A Court of Miracles I Azriel x OC

The Program

From our very first day as part the "program" I knew something was off.

Our so-called orientation day was not held at The Company's encampment which I had been monitoring religiously over the last few weeks. Instead we were directed onto small spacecrafts with blacked out windows and given suspicious glasses of "water" to drink.

As soon as our supervisors looked away Aria and I spat ours into a nearby bin. Though the strange metallic taste remained in my mouth for the rest of the week.

Our teammates weren't so lucky, they all stared ahead placidly and did not protest when the supervisors fitted blindfolds over their eyes.

Taking a nervous breath we followed suit, silently praying they would not notice.

After what felt like an eternity our spacecraft finally jerked to an abrupt halt and we were directed off the crafts.

Once inside the blind folds were removed and we found ourselves inside a base of sorts, though from the layout I had no idea where in the city we were, or if we still were in the city for that matter.

The silence was finally broken as groggy questions began to arise from the crowd, asking where we were and why they didn't remember coming here. These voices, however, were quickly silence by the heavy steps of the head supervisor as he took his place on the raised platform in front of us.

He was strongly built with green eyes and weather beaten skin that suggested a long career in the field.

I shivered, his piercing gaze seemed to go right through me - as if he could tell excatly why I was here.

Before I could voice my concerns to Aria he began to speak,

"Today will be the first of many within this facility. It is here you will train and undergo tests - both physical and mental - until you are deemed worthy to show your faces at our national base."

No welcome, no hint of a smile upon his lips. His words were blunt and to the point. The crowd huddle around me shifted nervously on their feet as the last effects of that liquid finally loosened its hold on them.

"You will not leave, you will not complain. You will do what you are told when you are told to and you will not question me. Understood?"

He scanned the crowd, I forced my expression into one of fear, internally I smirked.

No questions? I was never going to ask, I just help myself to the answers.

☆☆☆

Weeks went by, though it could have been months for we lost all concept of time within that facility. We were not allowed outside and we were woken up for training whenever the Sargent deemed fit, whether that be 3am or 6am, we never quite knew.

Our training consisted tutorials in how to properly fire a ray gun to hand to hand combat, which Aria unsuprisingly topped the class at.

In the first week alone I overhead the supervisors discussing those whom they thought would make the first official team,  Aria was at the top of that list.

I knew then and there I had to train twice as hard if I was going to land on the same team as her, splitting up was not part of the plan and would only make our lives more difficult.

So I started getting up before everyone else, spending the majority of my free time in the gym instead of sneaking around the facility. The goal was to get to The Company and if I didn't make a team then no amount of eavesdropping would be able to help me.

Aria and I sparred regularly together, against the other cadets we were a force to be reckoned with. I felt pride rise within me each time we won a match or were the first to solve a problem in one of the simulations.

For a brief moment I thought we might just make it in this deadly game we were playing.

All too soon we made the team.

All too soon we were sent on our first mission.

All too soon my naivety was stripped away, like the veil of innocence had finally been lifted from my eyes, and with it everything I had fought so hard to achieve.

We were not ready, we were never going to be ready.

Perhaps that was the whole purpose of the mission, to prove how helpless we truly were without The Company.