The zombie apocalypse is no "new news" in fact I've been surviving the apocalypse for three years now and I'm starting to realize that it isn't much of an apocalypse at all.
I was one of the teens who obsessed over the fake TV dramas such as The Walking Dead. The shows that depicted the dead rising. Those shows have long been banned. Once the SHTF our governments thought depictions of our new found enemy were very inappropriate to the human audience they appealed to. Those depictions were a load of bull anyway. Our apocalypse is casual restraint, new enforced laws regarding nonsense, and Paul Wesson, our big time dictator, refusing to deal with any of the crap going on as if it were beneath him.
Massive walls were built around major cities over night to prevent the restless from mowing down on fresh city slickers. The walls, I'm told, are about five feet wide and stories tall; when this all broke out I was in Toronto visiting our neighbouring new church community on a Teen weekend set up by the church board. My home is back in the smaller city of Kitchener, my home with my two parents and loving pet waiting, hoping that one day I will return.
That's right; I haven't seen my parents in three years. No one is permitted access past the wall. I am told there are four gates located in the wall. Each gate opens in an exact direction of north, south, east, or west. I currently have set up residence in a four story apartment building with two of my friends.
So, I kind of lied when I said no one is permitted access through those gates. The Slayers Guild, the coolest, most envied, best trained, amazingly skilled people in all of well, everywhere. They are the men and women, boys and girls we trust to protect our walls. Part of their job is to travel between walled cities either for protection transfer or for the occasional privilege of visiting family members; however the second option is kept on the down low. It is only a privilege given to the highest ranking slayers, a privilege most citizens don't even know about. I guess you could say it's kind of a dream of mine to become a part of the Slayers Guild, and today is my chance!
"Arillia, are you awake yet?'
"Yeah, of course I am, I barely slept all night." I answered. It was true, the anticipation was killing me! My dream could come true today and I would be one step closer to reuniting with my family.
"Do you feel ready?"
"Are you kidding me Janie. I feel so ready, and yet I'm nervous as hell about forgetting everything I know." A humourless laugh left me.
"Well, believe me, you are going to kill at this exam!"
"Only ten people will be accepted into the guild. For some people this will be their second or third time applying, for me, it's only my first. My chances are looking slim."
"Shut up! You'll do fine. Are you gonna eat that?" Janie asked, pointing at my half eaten sandwich. I shook my head and pushed my plate in front of her.
"Go ahead."
It was eight o'clock in the morning and my exam started at nine o'clock. I had an hour to drive there and get situated.
I looked in the mirror. I was surprised when I saw my hair was still intact after running my nervous hands through it a million times. My brown hair was pulled up into a tight ponytail; there was no way I was allowing a blind spot during my exam. I wore a black V-neck t-shirt, black skinny jeans and black combat boots. I'm a colourful person.
My eyes travelled to my neck, the reflection captured the life-like essence of my most prized possession; the necklace that dangled perfectly around my neck resting against my collarbone. An angel wing, meaningful and precise, yet a constant reminder of what I'm not.
I fastened my belt around my waist and collected my jacket –black of course—and purse, loading up my car, well not my car, my friend's, the friend that is most likely still asleep.
Running back inside I was greeted by a disoriented, tired face staring back at me.
"I'm so sorry, my alarm—"
"Didn't go off? Let me guess you set it for PM and instead of AM?" Scarlet giggled, her fatigued grin gathering large bags under her eyes.
"You know me so well."
"Go get ready."
"Hell no! Ain't nobody got time for that! We gotta go now."
"Okay then hurry up!" I, with a half awake blob at my side, filed into the car after a brief argument about who was more capable of driving momentarily, I took the driver's seat, plugged the key into the ignition and the car roared to life.
We travelled down the road hitting every blasted red light one could imagine, and beyond, until I parked the car between the yellow parking lines and killed the engine. I opened the car door, and to my surprise the same action was mimicked by my partner in crime, the wooky emerged groaning at the natural sunlight.
"You're coming in?"
