting. Funny to think that the most innocent of them all would have the most deadly, and powerful element," he says, looking me up, and down.
"Aether," I almost whisper.
"Ah, you've figured it out, very nice," he whispers back, in a mocking tone.
"With your element, you will be able to control any type of matter, not only will you be able to move things with your mind, you will have the ability to move through it, and create things out of nothing."
"I thought that aether was something from a physics lab," I say, a little louder this time.
"Well yes it is, but it is also a deadly element that allows you to break those scientific facts. Not many people believe in its power, but they should all be very afraid of it,"
"Why should they be afraid?" I ask, a little curious.
"You can control matter, you can bend light, you can travel through time and space. The other girls can control elements too, but all elements are made up of matter, and if you can control all matter, you can control all elements," the full truth of this fact takes a moment for me to register, but once it does I start to panic. Why me? Why do I have a power filled with so much darkness, and power? That is something I have never really wanted. I have always wanted a normal life. Of course, there are some things that make me special, but not like this. I mean, when I was little I thought it would be so amazing to have some kind of power, but now that I have it, I don't know what to do with it. I guess if I wasn't being forced to use them, I would just pretend like they didn't exist. Learning to control them is important, so I don't do anything harmful, but if I am using them for someone else's wishes, they might as well be uncontrollable.
"Now before you think you can just snap your fingers, and escape, this room, and your bedroom are the only places where you can use your powers. This facility is lined with a substance that weakens your powers into almost nothing," he warns me.
"Yeah, wouldn't want to have to chase us down a second time," I roll my eyes at him.
"Shall we get started?" He smirks, and I nod. Frost tries his best to teach me how to use them. Apparently, I need to let the energy take control of me, but I'm hesitant. I don't really trust the darkness that comes with my abilities. For the next hour, Frost tries to get me to shatter a glass. It seems like a simple task when you think about it, but then when you try to do it, it seems impossible. After about an hour Frost walks over to me, and smacks me hard, in the back of the head.
"Focus! Let it take control of you," he commands me for the hundredth time. Finally, I snap.
"Maybe I don't want it to take control of me! Maybe I don't want to welcome the darkness into my world! Maybe you should find another way to teach me!" I am yelling, anger burning through my words. I toss my hands up in the air, but when they come back down I release some of my anger, which sends a blast of darkness from my hand, hitting the glass that I have been trying to break. My anger diminishes, and I look at the broken pieces in shock.
"Well, that's one way to break the glass," he laughs. "I guess it is a dark power, and dark emotions could feed it."
"What's a dark emotion?" I ask him, tearing my eyes away from the shards of glass, and into his icy eyes.
"Something like jealousy, fear, sadness, anger..." I understand what he is saying, but I still don't want to believe it. Frost sets out another glass for me to break, and tells me to do it again. I close my eyes and try to think of something that could bring out a dark emotion. Images of the last month pass through my head, the gun to Emma's head, being taken to the torture room, the gemstones... My eyes pop open, and all the anger and fear that has welled up inside me gets released through another blast of darkness that emerges from my palms and shatters the next glass. A sense of pride washes over me when I successfully do this another three times. Frost is just beginning to show me how to lift objects when a loud siren rings three times, causing me to lose focus on the feather that I have managed to lift slightly off the ground.
"What was that?" I ask Frost, concerned.
"That was the lunch bell. You go eat, and then you go to your next station before heading back to your dormitories. You have a knife throwing next," he says in return. He opens one of the glass doors for me, and I step into the giant dome once more. As soon as Frost closes the door an unexpected weight settles on my chest, causing my knees to give out a little before I regain my balance.
"That was the buildings liner taking a toll on you. After you leave using so much power, you feel the strain a lot more, but it wears off quickly," I am glad that last part is true because I can already feel myself standing up normally again. It was an odd sensation, but I recover by the time I meet the girls at a large table, filled with sandwiches, juices, fruits, and vegetables. I choose an egg salad sandwich, apple juice, and some strawberries before sitting down next to Emma. Once we are all seated the table breaks into an intense conversation.
"Okay, so what's up with all these stations? Everyone is going to say exactly what they did at each place, so we can prepare ourselves with what's to come," Kate tells us, motioning for Sophie to go first.
"Pretty much the lady with the red hair took me into a small room and showed me how to read people. I guess if we learn to read people, we will know how to seduce them, so we can lead them away to either distract or kill them off. We don't have to sleep with anyone, we just have to make them think we have similar intentions. Pretty much we are learning how to lie," she says, then snapping off the end of a carrot.
