I had noticed that the majority of people who worked at the BSAA weren't from the UK, Saro himself had stated he was from Germany. Paul and Lenny were some of the few who actually came from the UK and Nawra had reveled she was from Jordan.

When I asked Saro about it, he simply stated that the reason why the BSAA hired so many people from diverse nationalities was merely because the expansion they were hoping to achieve, which was to have more people from all over the world involved in their work particularly due to the increase of bio-terrorism. One of the top BSAA:s chiefs presumed the universality would bring a better ambience amongst workers because we'd see a lot of people from different parts of the world working together. Not to mention that it helped when a new place was attacked and so if the place was quite unknown someone working in the BSAA that came from that part of the world could advice the agents.

If it hadn't been for Claire I'd still walk around wondering where the agents reported to the SOA:s, the actual headquarters concerning the people who worked against the outbreaks were located outside of London. Although she couldn't tell me where that place was located since she "had no idea" despite her brother being Chris. The only ones who knew of the location were the SOU:s and SOA:s. I also owed Claire another thanks for reveling I could apply for a new position, one I really wanted. Immediately after lunch that Tuesday I headed to Mr. Bailey who had to report my application to his boss but then I had to fill in another application, they also required me to take a physical and mental test. Surprisingly I had passed both of them but I was still being tried for if I was fitted all the measures of becoming a solider within the BSAA. To my disappointment when I had told Greg and Frank this they reacted like their mother.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" asked Greg on a Thursday evening, I'd been invited to dine with them.

"I mean, shouldn't you wait? You're too young," had Frank added.

"Yeah, I'm completely sure!" I said, both of them exchanging looks of worry.

I trusted they wouldn't tell grandma the news just yet, it'd be better if I brought the news to her therefore later the same evening I phoned home not caring if it was too late.

"You can't!" Grandma shouted instantly after I told her everything. "I won't allow it."

"Then why did you let me move all the way here? You knew what the BSAA functioned as-"

She interrupted me: "Yes, that's why I let you move!"

"What?"

I heard her sighing, as if she wasn't sure what to say.

"I knew you were going to have that job, I-" She stopped talking.

"What do you mean?" I asked, louder this time.

"I knew Mr. Bailey from a long time ago…I asked if he could give you a safe job, you were actually supposed to work as an SOA from the start and I'd let you move because I knew the military were eventually going to place you somewhere abroad and I… couldn't allow it."

I was so packed with anger and despise that I ended the call and threw my phone on the bed making it almost fall down. How could she? All these times I thought she ought to be the one standing behind my decisions, she never probably interfered this much when her own sons moved away and it didn't matter that she took care of me she still wasn't my mother. The phone stayed silent, grandma must have understood it'd be hopeless to phone me back to explain her choice. Feeling too upset I decided to stay up, a decision I regretted the next morning.


The third week were near to its end to my joy since I had planned on doing nothing this weekend. I had already overworked myself last weekend for the physical test I had to do as I feared I'd fail it.

I kept longing for the day to end on Friday, watching the clock each other minute but it felt as if time was mocking me and continued to stay unmoved. I was on a bad mood the whole day until Paul and Lenny asked if I wanted to join them for pie in the canteen. Hoping that the two jokesters would make feel better again I accepted and met them in the worker's lounge after I'd collected the intern's work schudele. I took some tea and a piece of the blueberry-pie that smelled delicious and sat next to them. Lenny appeared to be trying to perform a card trick, he mixed the deck, let his hand hover over the cards then picked one card to question Paul: "Was this your card?"

Paul grinned. "Not even close."

"Fuck," muttered Lenny. "All right, we'll try again."

But Paul shocked his head. "I think I need more pie…" he said and got up.

I ate a piece of the pie, verifying it tasted as delicious as it smelled. "I don't want to be rude but…I dunno…it feels like, its kinda odd that you want to perform-" I began but was interrupted by Lenny.

