Thrive- The 5th Wave(Ben Parish)

3

When everyone is done eating I head back to the training room. We're allowed in there during our free hours. I head to the punching bags and start kicking the shit out of them. I sigh and move onto a heavier, bigger bag. I never thought I'd be training to be a soldier. Hell, I am a soldier. Fighting aliens...

I hear the door slam and glance over my shoulder expecting Flint to come in her for the sole purpose of annoying me, or Dumbo trying to improve his shooting skills. But Zombie walks in instead. "Hey Zombie" I say.

"Hey Slick" I muster a slight smile. My name sounds like a cruel nickname kids in grade school would give someone on the playground or some shit. But to me it sounds fitting. Fast, Smoothly done, easily done... sounds pretty badass and scary to me.

"So what are you here for?" I turn my head to the side questioning Zombie.

"Well I was actually hoping we could make some sort of a deal."

"I'm listening"

"You teach me to shoot and I'll teach you hand to hand combat." I'm pretty bad at hand to hand actually. And Zombie's pretty bad at shooting. I bite my lower lip.

"And why would I do that?"

"I don't know why would you?"

I press my tongue up against the side of my cheek and nod slightly looking around the room. "I guess it'll give me something to do. So sure."

"But I'm tired right now so I'm not doing anything that involves effort until we have to run."

I'm surprisingly exited that we'll get to spend some time together. Zombie seems kind of kept to himself about things. I'm the same way. But overall I want to get to know Zombie better. He doesn't seem ignorant like most of the squad. I walk over to the mats and just lay down with my hands at my sides. I hear footsteps on the mat and then they stop. I look to my side to see Zombie laying beside my with his hands clutching a chain on his neck.

We stayed like this for a few minutes then he broke the silence. "How'd you get brought here?" That's something I haven't thought of in a while. And something I didn't expect him to ask. Seeing as we never really talked that much. Except for the casual conversations at meals and in the barracks.

"The same way as Nugget. The same bus as him actually."

I wasn't looking at him but I felt his eyes on me. "Then why didn't you join the squad when nugget did?" He asks me.

"The first few weeks that I was here I was with Dr. Pam. I had a few broken ribs and cuts all over." I glanced at Zombie and he was still looking at me. Our eyes met for a few seconds but I looked back up at the ceiling.

"How'd you get hurt?" Damn he asks a lot of questions.

"My best friend tried murdering me." I say bluntly. I close my eyes for a brief second but then the memories start coming back. I open them in fear that I'll remember myself as I was then. Weak, vulnerable, afraid. I try my hardest not to be like her. Not like Ariana. I'm Slick now. A badass, rude, kind of serial killer I guess seeing as I've killed almost 90 people, and I don't care about anyone. Except I kind of care about Teacup. Other than that everyone here can go burn in hell.

"Oh.. That sucks..." thanks Zombie. I totally didn't know that already.

"Don't worry I killed her first. She was my first kill actually." I say while turning my head towards Zombie. He looks at me with slightly widened eyes and says,

"You've had many?" It almost seems as if he was surprised. As if killing people wasn't normal. Normal now I should say. The old me never would have dreamed of even hurting someone. Pssh. Killing people was like in my daily routing before I was brought to camp hell.

"Yes. Eighty-Four to be exact."

"You counted?" What?! Has this guy never heard of death? I'm sure almost everyone here has at killed someone. I mean look what society has come to now, Teacup is seven and is training to be a soldier and kill aliens. She's also the most mean seven year old I have ever met.

"Yes. It's how I kept my sanity after... stuff happened. If I didn't count and just went around killing people aimlessly then I'd probably have gone Dorothy by now." I glance at the clock and start standing up. "We'd better go. We can start training tomorrow, nice chatting with you." I say in a sarcastic tone even though I kind of enjoyed it. It was just quiet time. Like it was in my backyard where I would practise archery everyday after school. I heard Zombie sigh. I'm not sure if it was because we're going to have to run for about 10 minutes straight, a bunch of aliens are trying to kill us, or the fact that the 'moment' thing we just had ended.

Well I wouldn't actually call it a moment. I've seen two five year olds have more of a moment than that. Seriously.

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Ayeee chapter twoooo. I'm uploading this now because I plan to update on Sundays and Wednesdays but I won't be able to post on Wednesday and I want to give you guys something to read lol.

For real comment on this I would like feedback
-L