"Ethan…" Everything was hazy.
"Ethan." Suddenly, a faint silhouette began to materialize in front of him.
"Ethan!" Not just any silhouette: it was a human head.
"Dammit Ethan! Get the hell out of your bed!" Slap!
"Huh? Wha? Where am I?" Ethan stuttered, reeling from the shock of the sting from the wild haymaker across his face.
Matthew sighed. "Get up," he said. "Your alarm is driving me crazy."
"Oh hey, you're that kid from last night," Ethan commented, his mind still in a daze from only having woken up a second ago.
"Yeah," Matthew replied. "I'm your roommate, remember? Oh, and my name's Matthew. Would it kill you to call me that?"
"Sure, Mitch, whatever you say," he said, leaping out of bed.
Another heavy sigh. "So why am I up again?" Ethan asked.
"Don't ask me," Matthew stated. "I just noticed you set your alarm to six a.m. It's been ringing nonstop for ten minutes now."
"What?" Ethan exclaimed frantically. He looked at his clock. 6:11. "Shit," he said, practically ripping off his pajamas and dashing for a plastic bin full of clothes.
Matthew curiously gazed at him. "What's up?" he asked. "Your first class isn't until eight, remember?"
"Yeah, I get that," Ethan hurriedly responded. "It's the damn army! They want me to show up to some drill or something at 6:15." Ethan looked at himself. He was barely dressed, only wearing his pants without a belt. He looked at the clock again. 6:13.
"You better hurry then," said Matthew climbing back into his bed.
"Wait!" Ethan said, putting a shirt on over his bare torso. "Why are you going back to sleep?"
"My first class doesn't start until nine. I can afford to sleep another hour or two."
"Lucky bastard," Ethan said under his breath. Matthew raised his eyebrow because he thought he heard it, but shrugged it off and lay back down.
Lieutenant Daniel Rush paced back and forth, eyeing the hundred or so new recruits that had come to attend Vulcan University on Cinnabar Island. "Look at 'em…" he mumbled. "Every year they grow in number, but as always they lack more and more proper demeanor."
One new recruit stepped forward and asked, "Is something wrong?"
"Get back in line soldier!" he boomed. The private, visibly startled, followed the order without hesitation.
The lieutenant nodded in approval and beckoned for one of the sophomore bystanders to come to him. "Dirty Dan," as he was known by most of the squad, was almost a stereotypical lieutenant: battle-hardened face and stern, tough expression, buzz cut, and was muscular and built practically everywhere. The head of Alpha Company had served in the army since his own college days. Although he had been dismissed, he still worked to train new recruits at Vulcan University on Cinnabar Island. "What's the headcount look like?" he asked the sophomore.
"There's 114 of them," he replied. "We're one short."
This sophomore's name was Ryan Vissing, although he was given the nickname "Loverboy" on account of his girlfriend Tracy Anna, and not without reason. They'd been dating strong since February of his freshman year, and they were just about to celebrate six months of dating in a few weeks. Ryan was mean, especially to those younger than him, although he showed great respect and admiration to the upper-classmen and especially his girlfriend and lieutenant (although he still called him Dirty Dan behind his back.)
Lieutenant Rush looked at his roster. He'd checked off almost every single person in the company. All but one. "Where in the bloody hells is…!" he began to shout, but forgot who he was looking for. "…Ethan Graves? Where's Ethan Graves?!"
"Right here!" panted Ethan, dashing over to the long line of freshman recruits. He lined up at the end next to one of them, but the lieutenant pointed at him and called, "You! Front and center!"
Ethan gulped and slowly walked forward to become face-to-face with the steaming lieutenant. "Soldier! Why were you late?"
Ethan shrugged. "I overslept," he replied calmly.
"You overslept?" Lieutenant Rush shouted. "What will happen when your scouts return to you in the middle of the night screaming like a sack of deranged Mankeys that they saw the enemy? Will you oversleep then?"
"Probably not," Ethan responded.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I'd be woken up by the sound of combat?" Ethan said with a slight hint of annoyance.
"Is that a question or an answer soldier?" the Lieutenant screamed.
"I don't know! I just missed my alarm this morning! It happens every now and then!"
"And what if it happens during combat?" Without allowing Ethan a chance to answer, the lieutenant shouted in his face, "You have to learn discipline or you will never survive war! Drop now and give me twenty push-ups!"
Ethan got down on his hands and feet, but not without saying smugly, "Twenty? Seems a tad cliché to me…"
"Make that forty then," the lieutenant responded.
"What?" Ethan grunted, stopping at his third push-up. "That's not fair!"
"Neither is war, soldier! Keep going!"
"But…!"
"I can just as easily make it sixty! Now keep it going; I don't have all day."
Ethan returned to his dorm to find Matthew awake and upright in his bed, furiously pressing buttons on a portable game console. He looked away from the screen for a split second to notice his roommate, but immediately looked back at it, saying "So how was it?"
"Freaking terrible!" Ethan exclaimed. "Dirty Dan is such a rat bastard!"
"Who's Dirty Dan?" Matthew asked.
"My commander," Ethan grumbled. "I swear he made me do at least a hundred push-ups!"
"Why? Because you were late?"
"Because who knows!"
"So why did you come back?"
"I forgot my books, my Pokeballs, my deodorant…"
"So that's why you smell so awful! You were in such a rush this morning that you didn't apply any toiletries!"
"No shit," Ethan said.
"Do it now," Matthew said sternly. "You smell worse than a Miltank farm."
Ethan nodded and went on with his routine. Matthew cursed under his breath, considering how he lost to the boss for the ninth time. He set his game down and said, "So what class are you going to first?"
"English," he responded.
"Ugh, I absolutely hated English in high school."
"You know it."
"Which is why I'm glad I tested out of it."
Ethan spit out all the toothpaste in his mouth all over the mirror in the bathroom. Matthew thought he was just rinsing his mouth out but it really created a mess that he'd have to clean up later. "You can do that?" Ethan exclaimed.
"Yeah," Matthew responded. "Did you not take Advanced English?"
"No," Ethan said. "They told me I wasn't smart enough."
"Oh, well, good luck then."
"Well what's your first class?"
"Data Structures."
"What?" Ethan exclaimed, almost choking on mouthwash. "How come you get to take advanced classes?"
Matthew shrugged. "I took a lot of college-level classes in high school like English, History, Calculus, Chemistry…"
"Okay, okay, I get it," Ethan hurriedly said. "I get that you're smart; you don't need to make a big deal over it!"
"Whatever," Matthew sighed, turning off his gaming system. "So, have you heard about Ms. Blanca?"
"Who's that?" Ethan asked, his arm raised as he applied deodorant.
"My computer instructor. Apparently she's a new teacher, and she's young, young enough to be my sister. Oh, and she's also hot."
"How do you know this?"
"I came to freshman orientation where I got to meet her."
"So, if she's that young, how is she a college professor?"
"That's what I don't understand," Matthew responded. "She's really smart, I mean incredibly smart! She knows computers inside and out. She could probably build one from scratch by herself."
"Can't you just buy the materials at a store or something?" Ethan asked.
"I meant to say she could build the materials from scratch and then assemble them."
"Wow…" Ethan muttered, walking towards the door.
"Well, all that aside, good luck."
"You too," Ethan said, closing the door behind him.
Matthew relaxed a little as he opened his laptop. "Something is just a tad strange about this…" he said to himself. "I'm gonna find out what…"