Call of the Starling

Chapter 1

"Be quiet," hisses Jay from behind us. "A move like that in the real battle, and you'll get us all killed!" My eyes drop to my feet, and I adjust my footing so each thump of my foot hitting earth is muffled. I don't want to be singled out. 

My name is Starling. And I was bred for murder.

Let me explain. Many years ago, long before I was born, some sadistic organization called Dark World took a bunch of children aged 7 to 11, organized them into teams for each age group, and put sections of ten teams each into separate wilderness settings. There, the last team standing won. But then, those survivors were imprisoned until they were old enough to provide healthy offspring. And they were forced to have more children, with the DNA of the strongest flowing through their veins.

It flows through Jay. Through me. Through all of us.

We don't know why they're doing this to us. We don't know if it's a secret, or a worldwide newspaper topic. We're told nothing. All we know is that we need to survive.

You see, they weeded out the weakest of us around age 5. They just never arrived at practice one day. Once, my best friend was sick. I never saw her again. 

We're all around twelve now. They send us to fight when we're thirteen. They've divided us into ten groups of twenty. They say when the war begins, each team will only have fifteen.

We only have another three months to train. I'm guessing they'll take one or two of us away each month. Just one, I suspect, in the last month. They want us to be a tightly knit group, but they don't want us to be able to sleep tight. We're all pretty light sleepers, trained to wake at the slightest crackle of a twig. The skill could save our lives. Or it could end them.

I have killed before, and most likely, I will kill again.

The first time was when I was almost ten. There was a girl, about four years younger than me, lashed to the wall by four iron cuffs around her wrists and ankles. She was bound and gagged, but her eyes pleaded for help. I could hear the crackle of a hidden speaker being activated. Then, I heard a man’s monotone voice, gruffly saying, “Starling, kill the girl.” It was a simple order. Not hard to do, and not hard to understand- I thought it just an easy test. At that moment, I thought nothing of human feelings, of ethics. I thought only of self-preservation. I knew they would punish or kill me if I didn’t do it. Casting a glance about the room, I saw a knife, lying ineptly concealed by the meagre shadow of the room. I picked it up, walked calmly over to the girl, and plunged the knife into her chest.

The sound of a twig breaking under my foot jolts me out of my reverie and back to a harsh reality. "Starling! Be more careful! " Jay whispers harshly in my direction, glaring at me. I don't question his authority- he's our leader. The sadists didn't pick him. We picked him. And we did a damn good job of it too. He can be harsh, but he's turned every one of us into a steel-muscled combat whiz. However, we still need to work on stealth and survival skills. And we've only got another ten hours on the practice battlefield before we return to our rooms to retire for the rest of the month.

I feel a pair of eyes turn on me. "Starling…" breathes Eider from beside me. I see him glance to the side, and follow his gaze to where it rests on a solitary buck, body strong and proud, standing about forty metres away from where the group of us tread. The buck’s antlers are his only giveaway, their soft, yellowish-white shading in mild contrast with the autumn leaves covering the ground he stands upon. Without seeming to react, I calmly slide my knife out of its sheath and into my palm. Then, my arm comes up, snaking back, and then forward as I release it, watching as it spirals towards my target. The buck doesn’t even glance in our direction before the knife buries itself cleanly in its side. It falls to the ground, having been killed instantly by a blow to the heart.