I managed to get a second chapter finished today and got both this chapter and the last chapter typed up today! Anyway, enjoy!

I stood in the very center of the room, looking around at my new surroundings. It was almost identical to Anya's room, with every shabby piece of furniture in the same place, but no one had used this room in possibly decades. I walked up to a dusty mirror with a large crack down the middle of it. It was one of the few things in this room that wasn't in my old room.

I looked at my reflection for the first time and I suddenly understood why the Headmaster always said that I was weak. I was thin and frail with very little muscle showing on my body. My pale skin was covered in horrible injuries from the training and my brown hair was grimy and dull. If I didn't know any better, I could've believed that the person standing before me was a small girl who had given up on surviving.

I didn't understand why everyone treated me differently, or how I was different from any normal human. I looked just like any normal girl at my age, aside from the bruises and thin body structure. Then I noticed my eye color. My eyes were an odd shade of magenta, an eye color I had seen on no one else in the base. It was scarily inhuman, despite my very human appearance, and I felt that it was the reason people didn't like me. My eyes were forever clouded with pain and were extremely dull-looking for a child my age, giving me an even more alien look. They would have been pretty if they were livelier. How come Anya hadn't told me about my eyes? Did she want me to feel normal by not pointing them out? How did Alik not notice them? I studied the bruises and cuts on my face and decided that my beat up appearance distracted him from my eyes.

I shivered a bit from the cold breeze that hit my arms and tore my eyes away from my reflection, looking instead at the window, the other thing that Anya's room didn't have. I suddenly realized the window's existence, almost forgetting about it when I was looking at myself. I could finally see the outside with my own eyes! In my excitement, I grabbed the rickety chair by the small table and dragged it across the floor, finding newfound strength by my urge to see the world that was on the other side of these stone walls. I placed the back of the chair against the wall and underneath the window and stood on it, peeking up over the ledge.

What I saw was disappointing. I was told that there were huge and marvelous cities everywhere outside, bustling with thousands of people doing millions of different things, not just working in a base as a scientist, nurse, or soldier. I saw the exact opposite of a bustling city. What I saw was a vast, empty wasteland that went on for what seemed like forever. The ground was covered in a white blanket of some unknown substance. I think it was called snow. Scarcely dotted amongst the landscape were tall, looming brown figures that started as one large structure before branching out into smaller limbs in several directions. Trees. But, where were those green things called leaves? Anya had said that trees had leaves.

I went over what she had told me about the outside world in my head. She had said that the trees had leaves during the spring and summer, and that the leaves changed color and started falling in the fall. The fact that the trees I saw before me had no leaves must have meant that it was winter. I sighed sadly, from the things I had heard about the outside, I was expecting much more than what I saw. But, then again, life was full of disappointments, wasn't it? Just as I turned my head away from the window to leave the chill of the winter, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to face the window again out of curiosity and stared intently at the large expanse of white. Suddenly, something was moving. Something small and furry darted around the snow; it was easy to spot because its fur was dark brown, contrasting with the pure white of the ground. I looked at it in surprise; it had the bushiest tail I had ever seen that curled slightly at the end, with two big eyes and tiny, hand like paws. It held a small nut in its hands and jittered slightly, letting out a small clicking noise before quickly scaling a nearby tree and vanishing into a hole near the top.

I widened my eyes. What was that little creature? No one had ever told me that something so cute, tiny, and speedy existed in such a cruel world. If I ever saw Anya again, I'd have to ask her what the animal I had seen was called. It was adorable. I wondered if any of the guards would let me keep one as a pet. Maybe I could ask Alik to get one for me; he seemed nice enough to do such a thing. The sound of the door opening behind me snapped me away from my thoughts of the creature and caused me to turn around, quickly getting down from the chair and moving it back into place beside the table. A uniformed guard set down a tray and left without another word. I sighed, I had secretly hoped that it was Alik, I could at least talk to him without scorn. Sadly, the guard that had given me my food was far different from Alik. I could've imagined the young, new guard to at least give me a cheery greeting instead of being as silent as the man that had entered seconds earlier.

I looked at the metal tray on the floor curiously before walking over to it and inspecting the contents. Was that what I was supposed to eat? It didn't even really look like food. The meat was as stringy as could be and cold, barely having any warmth left in it. The bread was so stale that it was as hard as a rock. I picked up the small loaf of bread and experimentally banged it as hard as I could against the stone floor. It didn't even break. What was I supposed to break this with? Did they think that my teeth were made of steel? I took a tentative bite of the bread and couldn't even break off a single piece to eat. I placed it once again on the food tray and took a small bite of the meat. It was so stringy that I could barely swallow it. I sighed dejectedly and pushed the tray away from me and away from the door. With a growling stomach and an aching body, I trudged over to my bed and tried to sleep, wrapping the thin blanket tightly around me.