Chapter 1
"7" I said, arching my eyebrow to show my uncertainty.
"I don't know... he might be an 8. I mean sure his hair is kind of little boyish, but still. He could always fix that. I'd say based on his face-"
"And his body. Don't forget the body." My best friend Lissa rolled her eyes and I laughed.
"Fine based on his face and body, he's and 8 and a half." I nodded in agreement, and then scanned for another guy worth ranking. We were sitting in a plain hall along with 98 other kids. 97, I reminded my self silently, painfully. My mind was bombarded by thoughts I always tried to keep locked away. Far, far away. I didn't look up when Lissa went into the office, didn't even wish her good luck.
Images of me and Alex, my ex-best friend, clawed their way into my mind. Pictures of us meeting in the first grade, of him and me hanging out in the cafeteria, of us taking down a bunch of chumps, all swam before my eyes. Each image was more painful than the last, and I tried to stop the flow before the one that hurt the most surfaced. I failed however, and the memory engulfed me. I saw myself finding the note. Watched as I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. Right before the end of the 8th grade, he ran away. The note had said that he had "gone to find peace in himself". Scanning through it, I had found that he ran away to the Dami. They are the monsters that make the monster under the bed look like a kitty cat. He wanted to be one of them, and to do so he had had to commit one of the most unforgivable acts in the world. He had to ask to be transformed.
The worst part was that everyone thought we had been, well more than friends if you know what I mean. They had all expected us to start dating, or at least be put in the same pack. It's not like we had been, but I could see why they'd think that. He and I had been inseparable. We'd stuck up for each other as best as we could, never backing down from a fight. We hadn't always won, but we'd always been there for each other.
"Pierce Henderson!" The chilling voice of the Judge snapped me out of my memories, back into reality. Lissa ran down the hall too fast for me to see if it was out of excitement or embarrassment. I shook myself, trying to calm down. I had to move on, to be strong. He had made his choice, and I had made mine. Life was like that, and you had to push through it. I slumped back into the bench, suddenly overcome by exhaustion. Shaking myself, I tried to focus my thoughts.
I was a Strijder in training, or a Krijder. Strijders have the sole purpose of hunting down and killing Dami, the thing that Alex had been turned into. They were terrifying monsters that could transform into animals they'd killed. Dami got joy out of terrorizing humans. If I was a normal teenager, I would've been going into freshman year. Only I didn't go to a normal high school. I attended an institute. Littman Institute to be specific. It covered pre-school through graduation of high school, and everyone, even the faculty members, lived on campus. The thing was huge, to put it lightly. Of course, when you're training for war, I suppose you needed your space.
The younger kids (pre-school through 8th grade) took normal classes (math, lit, ect.), while the high school kids took some…extra classes. When you got to the 9th grade, the very first thing they did was Judge you. It was the Judgment that decided what klase you would be trained in, the Judgment that decided the rest of your life for you. Once put in a klase, they divided all the klasses up into packs. These Packs were made up of ten members, two of each klase, who had to go to class, eat, and sleep together for the next 4 years. They even took their finals together. So when a Pack was created, they were assigned to an apartment-like building that contained two bedrooms (a girls and guys) that had adjoining bathrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. There they lived, hung out, and just tried to bond as best as they could.
There are five klasses that Strijders are divided into, each of them holding unique abilities with which we fight the Dami. I won't get into the whole thing, but basically they're also each known for a talent and symbol that represents them. The first klase is Heks. They're known for their intellect and spirit, with the symbol of an owl perched on an oak staff. Second is Jaeger. They have a strong connection with nature itself, and have the symbol of a huge dog standing next to a tree. Next is Dief. They are known for dealing with stealth and shadows. Their symbol is two crossed daggers. Following that is Genezer, which deals with kindness and sunshine. Their symbol is a ray of sunshine coming down to earth. The final klase is the Guardian. They're all strength and passion. Their symbol is a sword over a shield with a wolf bane crest.
Pictures of what my Pack might be like raced through my head as I sat there tensed. Suddenly, an uninvited thought clawed its way to the front of my mind. What if I never moved on? What if they deemed me so unstable from the incident that they didn't let me go to a pack at all? Or worse, they simply couldn't sense anything in me? It sounds silly I know, but it was every Krijders' worst nightmare. In extreme cases, they didn't let the mentally unbalanced go on that year, sometimes never. Other times, the Judge couldn't see anything. Not because his eyes were muddled, but because nothing was there. No clue as to what that person would be, no signal as to how they would spend the rest of their life. Nothing. Any Krijder that didn't get put into a Klasse did finish school, but only the normal kind. From there they could decide whether they wanted to work on campus (as a janitor, lunch person, ect.), or go into the human world, and try to mingle with their society. But that wouldn't, couldn't happen to me. I was just too…too confident, too ahead to fall so behind. I was at or close to the top of my class in every subject, and intended to keep it that way.
Pierce's emergence from the office jerked me out of my dark thoughts. I knew that I was next, but somehow couldn't make myself stand.
"Rose Hathaway" Oh no. I couldn't go in there. I couldn't move. My mouth was completely dry, and I saw people looking at me, wondering why I wasn't standing up. After all, I was Rose. I was a girl that everybody knew. Whether it was in a good or bad way, I had a reputation to uphold. So I had to get up. After all, there weren't any retakes for the Judgment.
So I told my brain and muscles to stop complaining, and got up. Striding towards the door, I tried to resume my normal air of confidence and disregard. I walked right up towards the Judge, and in my most sure voice remarked "Hope this doesn't take too long. I've got somewhere to be." I heard several sharp intakes of breath that reported how successful I had been about smoothing out the hesitation. But the Judge merely remained stone faced. I then traipsed through the door and into the office. As soon as the door was closed, I took a deep breath, and sent a quick prayer up to God, hoping for the best.