This time Lenny grinned as he shuffled the cards. "I know but its because…" He stopped mid-sentence and glanced over at Paul who was standing in line. "Its because his sister works there too and I overheard her saying she thought magicians were, you know,..cool."

I strained myself a lot not to laugh, if these words were coming from a woman she had to be either joking or under the age of twelve.

"Why don't you just talk to her, then? I mean are you sure doing magic tricks will impress her?"

Lenny shook his head: "You don't know how I play my game."

"Game?" I asked, grimacing. This honestly was the weirdest conversation I've encountered and it felt as if I was dealing with two teenagers taken straight out of a bad TV-show.

But Lenny didn't answer as Paul had just seated himself next to me and Nawra had arrived as well with her bag.

"Where's Saro?" She asked.

"He's got a date," said Paul and took a bite of his pie. "It's so fucking delicious." He murmured under his breath.

Everyone snickered, as Paul looked up from his plate confused.

"Are you going to propose to the pie, eh?" asked Lenny.

"No, it's more likely I'll ask Miss. Davis to marry me," Paul said referring to the lunch lady.

Nawra had brought her laptop and apparently she was laughing at something else than Paul.

"Hey guys, I found a blog that post awkward things that's happened to people, seriously, you have to read this story." She angled the computer screen towards us so we could see the text. It read:

Okay, so listen, this is probably the most horrible thing that can happen to a person, I know I'm exaggerating but just fucking continue reading and you'll understand. When I was in high school I had this crush or obsession with a guy…let's call him Mark. So it wasn't until the last year I got the chance to go to one of his famous parties. Before I went to the party I had eaten a lot of candy and let me tell you this…when I eat too much candy I need the toiler ASP. This I didn't think about since this was finally one of those rare times when he didn't have a girlfriend so I thought why not try my luck at the party. It took half an hour before I saw Mark at the party, I rushed over to him and started to dance next to him, surprisingly he seemed interested but what I didn't think of was that my digestion insisted I needed to empty the content in my intestines. I tried to leave but he refused and wanted to dance more with me, I stayed for as long I could but eventually I had to leave him so when he turned the other side to greet a friend, I ran upstairs to find a toilet. The toilet was already occupied by a drunk couple who were making out, I tried to ask them to leave but as the girl turned away and puked right into the toilet I realized had to find another toilet, to my disappointment all the other ones were occupied, as I was getting closer and closer to shitting myself I decided to just let it go so I found a closet in the master bedroom where there were just boxes, thinking it wouldn't spoil any clothes, I…well you know what I did and oh my god I stayed there for ten minutes. It wasn't afterwards when I realized what a moron I was and I regretted it so badly I decided to leave the party. I ran downstairs and tried to get through the crow. To my unfortunate, Mark had been looking for me upstairs and entered the master bedroom, as I heard him scream. "WHO SHAT ON MY MOM'S GUCCI SHOES?" I tried to run away but apparently some of the…you know what had come on my shoes which someone noticed and screamed, "SHE DID IT, hoping no one would know who I was I opened the door and ran. Luckily no followed me and even more fortunate no one knew who I was but at school people kept talking about the mysterious poop girl.

Submitted by the partypooper

As I read the last line I let out a huge laugh, forgetting I just taken a sip from my cup of tea I tried stopping the drink from flying out through my nostrils by breathing in, which only made the others laugh even more. Our laughter echoed in the almost empty canteen and the others who sat there watched us, but we kept chuckling as maniacs until a voice said: "Errr, is this a wrong time?"

I looked up and was horrified to recognize Chris Redfield whose picture I'd seen in the entrance hall, he was looking down at me. His appearance was even more impressive in real life. The veins in his arms vividly showing and he looked bigger than I'd imagine him to be. The tight shirt he was wearing emphasized his large and toned torso and through the shirt the lines of his stomach reveled a six-pack.

