The Blade in the City

The Countess

Alex woke the next morning at five forty-five, it felt natural at that time, she had slept in an extra forty-five minutes compared to Ben. She walked into the kitchen and found Ben preparing eggs for breakfast, she sat down at the table.

"Good morning, lovely Friday don't you think?" Ben said to her.

She mumbled a response back, then they ate breakfast together.

"These eggs are good," She told Ben.

"Thank you," He said, packing their plates up. "I was thinking we could squeeze in a walk on the beach before we begin mind practice, that is if you want to"

"Sure, I'll be back in five" Alex got dressed in some cargo black pants and grey tank top, she felt a weird feeling looking at herself in the mirror, like she had worn something like this before. She looked at herself a little longer wondering how she got the scar on her face. It was a pale white scar running from her jaw up to her cheek bone. Strange, she pulled on some sneakers and left for the day. Leaving their room both of them pulled up a map of the building complex that had been sent to them late yesterday. The building was shaped like a flower with different wings surrounding the middle circular building, there were multiple floors in each section. They followed their image outside then made their way to the beach. They walked along the beach watching as the sun slowly rose from across the water. Alex spotted a rock a little ways ahead and turned to Ben.

"I'll race you to the rock," Alex said. As she said it another weird feeling washed over her like she had done this already.

"Okay, if I win you have to go for a swim in the water" Ben replied.

"And if I win you have to go for a swim, deal?"

"Deal" after they said deal both of them sprinted as fast as they could, Nearing the rock they were neck to neck and Ben decided to tackle Alex to the ground. Laughing Alex squirmed free of his grasp and ran the last couple of metres to the rock, she climbed to the top and looked down on Ben.

"Looks like you have to go for a swim" she called down to him. She saw him sigh then laugh and watched as he ripped his shirt off exposing his muscular body to the morning sun. He ran into the water then did a quick dive. He swam up and down a couple of times before coming back ashore. Alex had gotten down from her rock and was standing at the water's edge laughing as she watched a soaking wet Ben walk towards her. He came to a stop right in front of her, Alex reached up and pushed his wet hair out of his face. Smiling at him she noticed a mischievous grin pass over his face. Alex didn't have time to run before he had picked her up at the waist and thrown her over his shoulder, he turned and walked back into the water splashing them both into the water. They laughed and swam for a while as the sun fully came up. When they arrived back at the room they had dried off a little bit but had to change. They headed back out to the room they were in yesterday and waited for their instructor. The day went by fairly similar to yesterday. They trained, ate, trained then studied, then ate. But at the end of the day something did happen.

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Beep, beep, beep. Josh was going to kill that alarm if he could find it. It seemed to come out of the walls itself filling every inch of the room. He had been at this place for a couple of days now, today was Friday. And apparently Friday was the day the chefs out did themselves. He listened as Mike jumped down from the top bunk and proceeded to tell him to get up.

"One more minute please" Josh pleaded.

Mike laughed and said, "no."

He rolled out of bed and got ready for the day. Like usual they met the others in the lounge before meeting Lee outside. Then they headed to the dining room and sat down at their normal seats. Josh peered outside trying to gage what the weather was going to be like that day. It was fairly overcast and grey, maybe it will rain, he thought.