Blue

Raining, Pouring

There was a strange, jittery atmosphere in the bunker while the trainees waited for the Ensigns to return. Adam was taking out his anxiety on Rose in the training room, pausing far too frequently to pester Curtis about a fresh question his brain had welled up.

"How do we even know when they're back?" Adam asked, pausing his assault on Rose and turning his face towards Curtis.

WHAP! Rose's sword glanced off the side of his face, the sound of it smacking into his face accompanied by a string of curses from Adam. His cheek smarted angrily.

"Adam! That's the third time! You're done. I'm not doing this anymore. You don't want to train, you want to have your face painted black and blue by me. I'm gonna go find someone else who actually wants to train with me, " Rose snapped.

"Roseeeee. Come on. I just turned away for like, a second. Come on, dude, I'll pay attention, I swear I will. Come on."

Rose looked at him, her eyes narrowing slightly. She turned to Curtis, brandishing the tip of her sword at him.

"You. Tell him what he wants to know so I stop smacking him around and actually get some decent training out of this. Thinks he's all high and mighty now that he's been selected to do whatever they took y'all for. Big for his britches looking..." Rose's voice trailed off as she muttered away. Adam resisted the urge to laugh. Someone was clearly disappointed they hadn't been chosen to be part of whatever that weirdness was with Alvaro.

"Rose, I put armor on some dude who refused to acknowledge that I was even speaking to him. It was the weirdest thing I've ever had to do in my... well, not life, I guess. You know what I mean. Whatever," Adam said.

"I don't want to hear it. They picked y'all out of the crowd. That's got to mean something, doesn't it?" She turned to Curtis, her gaze threatening, "Doesn't it?"

Curtis threw his hands up in the air, "Woah there, bricky girl, calm down. Yes, it does mean something."

"And that is?"

"Yeah, Curtis, you didn't tell me it meant something to have to do that. Not that I ever want to do that again. So weird. I did mention it was super weird, right? Kind of degrading, somehow."

"I just..." Curtis sighed. "Fine. It's probably the worst kept secret in this place, so I'm surprised you two wooden spoons haven't heard about it already. There are thirteen Ensigns, right? Right. Well, there's only ever thirteen Ensigns. No more, no less."

Adam considered that for a second. The weirdness, the refusal to speak. A set number of Ensigns at a time.

"Wait, hold on, one of the Ensigns has to die for there to be a new Ensign?" Adam asked. Rose's mouth dropped open.

"We're already dead. How could we possibly die again?" she asked. Clearly, she had not been briefed on this phenomenon the way Adam had.

"We can. It's like... I don't know it's another body. Another chance. But we can die. That's why some of the more religious trainees don't become Ensigns. They think that their soul will die this time and then they won't get their afterlife. I don't know if that's true, though," Curtis said.

"Really? That's so fascinating... But... Well, I guess I didn't really know any of the Ensigns well enough to know if they went missing or not. And there was only one Hunt after I came. Damn. Wait, so if you're selected, then, what, you move up the ranks? Get closer to being the next pool for them to choose the new Ensigns from?" Rose leaned against her sword like a crutch, her focus centered solely on Curtis.

"Not... exactly..." Curtis grimaced.

"Hey! I don't know about youse, but the Ensigns are back and I'm trying to see how many new tattoos they got!" a trainee shouted, poking his head into the training room. His head was gone again by the time they had all turned their head to the doorway. The three of them looked at each other.