"Well, of course!" I let out a laugh as her hair flopped up and down in front of her face while her head nodded violently.
"Suite yourself." We entered the large building, there were three rooms discluding the one we were in. The first room on the right was entitled TRAINING ROOM, the one in the middle EXAMINATION ARENA, and the one on the left WRTITING HALL. However, this came as no surprise to me, I had studied the inside of this facility a thousand times, I could tell you every detail about what is behind door number one, two and three.
The woman at the desk in front of us, looked up from her keyboard, yet continued to type, the keys echoing through the bare foyer.
"Here for examination." She said, seeming to state rather than ask. She pointed to the room on the right and we made our way inside.
Rows of chair lined the back wall in a stadium-like manner, in the front was a large cabinet and centered in the middle of the stage was a tall desk, just as I remembered it. To my surprise, we were the first ones here. Almost right on cue:
"Looks like we're the first here, enjoy being on time 'cuz this is the first and last time you will ever be punctual." I smiled and rolled my eyes.
"If I recall this morning correctly, you were the one that wasn't on time." Scarlet ignored me, taking in the size of the room
About ten minutes later others began to file into the room. I was pleasantly surprised by the range of ages from 40 to 16. Each person wanted a shot at their destiny. I let out a deep sigh as the anxiety began to sink in.
"Relax. You're gonna make it through, I'm positive you know this place and procedure 105 times better than anyone else here."
"Only 105?" I tried to smile but my humour lacked confidence. Scarlet ignored me and closed her eyes as she reclined in her chair.
I checked the time on my phone; 8:52am. My hands, being as shaky as they were, my phone fell out onto the floor beneath the chair in front of me. Before I even had a chance to ask, the occupier of the seat bent down and reached for my phone. He turned around in his seat and smiled. I swear my breathe caught and a wonderful rush of natural, musky sour scent secured a place in my greedy lungs.
"This yours?' His voice! So deep and raspy. I felt my face begin to flush as I reached for an answer.
"Yeah, thanks." I reached for my phone, my fingertips brushing against his warm hand.
"Nice screen saver!" He chuckled. My stomach swooped. I could swear I was on a rollercoaster because the motion kept repeating. Then suddenly a picture of my screensaver appeared in my head, my friends and I making the most ridiculous faces toward the camera. THE HUMILIATION! Somehow a laugh escaped my but the colour remained in my cheeks, heating. He turned back around but his flawless face remained in my mind. His dark eyelashes framing his dark green eyes, his sharp, manly facial structure and his dark brown hair—so dark almost black—the way it hung into his face.
"HAW-TEE!" Scarlet said, not nearly quiet enough.
"But since when do you lack the words to flirt?"
"Shut up." My eyes still glued on the back of his head, and his broad shoulders that peeked out around the back of the chair.
"He seems your type." Scarlet elbowed me encouragingly.
"Stop it." I said, beyond aware that he could hear us.
"Looks who's playing shy!" I unlocked my phone and changed my screensaver to the album cover of Three Days Grace, and checked the time; 9:01am. I was interrupted by a loud voice originating from the front of the room on the stage. A decent looking male stood behind the tall desk.
"Good morning everyone, thank you all for joining us today. All of you came here today with a common goal but, hate to be the bearer of bad news, not all of you will meet your goals, in fact, most of you will fail and not be accepted into the guild."
"Harsh." Scarlet took the pause in dialect to insert her own.
"However, some of you will be accepted into the guild. Those of you who display exceptional skill, natural talent, and unrelenting dedication during exams, will be the ones to achieve their goals. Now, enough of the pep talk and on to more concerning matters."
"That was a pep talk?"
"This year, your odds of achieving your goals have increased. Instead of only accepting ten slayers, we will be looking for a total of 15." In the crowd I could hear people murmuring about the shocking news.
"Scarlet! Please? You helped me study for these exams a million times, you know the material just as well as me. You could make it in for sure if you wanted it bad enough." Her face was serious as she contemplated the offer that just arrived. She looked at me with unsure eyes. I lifted an eyebrow to prompt her answer.
