Dream

Chapter 1

My muscles still ached from being pushed too far during the Physical training we had to do yesterday when I awoke at five.

Of course, I didn't have long to think about it - I was up and dressed into my Stealth Training uniform, my hair tied back away from my face as was compulsory. I didn't really like thing my hair up, but I had to do it everyday, anyway.

The ST uniform consisted of a skin-tight black jumpsuit and elbow-lengthen leather gloves, and black trainers. We wore black masks, too, but we didn't have to put them on yet, as they were kept in a cabinet in the ST rooms.

My best friend, Daisy Williams, with whom I shared the room, woke up at the same time, and had also changed into her ST uniform.

Then, we ran down to the dining room that was already half-full, and shovelled down bowls of cereal and downed a glass of milk each.

And we bolted to the ST room.

The ST room was made with mainly Time Lord technology - meaning that we all met outside the door to a very small cube-shaped building, but the inside was infinite.

About half the class was already there - we were to be there at twenty past five for registration, and then we were to get our masks and put them on, and line up ready for command by twenty-five past.

Which is exactly what happened.

We were then briefed on our objective for the lesson.

'Once you enter the building, you will find a series of rooms laid out in a random order. Your objective is to navigate your own way around the room, alone or in pairs, and find the keys in the centre. There, you will take one key from the box, and only one key each, and only then will you be able to leave. If anybody sees you, you will be teleported to a random room along the outside of he building. Also, the key will be teleported back into the centre, and you will have to retrieve it again. Questions?'

'No, sir.' The class of twenty chanted back in unison.

'You will enter the room in ten seconds, and will then have four hours until you are automatically beamed back here. In five... Four... Three... Two... One...' Sir opened the door to the stealth room, and we all filed in.

As soon as I stepped through the door, the world around me seemed to expand. There were doors, ropes gaps in the walls...

Immediately, I ran to the right and through a small hole in the wall, forcing myself to ignore the burning of my muscles. I could hear Daisy calling my name from behind, but that made me run faster.

I looked back and saw that someone had come through he door that was opposite the one we had entered through, and then Daisy, along with about four others, were teleported into different parts of the room.

On the other side of the hole was an empty, square shaped room with no more exits to it, except the rope that scaled the unnaturally-high (I couldn't see the top of it) wall to my left. I climbed it, and found a small crack at the top of the rope.

Looking through the crack, I could see a large portion of the room that we were navigating through.

It was huge.

It would be too simple if I could see the centre from here - but, I mapped out a route throughout the rooms.

Back through the hole, scale over a lower wall and then climb a rope and cling to the ceiling, stick to the shadows to stay out of sight, drop into an empty room, through the door into another empty room, climb a rope and swing over the wall, don't land but slide across the thin wall and avoid detection from each side, jump onto the platform above and run across without falling through any of the holes, and jump onto a small ledge on the next extra-high wall I came across, landing on the small ledge that jutted out about a centimetre. I dug my fingers into small cracks in the wall, and looked through a small hole.

This time, I couldn't see much.

So, in one fluid motion, I dropped my legs from the ledge and hung from it my my hands, and then allowed myself to drop about ten feet.

After landing on my feet, I curled over to absorb the impact with my entire body. Then, I got up and scrambled through another hole in the wall.

It took a lot of rope-climbing, wall-jumping and running, and after God-knows how long, I reached a rather full box of keys.

Then, after more rope-climbing, wall-jumping and running, I was back outside the building with Sir.

I was the first back.

It was now seven - it had taken me an hour and thirty-five minutes to complete the exercise, which, Sir informed me, was a very quick time.

I just sat down for a while, as my whole body was aching from overuse, the way it usually did the day after Fitness.

The next person came out after two hours and twenty minutes. Nobody except the two of us - who just sat together in silence, as we had never met each other before, so why would I need to talk to her? - beat three hours, after which only seven others, including Daisy, returned. At exactly four hours, the other eleven were teleported back to the entrance. Four people were clutching keys in their hands.

'Only one of you managed to beat two hours. She was also the only one to never be seen. And only two of you managed to beat three hours. Less than half of you made it back at all. This was one of the toughest ST courses you've ever been on, but you've all had three years of training. If you ever intend on being sent on a Mission, you'll need to up your game.' Sir told us strictly after we had lined up again.

By the time Sir had finished telling us about how we needed to up our game, and get faster and stay hidden more, it was quarter to nine. After ST, we all went over to our next training session of the day, that started at nine - weaponry. There, we all found our Weaponry suits and changed into them, and then beamed our ST suits back up to our rooms.

Our daily routine barely changed. Wake up at five, get dressed into ST uniform, breakfast, ST from twenty-five past four until quarter to nine, Weaponry from nine until one, half an hour to get changed and eat lunch, History of the SGTS from half past one until half past two, then Leadership and Knowing Your Enemy (finding signs if lying, examining evidence etc. etc.) from quarter to three until five, Combat training until half past seven, dinner for an hour, during which we had to stay in the Dining Hall, and then we had to go into our rooms and wash and iron our five uniforms - ST, Weaponry (padded jacket, bulletproof tops and bulletproof combat trousers), History (simply a top and jeans), Leadership (similar to an army uniform, but brown), and Fitness (t-shirt and shorts) - polish our Leadership and Weaponry boots and clean our three pairs of trainers, which we had an hour and a half to do. Then, at Half Past Nine, we would either be told to go to bed, or (and this was the only part that ever varied) go for Fitness training until eleven (every other Wednesday).

So, you may be wondering what the heck the SGTS was, what it does, why we were here, how we got here etc. etc.

Well, this is all you need to know...