Lenny let out a weird whimper and Nawra nudged my foot under the table and I looked at her as she gestured I had something on my face. Somehow I'd managed to get cream on my mouth too. I quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped it off.

"Are you Sylvia Jones?" he asked still looking at me probably stunned at what he had witnessed. Of course, how classical, that I would always find myself in an awkward situation like this, just my luck.

"Uh, yes, that would be me." I answered. He threw a yellow-coloured folder on the table.

"Congratulations, you've almost completed the steps to becoming a fully trained special operation agent. Your tests were more than approved; you received one of the best marks ever. I want to ready to be picked up on Monday at 5.30 am, you're going away for a month so I'd suggest you'd go home and pack." He said, and then looked at the others.

"Have a good weekend." Chris then left the room leaving me appalled whilst everyone else stared at me.


A cold breeze swept by as I stepped outside, dragging a large traveling-bag to await for a van to arrive. The weather seemed to have switched from the rare sunny, cloudless weather in January to a dull and grey one. My mood had changed as well from being light-hearted about finally having adapted to environment I'd expected to be in for at least some months but now I was presented in the face of a grueling change I dreaded all too much. It was early and unluckily I lacked energy because of yesterday's sleepless night, my mind kept repeating the words Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

How stupid was I? Why didn't I listen to grandma about working as a solider for the BSAA? Of course being in the military was scary as well but as the increase of bio-attacks many people had started to apply to the military so it wasn't necessary to send newbies out on dangerous request so I never worried about that but the BSAA...they sent everyone out to fight. If even the simple thought of training to become a SOA scared me the sanity out of me, how the hell would I survive being out there, facing BOW:s?

I looked around to see if the van I was expecting had arrived but only a few cars and taxi's had passed by despite the street being a heavily-trafficked one. My wristwatch showed it was 5.15 AM. Last night had been horrible, I had succeed in picking up the courage to phone back home and explain I was going away for a month to train. There was a silence for a long while after I spitted out the words for grandma, I was too afraid to break the silence and expected her to scold me as well as force me to quit but eventually she said in a defeated voice it didn't matter anymore. Greg and Frank were also unlike their usual selves, they had screamed madly at me and Greg yelled he'd refuse to aid me any longer unless I quit but Frank said Greg was too upset and didn't truly mean it. I was jolted and horrified, my limbs had become softer and lighter than air, tears ran down my cheeks despite my efforts to stop them. My uncles had seemed to be so helpful and loving but now they weren't what I needed them to be, they were neither supporting nor joyful for my sake. I tried to defend myself but it felt like there had been a large stone in my throat, I felt as a disobedient and ungrateful child during the whole scolding.

But I chose to take on the mission anyway, even if the whole situation was depressing for me though I made that choice also because I feared what Chris would say if I told him I didn't want to be an SOA any longer and what would Saro and the others think of me? I barely knew these people but I couldn't back down, I despised the idea of me explaining that my grandmother and my uncles refused to let me make my own decision.

The time was now 5.27 and I looked around again but not a single car drove by. It wasn't until 5.35 I heard the engine of a large motorcar and saw a minibus with the BSAA:s logo on it, it stopped in front of me and someone stepped out of the car. It was Chris.

"Good morning." I said in an almost too joyful tone. He simply glared at me like he had done from our first encounter.

"I can take your bag, you can go and sit," muttered Chris and grabbed my bag. I seated myself in the car still a little to stunned at his rude behavior however I blamed it on the fact he probably got out of bed on the wrong side. Afterwards Chris drove off to the next person, at first I was confused to why he had stopped the car outside a villa in a suburb then realized I mustn't have been the only who applied though I was unsure if all the applicants were being tried or we had just become SOA:s. I expected Chris would not answer me and only gloat again so I kept the questions to myself and hoped they'd somehow be replied. Again Chris climbed out of the car and told the person who was waiting outside the same thing. The person who was going to join me appeared to be in his thirties at least, had brown hair and when he seated himself in the car he looked at me and smiled.

