She sat in an empty room, her hands were tied to a chair, and a figure stood in front of her. "What have you done... What have you done." The figure said, barely louder than a whisper. "This is all you fault ! You did this !" It screamed, without looking at her. "You did this... You must pay..." The figure's breathing was getting loud.
She tried to speak, but her mouth was sealed close, and as her eyes widened, she felt the temperature rising.
The figure was calmly looking at her, the room was on fire, she struggled to breathe, her skin was hurting.
"You did this... You have to pay... You deserve this... Murderer..."
The flames were now reaching her face, and as she was losing sight, the figure whispered one last word.
"Monster"
Griza woke up screaming, terror filling her eye. In panic she got up and ran to the door, tumbling over her bed in the process.
The sudden pain managed to completely wake her up, and as she looked around in confusion, she heard a threatening sound behind her.
Quickly turning around, she threw a clumsy fist in the air while closing her eye, and when it met flesh, she stopped and slowly opened her eye.
"What the hell Griza ! This hurts." Said James.
"Oh... I'm sorry, I had a nightmare, are you okay ?"
"I'm alright, my aura took the blunt of it. You had a nightmare you say... Is there anything I can do ?"
Griza was going to tell him, when she remembered that they were forbidden to speak about what had happened in the room.
"No thanks, I'm just confused, we should go back to sleeping."
And she wondered, she wondered how James managed to cope with what he had done, was it already normal for him ? Had he simply forgotten it ? Had he managed to justify it ?
Laura also didn't seem to regret anything, maybe she was the weird one ? Maybe everyone knew what they would have to do, before taking the exam, and she hadn't got the memo.
Maybe, maybe, maybe...
Griza woke up a second later, or at least that's what it seemed like to her, but she could see the dawn through the window. She gently woke her neighbor up, they not so gently woke Laura, and together they headed to the cafeteria.
While they were eating, what looked like a teacher handed them their respective schedules.
The three of them were all disappointed to varying degrees, when they noticed that they had almost no classes together, the only one they had in common being something called "Cohesion training"
James noted that there was almost none of the subjects a normal school would have, like arithmetics or languages studies. Griza certainly wouldn't have been able to notice this herself, as her hometown didn't had any school, and she had been homeschooled.
Most of the classes were half a day long or even took the entire day. None of their schedules was forgiving, starting early and ending very late, and they only had one free day per week.
After breakfast they had to part ways to head to their respective lessons, and after asking for direction multiple times, Griza finally found the classroom.
The students were waiting in line next to the door, Griza hesitantly joined them and a few minutes later the teacher opened the door. He was a stern looking man, who seemed to be in his late forties, he was wearing a greatly decorated military uniform, and he was missing one ear.
After following the teacher inside, Griza was surprised that the classroom was looking like her cadet's camp training ground, being just as big, while this one was inside a building.
Their teacher calmly addressed to them:
"I am major Ferdinand von Katerinburg, this is how you will refer to me starting now. I will be the one charged with teaching you Unit Organization, that is I will train you until you can execute every possible maneuver in your sleep."
He then regrouped them into three teams of ten, with each having someone to lead them.
"I also have to teach you the basics of, well, unit organization."
"The smallest official group in the army is called a section, it is composed of between seven and twelve soldiers. Over it you have the platoons, who are composed of between 25 and 30 soldiers, so generally three or four sections."
"The ones that I have designated to lead you will be addressed to as sergeant for the duration of this exercise. To start with we will practice some Fire and Movement, each of you go take a training rifle there." He said while pointing at a wall where hanged a few dozen rifles.
"Now the principle behind this tactic is very simple, some of you may have already practiced it in your time in the military. One group pins the enemy down with suppressing fire, while another advance, then the advancing group stop and lays suppression fire on the enemy, the first group now moves to catch up with the second and repeat."
"In this case each advancing group will be a section and the last one will play the role of the enemy."
