The days had become one big blur. There was nothing distinguishing them from one another. Each day was the exact same routine. The alarm would go off and he’d rush to get underneath the shower. The showerhead turned on exactly thirty seconds after the alarm went and it turned itself off again after two minutes. If you weren’t underneath that shower in time, you didn’t shower at all. When your days are spent in a hot, poorly ventilated classroom, surrounded by thirty five men, you need that shower.

Between the long classes, tasteless food and complete lack of entertainment, that shower was his only daily luxury. Luxury might not even have been the right word for it though. You had to ignore the fact that the water never really got hot and would lose whatever little heat it had after the first minute. It greatly annoyed him that he had to finish off each shower cold. He may have been a slumdweller, but he was from one of the best slums. One where basic amenities were in order and luxuries could be begotten, for a price. He doubted many of his fellow recruits had experienced similar luxuries when growing up. Most of them were probably happy enough that there was at least some hot, clean water available.

Other than that daily shower, it was all a drag. He found that each day it became harder to motivate himself to get up and get going. All they did was study. Each food break felt like a punishment where they had to sit in silence. He tried to remember what they studied on which day or when certain things had happened, but he couldn’t. It could have been yesterday when they delved into Environmental Control and Life Support System schematics and maintenance; or it could have been two weeks ago. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember. He was pretty certain they had studied it at some point though, he thought.

Lunch was even worse than the classes. The recruits were forced to eat in silence. For some reason unbeknownst to them, communication with other recruits was forbidden. Lunch was exactly thirty minutes, most recruits were done eating in ten. Eating fast was a habit they all picked up. Anyone that grew up in the slums was used to food being a scarce and precious commodity. It created an awkward situation where they all sat in silence together for most of their lunch breaks. Every man forced to wait until they were allowed back into class. It didn’t help that the canteen was the most boring, drab room ever created. All the walls were grey. Whomever created it seemed to have thought everything through with the singular purpose of making every part of it efficient and useful at the expense of comfort and design. It didn’t help that there were no windows either. He suspected the whole complex had been built without a single window installed. He never knew one can miss the sun so much until now.

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Things had been going on like this for weeks now, and they would continue this way for another while. Voss had mentally prepared himself for many things, but not for the boredom and monotony that was now central to large parts of his life. He wondered if things would change once they’d go into space…

He knew he wasn’t the only one who suffered from the monotony. He could see it on the faces of his fellow recruits. The vigor was sucked out of them little by little each day. Some of them couldn’t handle it. It had happened a few times that a recruit didn’t show up in the morning. He had no idea what happened to them. Nervous breakdowns? Suicide? Violence against a guard? It could have been any of them. They were never told anything. Someone would simply disappear one day to the next. Their desk would be removed from class as if they had never existed. It happened so circumspectly that one started to question oneself. Had that recruit ever really been there? Were you just imagining they existed? Such things took a toll on one’s sanity.

He hoped they were nearing the end of their classes on Fosfat, because he didn’t know how much longer he could last before he’d end up as one of the missing ones