RED ASSASSINS ▹ NATASHA ROMANOFF [EDITING]

[13]

A week had gone by, fast. The Graduation Ceremony had started, and it would last for two whole days. I rolled to the left side of my bed and saw Svetlana sitting on her bed, in a fit of hysterics. On my right was Peggy shivering in fear. I knew that all the girls were afraid of the impending Graduation Ceremony, so was I.

Unfortunately, we could not escape. Too late.

I got changed into a black tank top and long pants, just like the other burls did. We had a hotdog bun for breakfast, since today was the most important day in my training at the Red Room. Well, it was the most important day to me, at least. I devoured the whole piece of bread in the blink of an eye.

The clock struck 12 noon, and everyone filed into the training grounds, sitting on the benches. They couldn't be called benches, in fact they were just a few blocks of chipped bricks.

At that moment, a tall, middle aged lady in her forties strode up to us.

"I am Madame B, and I shall foresee that all of you attend the Graduation Ceremony. Today, tests will be carried out on all of you, mental or physical. Sterilization will be held tomorrow. Those who try to escape from the ceremony shall be killed." She said in an authoritative and austere tone.

As the old saying went, once bitten twice shy, I would never, ever dare to escape. I knew that the Red Room was am overly secured place, and the thought of meeting my demise made me shudder inwardly.

I was partly thankful that sterilization happened tomorrow, for it was going to be my first ever operation. It was as frightening as it was said. I had overheard them saying that it would remove some parts of our body. I was too young to even understand, so I figured out that they weren't going to let us have kids, at least that was what I thought they said.

During the mental tests, we had to do pen-and-paper exams. Most of them were about assassination and killings, just like what I had expected earlier on.

Some of the questions were easy, such as, "Which weapon is more effective in hand to hand combat? A) Pocket Knife, B) M98, C) Bazooka". There were open ended questions too, which included, "List out the steps on how to efficiently assassinate a person."

Initially, I thought that I wouldn't be able to answer them. After getting back our tests results, I noticed a big 'A' scrawled onto the paper. The 'A' had been smudged, causing it to look like it had been written with blood. I didn't really care that much and carried on celebrating my victory on successfully completing the first 3 tests of the day.