"Hey, I'm Dan." He said and put out his hand. I shook it and told him my name but after that both of us turned the other way, being too shy and too tired to continue on with the conversation.

There were three more stops where the exact same thing happened, all of the people who were picked up were men. Two of them already knew each other to the other's horror. There was Damian, a quiet and dark-haired boy, and the two who knew each other Charlie and Matt who seemed to be alert and talkative. Chris drove a long way after he'd stopped to pick up Damian and he had remained quiet the whole time. I entertained myself by looking at the landscape - the brown fields with haystacks for the animals. No farmer had let their animals out preferably because of the bitten and cold weather, the clouds had grown thicker and greyer. I almost nodded into sleep, trying to blink and straighten my back each time my head fell down. It had to be half an hour before another person was picked up and it was yet again a guy. He introduced himself as Kevin and sat next to Damian and began chatting, now I was the only one without a conversation partner, Dan had fallen asleep to which Chris disapproved of, throwing Dan irritated looks. Two more people were picked up and this time it was brothers, Tim and Simon, they said. Unfortunately they had to sit in the back and Chris announced we were finally ready to head to our camp so I'd really have no to talk to during the drive. I felt unsafe when I acknowledged I was going to train alone with guys, I'd expected at least one girl or a female instructor but no. Now I could imagine what grandma would say...I told you so, it wouldn't fit you and it's not appropriate. I just wanted to throw myself out the door, my guts were telling me it is going to be horrible and I sensed the cold sweat running down my back. The weather was a perfect representative of how I felt and I just hoped that it wouldn't start raining.

The time to reach the location was too long, nevertheless we arrived, everyone looking extremely grim and down from being up so early. Chris had driven the minibus to a very remote place, the car was parked in front of what seemed to be an old military base, I recognized the old faciciltes, the shooting range and further down a outdoor obstacle course was sighted. But the place also had a varied environment a forest surrounding us to the left and on the other side was a vast landscape. Five more people stood outside the white building, two of them were women and the other men. Chris got out of the car. I followed after him and when everyone was out and Chris had taken out everyone's luggage one of the women, the red-haired one began talking.

"Welcome," she said. "You are all here to begin your training to become ready special operation agents. It will be a grumeose test to see how you cope mentally and physically with challenges every SOA must go through. I'm Marie and the other four who will be aiding me in training you are Jane, Samir, Patrick and Rama. All five of us have stood where you were and have operated many times as SOA:s but now we've stepped down to train and teach you. I want to warn you that is is going to be extremely difficult, many times you'll find yourself wanting to give up, to leave and go back to living a normal life and if by any chance you feel this way I want you to tell us so we know because we will never accept someone who won't take this seriously." The others behind her nodded along as she spoke, each of them with grave expression on their faces. "After this month you will work for the BSAA, you will be called in whenever there's an attack and everyone in the BSAA will be like your family." I almost let out a snort but covered it as a cough when they all turned to look at me. She was exaggerating a little too much, I felt, I'd probably never see anyone here as my family. I hardly felt that attached to my real family right now.

"Anyway," she continued, "As I'm skilled in medical subjects I will teach you how to deal with injuries and determine the severity of them. I've worked as a nurse for long while before I became an SOA so if anyone of you are hurt I'm the one you'll need." She stopped and shoot a mean stare to the brothers who were whispering, they went quiet and the displeased Marie faced us again. "Now next to me is Jane," Marie said and waved her hand at the blonde, short woman with glasses. "She is an expert in technological matters and will teach you how to use the things you will carry with you on missions and how to use communication devices if you should ever be in that position." Then Marie stood next to the dark-haired guys. "These two boys, Samir and Rama," she said particularly because they looked the youngest of their group, "are the most clever boys you'll ever meet but their job is to guide you through how to operate when facing challenges you weren't expecting. And, Patrick here is a weapon specialist and he doesn't only understand the art of dealing with different types of guns all from handguns to heavy fire guns but also knives, grenades and so on." After explaining what Patrick taught, the tall and slink man who looked as if he'd drop to the floor if ever he tried picking up a shotgun, Marie walked around us to stand next to Chris who during this time had watched us from behind.

