I remember when I was a Child, I had a family, loving parents an Older sister and a younger brother. My father worked at a factory, every day he would work his hands to the bone in order to feed and provide for his family, forgive me if I make it sound like we were poor, I guess my father just wanted us to live a better life than he did. He was a strong, but loving man, I don't remember a time when there wasn't a smile on his face. My sister was, well she was my sister, she cared for me but we had our moments, like all brothers and sisters, as for my younger brother, well he was a baby. My mother, I remember her most of all, she was the most kind hearted woman that I have ever and probably will ever meet, I remember that she had a garden in the back yard that was teeming with flowers of all kinds, I do miss her, sometimes I meet her again in my dreams and everything is happy and normal again, but those are only dreams.
I was six when I was chosen for the Spartan II project. I remember that it was a spring morning, when they took me from the school playground, I tried to scream but nothing would come out, I know that I was drugged because sleep fell over me like a tidal wave against the shore. When I awoke I was laying on a cot in a large room filled with other kids like me, all of which had been taken from their families, we were confused and scared.
Then a man entered the room, his face looked hard and to say the least frightening, and he started barking at us, Most of the kids were crying, we didn't know what to do, a few others stood their ground and took it I was one of them, as was John-117 and a few others. I suppose it was in the middle of his senseless shouting that he was pushed out of the way by a beautiful kind looking young woman named Dr. Halsey. Her voice was soft and gentle, she helped ease the tension greatly, even now I remember her words.
"I suppose that your all frightened" She began "But you have to be strong for a little while. Your all very precious and perfect and I promise I wont let any harm come to you while I'm around.I want you to regard me as you would your mothers, if it helps, I'm here to help you in anyway I can."
I think that of all of those children that I was one of the few who did not regard her as a motherly figure, I wish to hell that I would have"
It was at this very place that I met my best friends, Thomas, Richie, Anthony, Christina, and Samantha. No matter what happened we were always together
The first day of training was, to say the least, Hell. All we did was work out and exercise, I know that I did over a hundred push ups, and ran more than three miles, a feat that at the time was excruciating to me and the others, after those hours we did what every child dreads, we learned, Mostly of military tactics and ancient battles, along with loads of math, overall it sucked.
One day in class we were listening to our AI when Tom taps me on the shoulder and shows me a straw that he'd taken from the mess hall. At first I didn't really care, it wasn't until he shot it at Sam that I busted up laughing, she gave me a dirty look followed by the finger, I didn't really care until the "teacher" scolded me. I was pissed at Tom all day, he redeemed himself back in the tent when he gave me one of his dog tags, strange thing for a six year old to have ain't it? Not when your in the Marines. I gave my thanks to him when I gave him one of mine.
The drill sergeants were, to say the least, easy to fool, but fortunately Dr. Halsey wasn't.
As usual me and the others were doing out training together when Halsey came walking over to us and told us to stand. At first I thought we were in trouble and was kind of scared. She eyed me and Tom for a few minutes before turning her gaze to the others.
"Well, it seems that we have two Toms and two Erics" she said
I froze, I felt my heart beating harder in my chest, I felt as if my spine was on fire, I thought for sure that we were going to be disciplined.
""But I only see one of Sam, Richie, Anthony and Christina" she continued "Now call me crazy. but your all friends right?"
Slowly we all nodded.
"Meaning that what happens to one of you should happen to the other right?"
I'd never felt so bad in my life, knowing that all of my friends were about to get punished because of me and Tom.
"So, why don't you guys have any of each others tags?"
I felt my heart go back into its normal pattern "What?"
"Well you should all have one of each others tags right? As a simble of friendship, don't you agree?"
We nodded "But how? We'll get disciplined for doing that, besides we only have two tags each"
She smiled "I think I can have it arranged, now you better get back to what you were doing"
Sure enough when we woke up the next morning we each had several sets of tags in our footlockers, in fact we had enough to give on to each other and still manage to have two for ourselves as protocol said, and no-one said anything to us about it at all, I think from that moment that we made our vows to be friends forever.
This same training went on for a few years until we began combat training on open battlefields using paint ball guns, trank darts, concussion grenades, pretty much any non lethal weapons, we even had bases, that was the most fun we had back in those days. I remember one morning while we were sleeping some of the opposing team members managed to sneak into our base, somehow John managed to stick a concussion grenade on the floor, we woke up filled with splinters and other various fragments of whatever the hell was on the floor. Needless to say I kicked John's ass later that night.
The real hell began when we were teenagers and they did the augmentations.
entations.