Alfred gave the blonde man next to him a hostile look. He and Ludwig (what a stupid name – in Alfred's opinion) were the best ones in their team and they were involved in a never ending competition. Who was able to do more push-ups? Who could run faster? Who would hit more dummies at the shooting range? Who could climb higher? Who could jump farther?
Sometimes Alfred was better, sometimes Ludwig. Alfred hated it to lose and he always gave his best to win. That was probably a good feature for a soldier, but not too useful at all to find friends. He and Ludwig were pretty lonely. The rest of the team got along quite well, but the two of them were lone wolves, not made for team work. When Ludwig looked back to Alfred his look wasn't hostile, just ice-cold.
When Alfred left the shower and headed for the locker room, he saw Ludwig. On full purpose he walked a bit against Ludwig, for what he got a relatively hard blow against his shoulder. What Alfred hated the most about Ludwig, besides his arrogance, was the fact that Ludwig was pretty tall for a 16-year-old. Alfred didn't want to look up to him.
With a deep sigh Alfred pushed the bulky, but at least light, armor into his locker and started to towel himself. Afterwards he slipped into his slightly uncomfortable dress uniform again. When he walked to the mess hall the flat heels of his - half-height, brightly polished - boots clattered in the same rhythm as always. This kind of marching had become a part of them, without noticing they fell into step when they walked somewhere together.
Like always lunch was something that had nutrients and whatsoever to keep you running or training in another way for hours and hours, but didn't really taste like anything. One got used to the stale taste; they had forgotten how 'normal' food tasted. Most of them had come here, when they had been at the age of eight or nine; at the beginning there was really a lot of theoretical classes, that taught them strategies, the structure of different weapons, when which weapon had to be used. They watched the older ones while shooting practice, analyzed their movements. They learned about the history of war, the tools that they had, the structure of the armed forces.
And then, then the practical classes started. Stamina, strength, shooting, running, push-ups, chin-ups, sit-ups, marches across pathless terrain – under burning sun, in freezing cold – combat-practice and training-missions.
They didn't know anything else, the memories of their childhood and family faded over the time. Alfred knew he had a brother and that they looked pretty alike, but he couldn't remember anything else of his family. At first it fretted him that he forgot his parents, but it lost importance over the years. Family wasn't important at all, they had been sent here to protect Earth.
Alfred was tired and exhausted since the training-missions got tougher every day. But he still had to visit Theory-classes, no matter how worn out he was. They didn't gain much new knowledge in Theory, but the things that they already had learned became more a part of their thoughts when they were in 'combat' – on their training-missions.
They patiently waited for their teacher to arrive. She was – like almost everyone here – a strict person. When she entered the room, they all rose from their chairs at the same time. They stood there - not moving, hands behind their backs, chins a bit up. "Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen." Her voice was loud. It rustled a bit when the whole group raised their right hand to their forehead and saluted. "Good morning Ma'am!" they shouted. "Sit down," she said with still loud voice. They sat down; again they moved exactly at the same time. "Tomorrow, Ladies and Gentlemen, you'll be going on a longer training-mission. You will have two days to complete the mission. It will be a capture the flag-mission. The mission will end after 48 hours, if you didn't manage to get the flag of the enemy team. Because of that, we'll repeat the rules again today. Jones." She looked at Alfred.
Alfred straightened his back. "The fate of the individual is irrelevant, the success of the mission is of highest importance," he dryly replied. His teacher gave him a pleased look and nodded. This question and answer-game went on for the whole lesson.
Even more tired than before Alfred fell onto his bed – which had a far too thin mattress - and let out an exhausted groan. Tomorrow he had to be fit and rested. Usually he was happy about missions and looked forward to them, but tomorrow Ludwig was in command. Towards the others Ludwig was relatively nice, but exactly that was the problem. He felt alone, just as always. Alone.
He turned restlessly on his back again and rubbed over his eyes. He just couldn't fall asleep and he wasn't even exited or something similar to that. He thought too much.
After all Alfred fell into a deep, dreamless and – most important – restorative sleep.
So, first of all: Sorry for my English. I'm not a native speaker and I actually translated this chapter, so it was kinda hard to find the right words. But anyway, thanks for reading. But be aware, I probably won't update this story on a regular basis, but maybe I'll finish it in the near future, since I'm on vacation now (doesn't mean anything, I'm sorta lazy)