"Chris, who kindly took the job of driving you here although Sam, our usual driver was sick today, is going to train you. I think you'll already understand what kind of impact he'll have on your training," she said, smirking and looking at Chris's muscular arms. Chris remained where he was, both of his arms crossed but still giving away an intimidating feeling. "So, the clock is nearly one and I believe you must all be very hungry, if you walk inside," said Marie and pointed at the port to the bedraggled building and what I assumed would be my home for this month, "you'll find a large dining area where the food is ready for you." We started to march towards the doorway with the instructors following us.

After the most boring lunch I encountered (whoever made our food was probably not the ones who cooked for the BSAA:workers in London) Marie said we'd be guided around the place. She showed us where we would sleep, it was down a short corridor where two doors faced each other, one functioned as a bedroom for the guys and the other for the girls. Then we passed through the place where we ate which was an open room with windows around the whole room and tables where people could sit, we went to another corridor where there were instead of two doors several ones. I realized the building was shaped as a U and questioned if this really had once been a military base. One door led to the bathrooms and showers, one room that had been made into a classroom with a blackboard and benches, another room was a kitchen though it was quite small and narrow with only counters and ovens that fitted in the room and, down the hall was where the instructors slept. The whole place felt creepy with it's somewhat molded corners and light colors.

"What about that door?" asked Matt when we returned to the middle room, pointing at a door that we hadn't passed through.

"Oh, that's just the basement, nothing you have to worry about." Marie answered. "So, if you see those two windows at other end of this room you'd noticed there's handles on them. They open to the back where you'll see a lake, I suppose this building covered it so you couldn't see it but now you know. So, I think you should go and unpack now. I want you back here in an hour." She said, shooing us away with her hands.

Everyone took their bags that had been brought in earlier and headed off the rooms, with me being the last one in line. Before the door to the guys' room was closed I saw beds shoved to the wall. I entered what would be my own room and saw it was furnished the same way as the guy's. There was a little window that let in daylight and I picked the bed the furthest from the door and sat on it, it was uncomfortably hard and the green sheets was made of knitted material that made one itch. I didn't understand by what Marie meant by unpacking as there were no wardrobes. I looked around to see if I'd missed anything, I even checked under the bed if there were boxes hidden until I noticed the black boxes that was at the end of the beds could be opened, I had thought they were weirdly shaped tables. We had been given clothes I saw as I opened the black box. There were a t-shirt, pants with several pockets, one raincoat, one winter coat and a pair of boots where a small pocked had been made in the right shoe, everything except the boots that were black, was in the same color green. I unpacked all the thins I'd brought with me: workout clothes, two extra pair of shoes, underwear, sanitary protection, hygiene articles, some books for entertainment and a charger for my phone. I was almost finished until someone knocked on the door.

"Come in," I said. In the doorway stood Damian. "We're supposed to put on the clothes in the black box." He muttered and shut the door behind him.


"As I mentioned earlier," said Marie, "this isn't going to be easy on you so if anyone of you already realized you don't want to do this anymore tell me now." She waited to see if someone said anything but no one stepped forward so she carried on. "All right, I think I'll hand you over to Chris now." On those words she left and Chris cleared his throat.

"Behind me I've put eight backpacks, I want you to grab one and meet me outside." All of us rushed to take one and went outside, it had started to rain, some hadn't brought their raincoats but Chris said nothing about us going back for them, instead he put on a backpack.

"Uh, Chris, is it okay if we run back for our raincoats?" asked Dan. Chris nodded annoyed, the two brothers and Dan went inside and returned in barely a minute.

