I duck into my room and crawl into my bed. I barely have time for my nightly ritual of barricading myself with pillows before I fall back to sleep.
I dream of standing alone in a vast, white abyss. It’s cold, and the ground feels hard and slick like ice. The sky is also white, and the only reason I can tell there’s a difference between the floor and the sky is that I see a figure in the distance. I run toward the figure, and as I get closer, I can tell that it’s a girl. Her long, blonde hair reaches down to the small of her back. She is thin and tall. Her back is to me, so I reach out to touch her. Right before I do, I call out “Ev,” but she doesn’t turn. She vanishes and reappears in the distance. I walk up to her again, and the same thing happens. The cycle repeats itself until I’m woken up.
The knock at the door shocks me awake. I sit up as the door opens, and the silhouette shades me from the bright light wanting to enter the room. The silhouette’s hand flicks on the light. The brightness burns my eyes, and I retreat under my blanket. “Turn it off!”
“Time to train,” says the deep voice. I know without looking that it’s Grant, my weapons and combat instructor. I like working with him. He pushes me hard, and he’s the only one able to keep up with me when running.
“Fine.” I look out from under the covers. His dark skin and black jumpsuit make Grant appear as though he is still a silhouette.
“Dungeon, ten minutes!” He tosses me a protein pouch and walks out. Grant is never one to be anything less than direct.
I sit up and tear open the protein pouch. I’ve never liked the way the goo feels as it travels down my throat, but at least I got a good flavor today. It tastes like a mix between orange and mango, with a hint of vanilla.
I look around my room. It’s small with no windows. The bathroom is to the right of my bed, and the closet is to my left. I have a nightstand on each side of the bed, but both are stacked with books, most of them on Ancient Egypt.
I stand up from my bed and feel dizzy as pain shoots to the front of my forehead. I know it has to do with falling asleep on the roof. I walk to the bathroom and splash my face with water. I’m hoping the protein pouch will help alleviate the headache; otherwise, it will be a brutal training session. I slip into a green jumpsuit from my closet and head through the door to the hallway.
Something feels off about my walk to the dungeon. It’s located under the library, so I have made this walk many times before. Today is different, though. It’s not until I’m in the elevator that I realize what it was. I didn’t see a single drone in the hallway. There are almost always three or four keeping an eye on me. I can’t recall a day when I didn’t see at least one.
The elevators open on the ground floor, and the second I step out, I am hit in the head with a fifteen-pound leather ball. I fall hard to the ground. Whatever hope I had of losing the headache is now gone.
“Get up!” I hear Grant yell from across the room. I know that I’m supposed to be prepared from the second I step off the elevator, but the drones’ disappearance had me preoccupied. I lost track of where I was. Grant has trained me to always be prepared, but today I lost focus for a brief second. Because of that, the left side of my face burns, and my head hurts more than it did ten minutes ago.
I look up to see another ball flying toward my body. I roll out of the way and pop up to my feet. The ball hits the wall behind me. I assess my surroundings and see that Grant is hiding behind a giant rock formation. The entire room is a red rock desert landscape with boulders and a few dead trees scattered about. The heat of the sun blaring from the sky causes beads of sweat to form on my brow. I look down at the ball that hit my face and see that it’s actually a small boulder. I pick it up and hurl it at Grant, forcing him to duck further behind the rock formation. I use the opportunity to pick up the other small boulder and run up a different rock formation.
I analyze the options he has. He can look out from either side of his rock, he can climb up, or he can run for cover at one of the two other rock formations. Looking out won’t do him any good, and climbing will leave him vulnerable. Since I’m already at the high vantage point and can hit him with the boulder, the only option he has is to run.
“You were late,” he says. I know he’s trying to pinpoint my location, so I stay quiet. My eyes remain fixed on the area between the rock formations where I believe he will run to. I see his head poke out briefly in my peripherals.
A split second later, he’s running from his cover. I hurl my boulder at the area in front of him; he stops to let it land in front of him. “You missed!”
The moment he takes his eyes off me to watch the boulder land, I bound off my perch and charge at him. He turns just as I lower my shoulder into his
