Chapter 1
Author's note
Most true stories don't have a beginning. So I'll try to make this one original.
"And then there was light, and he saw that it was good"
No, wait ... wrong story.
"Once upon a time …"
Sorry again. OK, here goes nothing...
"Come on, Max, you can do it!"
"No, sorry Kai, I can't. I guess I'm just not good enough."
Max tried, and failed, to kick the ball past Kai. A siren went, and two guards came in.
"Who lost?" asked one of them bluntly. There was a silence, then Max said reluctantly, "Yeah. It was me. I lost."
"Sorry, kid." The guards grabbed Max and dragged the limp boy into a little shed beside the pitch, where the boy's fate was about to be sealed. Just as Max went through the door, Kai caught sight of his face. Max's eyes had glazed over, as if he had no emotion, nothing to live for. The door shut, and there was a sound of a gun shot.
"Hmmm … Yeah …. Excited." Ever since Kai had been taken in by Matthew's family he had felt responsible for his friend and his team. He tried to tell his friends about what was going to happen, but couldn't form the words to speak. He realised that telling them would only make the journal ahead seem more traumatic. No. He would have to carry this burden by himself. In fact, Kai had not told his friends anything about his childhood or past.
Kai found his hand was unconsciously straying towards the black strip of material that he always wore around his arm. Ben noticed the movement and asked instantly, "Why do you wear that thing, Kai! 'Cos, no offence, man, but it looks really gay!"
Daniel and Luke, the other two members of the team, both nodded in agreement with Ben.
"Yeah, Kai," said Daniel with a grain, "Take it off. Or we'll make you!"
Kai smirked. "I doubt it," he said.
Daniel looked at the others and winded. "You asked for it!" was all he said.
Like and Ben grabbed Kai and dragged him to the floor while Daniel knelt on Kai's chest to keep him down. Matthew quickly grabbed the material and pulled, ripping it off Kai's arm.
Lake and Ben hurriedly jumped away from Kay, looks of horror on their faces. All Daniel could do was stare, but when Kai pushed him away, he went gladly.
"Whoa!" gasped Matthew. "What happened to your arm!"
Kai looked down at the silver strip of metal that had been burned into the top part of his arm, between his shoulder and his elbow. "I wear that thing, Ben, to cover up this," Kais aid, nodding at his arm. "In the training centre in Russia all the children are marked to show generation and status. Boys get an arm band burned on, and girls get a belt with only one link branded into their skin."
"So, what kind of life did you have before you found us?" asked Matthew cautiously.
"All right, I guess since you've seen the band, I can tell you the rest. I spent the first ten years of my life in a training centre under the stadium we are about to play on. I never saw the surface of the ground, and never saw the sun. Sometimes I practices on pitches more than 100 metres below the ground. The grounds were patrolled by guards night and day. Everyone wanted to escape, but nobody dared to face the consequences. It was hard to make friends because you were never sure if they would get you into trouble. We trained for ten hours every day, with only two meals, and ten hours sleep. We were forced to train even when we were injured to sick. On Sundays we did four hours training, but that was followed by six hours of theory and tests, and school work. In the whole course of the yea, we only got two weeks break."
"That must have been torture," said Daniel.
"Yeah, I was the only one to ever escape."
Then Luke remembered Kai's armband. "You said that the colour on your armband gives you status. What does silver mean?"
"I was captain."