Strong For Too Long Trilogy ✔️

02. Combat Training 101

CHAPTER 02: Combat Training 101

I open my dorm door to a yawning Samsara whose strawberry blonde strands are sticking up high on the twelve o'clock scale, she stereotypically rubs the uncontrollable sleep from her eyes, arching her back until she hears a click. She yawns widely, much like a bear out of hibernation, or a cat during the extremities of the summer sun.

I smile, "Morning, sleeping beauty. Are you heading to the showers?" I ask her and she smiles with closed eyes, stretching her arms out wide, like a lion or a bear waking up from hibernation and taking it to the extremities.

"You betcha." She mumbles, I nod, looking back at her hands.

"Are you planning on taking a towel, soap, clothes?" I ask her again and her eyes widen, before she runs smack bang into her closed dorm door, grunting and unconsciously rubbing her nose as she exhaustedly points to me over her shoulder.

"Don't say anything." She warns. I merely raise invisible hands.

"I wasn't going to."

I wait until she's gathered her things before we both walk towards the porcelain staircase towards the bathrooms on level three. We were on level four.

She yawns again, "Did you hear any chatter last night? Someone broke into a system or something? Teacher's were frantic, but I think it was Mr Pierce who said he was merely teaching a student something and got carried away." She mutters, giggling almost. I hide the urge to giggle myself-which wasn't in my forte....giggling.

I act nonchalant, "Isn't this school un-hackable?"

She shrugs, before thinking thoughtfully, "I mean, you would think?"

Showers were luckily relaxing, I was quick with mine though, getting the uniform on and tying my hair into a mid-ponytail as I begin to brush my teeth. Samsara stumbles out of her stall, her bathroom bags in one hand as she sits next to me before the mirror.

"What's your first class?" She asks me, just as I spit out the remaining foam of the toothpaste in my mouth.

"Combat training 101. What's yours?"

She sighs, giving me a sympathetic shake of the head, "Damn, that sucks. I've got medicinal chemistry, first. Second is basic external biology under environmental sciences, then physics, then I'm stuck on two hour Combat training too. I don't agree with their scheduling, it's so confusing."

"That's college for you." I say, answering truthfully.

She yawns once again as we walk out and back towards our rooms, I slip my black shoulder bag on its generic position, before grabbing my keys and locking the door. Samsara is right behind me when she points into the direction in front of us, another set of stairs.

"We're both going in that direction." She says.

I follow her, already knowing it's the correct direction when we find ourselves outside and at the bottom surface level, when she braces a hug around me, "Are your classes back-to-back?" She asks.

I nod, "Pretty much, for today at least. I guess I might just see you later?"

She nods, "Sure thing, don't wait up though, my labs start today." She says quickly, holding her fist out at me and laughing, "Well, we need to come up with some kind of special handshake." She must have read my expression as confusing, it's what I felt at that moment, until she clarified.

I fist bump her knuckles before she skips away with her white lab coat in one hand and her already filled statically patterned ring binder in the other.