"So?"
"Why the hell not?" She exclaimed. I was excited I wouldn't be doing this alone, I always had her at my side and frankly, we were a pretty awesome team! The man in the center of the room continued.
"We will run you through a series of tests that will allow you to display your talent, or lack thereof. In total you will run three physical tests and one written. The first physical will be strictly about your health, particularly about your heart, lungs and brain patterns. The second will be about your mental and physical knowledge of weapons. And the third test will be on mental and physical relations regarding who to trust or reject and leave behind. So good luck."
After the brief introduction, we filed into the next room, the EXAMINATION ARENA Block 1. Block 1 was the health examination. There were seven different private offices located on the far wall, across from them were rows of seating where we were waiting for our check-up.
"Number 17." Was called by a woman peering around a wall that provided privacy for those inside the small office. I rose from my seat. Looking back at Scarlet, I saw her moth the words 'good luck' and made my way toward the office.
"Hi there Hun, can I ask your name just so we can get you on record?"
"Arillia."
"very good. And your last name?"
"Tate."
"Great. Now, can I get you to just stand on the scale right over here." I nodded and complied.
"So the average weight for a female your age is 118 pounds."
"How do you know how old I am?"
"Observant girl I see. I typed your first and last name into my computer and every government, educational, and medical document popped up. I saw your age is 16."
"The scale says I am 120 pounds."
"Perfect, just as I suspected, you are slightly taller than the average female your age so that is the perfect weight." I stepped off the scale as I watched her plug in my stats into her computer. She ran a few more exams and then told me I could go back to the waiting room and return to my seat.
As I walked out of the office I noticed a familiar face belonging to the body sitting contently in my chair. Walking over I admired his exceptional skin tone and thick muscles that were perfectly on display, not too covered by his black T-shirt.
"Hey I see we meet again." Cole said grinning at me.
"Huh, funny how that works hey?" He raised his eyebrows at me and gave me another slight smirk.
"I'm Cole." He extended his hand out to me remaining in his seat, or shall I say my seat.
"That's nice." I was about to tell him to get out of my seat, but the look on his face caught me off guard.
"Wow, I wasn't expecting you to be so feisty." He folded his hands together, resting his hands on his abdomen as he leaned back into my chair. I faked a sarcastic smile and raised an eyebrow at him.
"So, are you thinking of removing yourself from my seat anytime soon?"
"Naw, I have a much better view from over here, thanks for asking."
"Better view of what?" I spat the last 't' beginning to get annoyed at his continuous comments even if her was attractive.
"You."
"Charming, now move." I was impressed by my ability to stay strong even as his words melted my organs into a hot pastry filling inside me. He remained where he was, seeming unaffected by my words.
"What's your name?"
"If you were the observant type, you would have seen before you sat down, that my name tag is one the back of the chair, making that chair what you might call mine for the time being." He stood from sitting coming face to face with me. Gesturing behind him he spoke.
"I see no such thing." Sure enough the name tag had been removed. I bit my bottom lip refraining from making eye contact. I took the opportunity provided by the empty seat behind him and tried to make my way around the wall of the rock hard muscle barrier that stood between me and my destination.
"Where are you going?" He asked, stepping in the way of my path preventing me from moving toward my goal. I looked up into his gorgeous green eyes encased by a dark lining of eyelashes.
"Get out of my way." I clearly couldn't manage to say it forcefully enough because he remained right where he was.
"Cole, move." I attempted again. He allowed a smile across his flawless face and spoke in his raspy voice.
He stepped out of the way and I brushed past him claiming my seat.
"Number 21." Cole winked then set off toward the room.
This whole time, Scarlet had been sitting beside me in her seat watching this thing go down.
"Yup, definitely your type."
"Shut up." I said sarcastically as I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. It was 11:23am, this was seeming to take forever. Almost as if right on cue, the big television screen mounted on the wall in front of us, sported names of all those who had passed the health examination. Luckily for me, I was one of them; Scarlet too.