The Military Arena

Chapter 3: The First of Many Days

The driver drives for what seems about an hour and a half. The woman sits in the back with me. Her name is Amelia. She explains to me what I'm heading for. "You are going to be put through the toughest military training in the world. I am going to be your personal trainer. You will have many trainers at the headquarters, some for weapons and strength, others for survival skills and medicine. I recommend to attend both equally. Many young men such as you want to grab a weapon and learn to fight, but nature will kill you before you land hands on anyone else." Her voice is urgent yet caring, like she wants me to survive. She goes on to say that we will train for three months, every week will go like this: Sunday is your break day, Monday Wednesday and Friday are my specified training days, Tuesday and Thursday are going to be my days where I can train in any field I want, and Saturdays are for healing and medicine.
Each training day will start at 5:30 am and ends at 9:00 pm. After that we can go to sleep, but we are encouraged to steal during these times because they want us to be stealthy, or spar with other people. She is so urgent about everything it sounds like she is nervous for me. She tells me that many kids die before even being sent to the arena, which is called the Clink by the government.
The driver stops us and turns to us as if saying, "Get the hell out of my car." I get out and go to my luggage from the trunk. I barely have enough time to close the trunk before he drives off. I look at my surrounding, I'm in a desert, there's a really big building to my left which I'm assuming is the training center, to my right there's a bunch of medieum sized buidlings which I'm guessing are the dorms we'll be staying in. The lady grabs my elbow and gestures for me to walk to the medieum sized building.
She explains to me that it is my dorms, and since I'm one of the youngest ones I get the closest buildings to the training center, it's a mile to from the village of dorms to the training center and we are encouraged to run. We enter my dorm building where I live on the eighth floor. There are no elevators so I am expected to walk up the stairs after over 16 hours of training and then running a mile. I enter my dorm room to find that my roomate is already here. He looks pretty chill, he stands up to shake my hand and introduces himself as Steven.
Amelia leaves after reminding me to make sure my room is neat and tidy. I unpack all my stuff and put it in the three drawers they offer us, and a closet that's built into the wall. I look to Steven, he looks a little older than me, but not by much, I would guess 19. He pulls out his picture of his family. He has his mother in the center, and two other girls who I'm guessing are his sisters. "Where's your dad?" I ask him innocently. "He died in the first nuclear attack when I was younger." He responds, then pulls out his wallet. He searches through it and pulls out a flimsy photo and hands it to me. It's a middle-aged man with a baseball cap on with his child on his shoulder. "That's me and my father. I don't remember much of him, but what I do remember I cherish." I want to say something, or give him a comforting hug, but my family isn't good with positive encouragement, so I manage an awkward pat on the shoulder. He looks up at me as if I just gave him a hug, and so he goes in for one. My instincts kick in and I punch him in the chest. I instantly apologize. He says it's fine, but that one day he'll get a hug from me. "Good luck getting anything more than a shoulder pat from me." I say going back to my unpacking.
Night feels like it just snuck up on us because when I look out my bedside window I see the cresent moon. I look to Steven, he's already under his blanket. "Good night!" I call out to him. "Sleep tight!" He calls back. I look at the clock that was already hung up on our wall. It's annoying ticking irritates me to no end, but it does tell me that it is 8:23. I'll have about 9 hours of sleep before going to the hardest training course in the world.