"Mines pretty straight forward, you throw knives until you hit the centre every single time," Jane chimes in.
"Same here, except with a gun," Emma shrugs.
"I got to learn how to somewhat control my element. I mean I broke a few glasses, and lifted a feather," I say to them, and they all smile, seeming somewhat impresses.
"Ugh, you guys at least had a little fun. My dang trainer made me run laps, and do this annoying workout before showing me some basic kicks, and punches to use on a punching bag," Kate whines, and we laugh. Before we can say much more lunch is over, and I am hitting targets with knives just as Jane said. I don't have a bad aim, but I need to throw a little harder to get a solid stick. I haven't hit a perfect instant kill, but I make lethal enough hits to kill without there being time for my dummies to receive medical help. My knife throwing session feels more dragged out that my element controlling session. Perhaps it is because it's so repetitive, and there is less work put into it, or maybe it is just because my trainer just watches me like a hawk. If I miss the target completely, he hits me with a flat stick that reminds me of a ruler. He is a lot more abusive than Frost that is for sure. When I throw my last knife, it hits the head of one of the moving dummies. That's what the trainer calls an instant kill because they are dead no matter how you swing it. I leave the knife throwing area and meet my friends by the door, Everyone looks exhausted, but I guess that is what happens when you do so much work after doing nothing for a month. When we get back to our dorm I sink onto my bed and lay there until Emma joins me. She sits with her back against the wall, and I move, so I am laying on her lap. She gently stroked my hair but doesn't say anything. We are both so tired, and I fall asleep of Emma's lap for the next hour before she shakes me awake because dinner has been set. We feast on mashed potatoes, roasted pork, and boiled carrots. It's delicious, but I still feel exhausted. At least the food settles my hungry stomach and gives me the energy to take my turn in the bathroom, but as soon as I am out, I crawl under my covers and try to sleep. I still can't seem to fall asleep though. I lay awake until Emma's hand slides between the bed and the wall. I take it, and instantly feel my eyes get heavy as I drift off to sleep.
The next day starts the same way as the one before. I wake up at 7 am, and then take my shower, and smack Emma in the head until she wakes up. Everyone seems more groggy than normal, including me, but when I see the food box lying on the counter, I yell at everyone to come to see what is inside. Finally, I can't take it anymore, and rip open the package, sniffing the darkly roasted coffee grounds that come from the package.
"Woah," Emma says, snagging the bag from my hands. Everyone takes a turn taking in the aroma of the grounds. I pull out the coffee machine that gave in the box. It feels like forever before it's ready, but when it is everyone takes a mug, and pour the dark, steamy liquid into white mugs. I stir in milk, and sugar, drinking it slowly, savouring every bite. I had my first cup of coffee when I was 15 and I have loved it ever since. Emma loves it even more than I do, and that's saying something seen as I get so excited over one bag. Even Kate, who normally just smells it, drains her cup. Nobody gets seconds because we want to ration it just in case we don't get another bag for a while. We all have another bowl of cereal and prepare ourselves for our training session. When Frost comes for us we are all finally awake. The coffee seemed to help, but I didn't notice how much it did in the mornings until I didn't have it for so long. I can really feel the effects now though. Sadly, I have to spend the entire day at hand to hand combat. I end up doing laps around a track, strengthening my muscles, and just warming up. By the time lunch comes around I feel like I can barely move. I take a bowl of chicken soup with crackers and ginger ale. This time Sophie sits next to me, and she tells me about the shooting range. Lunch is over all too soon, and I am back with my trainer. This time around she shows me some basic punches, and kicks, which is a lot more fun than running laps all morning. My muscles burn, and I am ready for bed by the time I am done, but I know that it's my turn to make dinner. The day feels long, but I guess that's what happens when you are doing the same things over, and over. Frost walks us back to our dorm, and I am talking with Emma about her session in knife throwing. Apparently, she did better at the shooting range, but when I looked over at her throwing them she wasn't missing the targets. I doubt she was only super good when I was looking at her. When we reach our dorm, Frost unlocks it and opens the screen. That's weird, I think to myself, he never has to unlock the door. He steps to the side letting us go in, and I follow my friends towards the door. Just before I step inside Frost grabs my arm, and leans in close to my ear.
"Be careful of her element, it's as lethal as yours," he whispers to me before shoving me through the door. I have no idea what he means until I see her. Her curly black hair falls over her face as she lies beneath Sophie's bed. She's fast asleep, but then my eyes go straight to the black, obsidian gemstone that is implanted in her chest.