"And lastly, the training bullets won't hurt you, but they will slowly empty your aura, once you're in the red or under, simply lay down on the ground and wait for the exercise to end."
The major gave each section a role and a starting position, Griza's was in the one charged with opposing the maneuver, she quickly got behind one of the boxes littering the training field, and the exercise began.
All members of the first section started firing at the same time, some of Griza's comrades tried firing back, but most of them were quickly eliminated.
She took a glimpse over the box, the second section was running in their direction without taking cover, firing at them was so tempting, but another one had this idea first, and he quickly fell on the ground, eliminated.
Suddenly the enemy stopped firing to reload.
"Now !" Yelled their sergeant.
They got up and started firing back, the advancing group tried to get under cover, but most didn't manage to do it in time and got eliminated. After a few moments the enemy force had lost two thirds of its men and the major whistled.
"You did a lot of errors everyone, but that's fine, you're here to fix that. First you should avoid to start firing at the same time, in the best case you would coordinate to offer a continuous fire, but for now, starting to fire one by one should do."
"Secondly, at this range you should always seek cover, and when you move, move from one cover to another, using small jumps to advance."
"Thirdly, when fired upon, avoid firing back, when possible use indirect fire like grenades or a mortar, you can also use fumes to retreat. I you lack any of those, try to go out of cover in positions the enemy wouldn't expect, for example crouched to the side, or laying on the ground, don't simply stand up. You can also spread out to make suppressing you harder."
"Now section B will defend, and A and C will maneuver."
And during four entire hours they repeated this, only taking small breaks every now and then. The major giving more and more detailed instructions each time they finished the exercise.
When time came for lunch, every muscle in Griza's body was screaming in pain, her hands were regularly twitching and she struggled holding her fork.
Laura and James didn't look better, with the difference that Laura seemed mentally damaged, as if she had seen a ghost, and she was often startled whenever someone passed next to her.
Few words were exchanged during the meal, some grumbling there, some encouragements here, and a few futile attempts to cheer up the others.
Soon enough Griza was heady to the next lesson, the so called "Combat and physical training". At least this one was pretty clear, finally they were going to do some specialist stuff, and she could show off her cool whip.
This lesson was taking place outside, in the area between the academy and the mountain. Thankfully a vehicle was ready for them so they wouldn't have to walk, and once they reached the designed location, Griza saw another stern looking teacher, this one's uniform looked simpler than the last one's, and seemed to be more designed for practicality than style.
When they got out of the truck, the teacher suddenly took out a gun and started firing at them. Panic spread between them and soon enough were all fleeing the murderous teacher.
"Stop running you idiots, I'm only emptying your aura."
And as he said that, those that had fell to his weapon slowly got up, rubbing the parts where they had been hit.
"Start doing laps, now !"
"Laps around what ?" Asked one of the students.
"Around Atlas you dumbass !"
After some confusion, they hesitantly began jogging, the teacher following them aboard the vehicle, regularly shouting "encouragements" at them.
Whenever someone was to slow for his taste, he shot a few rubber bullets at them, which managed to keep them running.
After three hours, everyone had gotten their fair share of bullets, and two of them had simply dropped to the ground, unable to get up even when the teacher started throwing threats at them. In the end they were brought to the infirmary.
Needless to say, Griza didn't had troubles falling asleep on that night.
Another small chapter today, mainly to show you how life is in Atlas, I wanted to make it feel like it was a military academy, not a school.I don't want to spend to much time on school life, so I made this chapter to be able to time skip my way out of the rest.Also Atlas regularly holds entrance exams, that's why there's so much people despite there being only 8 survivor at the last exam.It's been a few chapters since I haven't heard anything from you guys, is everything alright ?I also wanted to ask what you think of my oc, as you may know I'm a man and until now I've been dealing with my oc's gender by basically ignoring it. Please tell me if I've done anything wrong and if there's a way to improve my character.