Purgatory

Chapter 8

A white hot pain burned through my lungs with each breath, and every joint in my body felt like they were grinding together as I ran down the track in the training arena.  I wasn’t the slowest of my squad, but I felt myself beginning to lag with fatigue.  Cole led the run, sometimes falling back to the slower runners to yell in their ears.

“How the hell did you get through high school gym at this pace?” he would ask so loud the other squads could hear.  “I bet you were picked last for dodge ball because you’re so slow, and you don’t even run in dodge ball!”

I sneered in his direction without thinking.  I was never into physical activities, and being forced into them never made me very happy.  I preferred not to have beads of sweat falling down my face and soaking my clothing.  Sweat made people stink, and some people carried with them the worst body odors.

Cole began to run next to me after noticing my expression.  “I’m sorry, princess, is the sweat getting in your eyes or was that a sneer I just saw?”  We ran a couple of paces in silence before he yelled at me once more.  “I asked you a question, Diederich.”

It was odd hearing my last name as Cole addressed me.  I was never called anything so formal, so for a moment it didn’t even register that he was speaking to me.  “I sneered, sir,” I responded through my heavy breathing.  My inhales were airy as I felt my throat begin to close.  Cole ran to the front of the group and turned to face us, skillfully running backwards as he spoke to all of us.

“Apparently Diederich doesn’t like running,” he called to us, “so when we’re done here, you guys get to run suicides!”  I clenched my teeth to fight back a groan, and Lawrence vomited as he ran next to me.  “Keep running, Smith!”  Cole turned back around and set the pace once again.

Heart rate 172 beats per minute.  I was beginning to feel my knees give a little each time I planted my heels into the ground, and sometimes the toes of my shoes would scuff the turf.  Cole held true to his word as we went directly from running laps to suicides up and down the length of the arena.  I wanted the pain to end, and I felt tears spill from the corners of my eyes and dropped down my face with the falling sweat.

Somewhere between internally sobbing about my pain and hating the very activity of running, I occasionally found myself thinking about how this training would affect someone like Curse.  It was likely good he wasn’t present today, though I wondered how he was recovering.

My thoughts were my only solace and relief from the pain, but as soon as we stopped and were dismissed, I found the greater challenge was heading to my quarters to shower.  My legs felt boneless, and Juels laughed at me as she helped me gain my footing.  She carried a pallid looking Lawrence in her other arm.

“This is why you eat the bar they give us, Lawrence,” she said to him as we trudged up the stairs.  Even the more fit of us like Juels and Kevin were struggling with the effort.

I found myself ravenous as we ate breakfast.  The tasteless mash was no issue this morning as we all ate the full portion, even Cole.  With every bite I felt my energy restored.  Unlike the previous morning, we were not allowed to speak to each other as we ate.  We had to look forward, never down, and scoop our mash methodically.  We had to chew five times before swallowing and slowly lowering our arm to pick up more food.  It took a lot of effort and concentration, and it made me feel awkward as I stared past Uvine’s cherubic face and wide eyes.  She stared past me as well, but her intense concentration contorted her face comically.

After breakfast we marched two by two into a circular room, our footsteps rhythmic against the white walls.  Along the circumference of the wall were tall stations fitted with a USB cable and an adjustable clear viewing screen.  Each of us filed into the room and stood at a station, and the clear viewing screen automatically adjusted to our personal eye levels.