"We're going to complete a mile with our backpacks on, I want you to keep up with my pace and if you should need water you'll find a filled bottle in the side pockets of your bag. Understood?" We nodded expect for Tim who had raised his hand.

"Is it the metric system you're referring to or the American-" began Tim after Chris gave him a look of approval but was quickly disrupted by him.

"The metric system," he said firmly. "And no more stupid questions, just follow me." Tim turned exceptionally red and his brother gave him a symptical pat on his shoulder. Chris jogged and the rest followed him. Every time Chris had opened his mouth to talk I simply disliked him more and more, of course Tim should have expected Chris to answer back in the way he did as it wasn't unnoticeable to see his cold nature from the beginning. During lunch Chris had hardly spoken to anyone then departed to his room. I felt that this wasn't how Chris normally acted, like he was pretending. My thoughts dwelled around Chris and though I tried to take him off my mind, his face reappeared in my mind. He was just so...intriguing.

I was struggling to keep up with his pace and surely after what must have been ten minutes many of us slowed down a little. The backpack weighed heavily on me and my legs were already aching, the worst was the panted breaths I gave and whenever I attempted to calm my breathing I gave out rattling noise. Chris most have noticed we were slowing down and shouted that we had to hurry up so I forced my legs to jog faster though they were screaming for me to stop. It went on like this for a while, Chris screaming and the rest trying to catch up with him but eventually he gave up and carried on with his normal pace. Damian was first in the lead with the two brothers behind him, Dan was jogging before me and I was trying to to stay ahead of Matt, Charlie and Kevin as I didn't want to be the last one. Before the forest was a hill that made it incredibly difficult to run. But when we ran down it and into the forest it got tricker to run since I had to avoid tripping over something, my eyes switched between focusing on the ground to avoid stubs, branches and back to the trees that forced the path to become become narrower and narrower as we ran deeper into the forest.

I lost track of where Chris went but managed to focus on a moving dot in front of me that was either one of the brothers or Damian, I had now outrun Matt, Charlie, Kevin and Dan. It took a long time before we'd left the forest and I found myself at what seemed to be the start of the hill, we had apparently circled around the hill and through the forest. I drew a deeper breath and the sounds of birds twittering and the cracking of the branches I'd stepped on disappeared. The rain had carried on and since we were protected from it while running through the forest because of the trees I was dry but now there wasn't anything that shielded the rain from me so I got wet. On top of the burning feeling I had in the legs I was also freezing now. After I climbed up the hill or rather walked I took on a faster pace as I noticed that four dots were waiting near the white building. To impress the others I tried run faster despite I had planned on walking the last part. The two brothers were lying on the ground, their bellies going up and down very fast. Damian looked even more tired but Chris seemed calm though he was a little red he didn't have the gasping breathing as the rest of us.

"Are the others far behind?" Chris asked. I shook my head too tired to speak. We didn't have to wait long until the rest appeared on top of the hill and had reached us.

"Good job," muttered Chris after everyone had finished the run. "You can go and shower now." Relived, we went back inside. I felt someone patting me on the back, expecting it to be Chris but saw Charlie smiling.

"You were really fast, Sylvia, great work." He said and walked ahead of me with Matt next to him. It was odd. Why had he complimented me and not the others? I ignored it and headed to grab my things and shower.

After a wonderful and warm shower, my normal breathing returned and when I passed through the large hall I saw that some had already started eating, hungry I rushed to the bedroom and left my things to eat. When everyone else had arrived and were finished with their meals Marie stood up.

"So, a little too easy day for you today but tomorrow probably will be more difficult. Well, that was all, good night." But before she could leave Charlie asked when we had to wake up tomorrow.

"Oh, you don't have to set an alarm we'll wake you when we do." Gloomy, Matt looked down at his plate preferably concerned at what Marie had meant then turned his gaze at me, his eyes sent a shiver down my spine and I quickly murmured good night and went back to my room.


Please comment, ask as it only makes me want to write more...:)