She Will Be Remembered

Chapter 8

     PRE-WARNING: THERE WILL BE LOTS OF MENTIONS OF KILLING/GORE/A LITTLE DEPRESSION IN THE FLASHBACK.

     Sophie put on a tank-top and spandex in the "bathroom" of the Black Swan's bar hideout. She wished that she could have just changed at home, but she would've been detected with the amount of pale, white skin showing from her outfit. The "bathroom" was not much of a bathroom. There was just one toilet—with a ripped curtain around it—and a hose facet as the sink. Then, there was just a large, empty space where all of the ladies would change. It was the most run-down bathroom Sophie had ever seen, but at least they had a bathroom. The guys didn't even get their own bathroom. They had to sneak into the bar if they had to pee. Their changing room was just a corner of the training room that had a curtain around it. Their "bathroom" was definitely run-down.

Sophie finished changing and opened the rusty door that went out of the women's "bathroom" and into the right side of the training room. The men's horrid changing room was located on the opposite side of the room in the corner furthest from the door. There was also a door next to the women's restroom entrance, but Sophie had never seen what was behind it. All of the newbies—even though she had been with the Black Swan for a lot of years she was still considered a newbie—weren't granted access to that room.

She walked over to the bleachers and sat down. The bleachers were on the wall furthest from the door. Sophie then stared into the fighting arena in the back-center of the hideout. She remembered the first time she fought in the arena with one of her childhood friends, Jensi. She wished she could go back in time and erase the day his bright future faded from existence.

After that sad thought, a horrifying flashback flooded Sophie's senses.

~ ~ ~

Sophie was running through the halls of another Neverseen hideout. The Black Swan had located a second Neverseen hideout in only days. 5 days ago she had gone on an assignment to invade the Neverseen's base in Minnesota. They were told to just gather information from the base in Minnesota because a lot of the members at Sophie's current Black Swan hideout were out of commission that day. Sophie had found a map of the hideout she was currently running through at the base in Minnesota.

Her pursuers were getting closer and closer. Even though Sophie had trained to sprint, her ten year old legs couldn't out-run a full grown man. She was supposed to assassinate a black-haired lady who was of high rank in the Neverseen, but she couldn't find her. She could only find big, burly men who carried large machine guns. It was almost like they knew the Black Swan were coming. But that wasn't possible, they were very secretive about who knew about the mission.

Luckily, the big man who was chasing Sophie didn't want to use his machine gun in a cramped hallway because he could risk a shot ricocheting off of the walls and hitting him instead.

Sophie tried to turn around to throw a throwing knife at the guy she named Big Guy, but she tripped in the process. Apparently, this was a good thing because Big Guy then tripped over Sophie. Sophie managed to roll out off the way as he hit the ground with a thud. If she hadn't rolled out of the way she might've become a Sophie pancake.

When she got off the ground after her roll she saw that Big Guy was trying to get up off the floor, with much trouble. She didn't want him to came after her again, so she got her throwing knife—that was knocked from her hand when she fell—off the floor. Sophie then plunged the blade into where she assumed his heart was. Her knife ripped through Big Guy's skin and impaled his heart. Blood splattered her face as she pulled the blade out of his chest.

It was terrifying that Sophie felt good after a kill. She actually enjoyed killing. At first it was traumatizing, but now she did it without hesitation.

She focused her thoughts back on the mission at hand. She put those thoughts in the worry-about-later section of her brain. She didn't have time to think about things like that at the moment.

Sophie ran down corridor after corridor in an attempt to find the mysterious black-haired lady, but the hideout was almost empty. Except for the many Big Guy replicas.

After having to deal with 7 more Big Guy replicas—that she lost after taking an abundant amount of twists and turns—she finally found the mystery woman. She was exactly where Sophie expected her to be—extremely close to the exit of the hideout. What she didn't expect was to see a body lying in the corner of the hallway the woman was standing in.

With all thoughts of assassinating the black-haired, silver eyed woman forgotten, Sophie rushed to the body.

Immediately she recognized the body as Jensi's. "No, no, no. Please be alive, come on. One breath at a time," Sophie whispered with tears running down her face.

She checked his pulse and felt a faint tapping. That was good! He was still alive, he could make it! Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. But then she glanced at the blood pooling under him.

Immediately she started to rip her cloak into shreds. There was so much blood on the ground that Sophie almost fainted, but she had to hold on for Jensi. She had to hold on for her first friend. And he had to hold on for her. She whispered this into his ear, but he didn't respond.

He didn't respond because his whole future had vanished in a moment. He could've had such a bright future. Tears streamed down Sophie's face. It was like everyone she ever cared about ended up dying.

~ ~ ~

"Sophie? Are you okay?" Dex asked as Sophie snapped out of her flashback with tears running down her face. How could she have forgotten that everyone she cared about ended up hurt? She needed to stop being so careless. She shouldn't have tried to make friends at Foxfire because they were going to end up with the same fate as Jensi.

She knew she couldn't lie to her best friend, so she truthfully stated, "No, I'm not okay, but can we fight already. My mood always improves after a good fight—Especially when I get to kick your butt!"

"Don't you try to change the subject on me, Sophie. I know your ways. I promise you will feel better if you tell me why you were crying." Dex wiped a tear off her cheek and Sophie looked away in shame. She shouldn't be weak. That wasn't what the Black Swan taught her to be. She had to be strong, be a leader.

With that extra bit of confidence Sophie pulled Dex's hand over to the waiting line at the arena. Luckily, there was only one pair in-front of them, so they would be able to fight soon.

After they made it clear that they were second in line, Sophie whispered to Dex, "I'll tell you why I was crying after our fight."

"Okay, just know that you don't have to hide anything from me."

"Since when have I hidden anything from you?" Sophie protested. Dex gave her the "really" look and Sophie caved in. "Okay, fine. Maybe a few times."

After that they were called to the arena.

Pit fighting was basically a style of fighting where you could do whatever you wanted to your opponent. There were no illegal moves. In the Black Swan's version of pit fighting you just had to pin your opponent on the ground for 10 seconds because they didn't want anyone to be severely injured.

Normally the people in the arena would punch their opponent or wrestle them. Most of the time people didn't do any fancy kicks, but occasionally someone would want to show-off.

Sophie and Dex got on opposite sides of the arena, and the ref said, "Fight!"