The training bot is really giving me a go today. I saw the sweep kick coming, and now I'm already on my ass.

Brings me back to my first few months in UWWADF training.

"Come on, Kruger," my opponent smugly gawked at me. "You could beat some high school bitch, now you can't beat me? Please."

I was already out of breath. She was ahead of me in technique, then outlasted me. Nadia went down in a few hits because she didn't see it coming. If I didn't wrap it up in a few minutes, I'm almost always screwed.

Right as I sat up, another foot makes it across my face, and my arm didn't have the oxygen to fly up and block it. I'm face-down on the ground, and right as she mounts my backside, the instructor blows her whistle.

"Alright, that's enough," she shouted. "Blocke, you're next."

I crawled up, weaker than a twig. Even with the headgear on, my face felt like it's swelling.

If I can't do this, where are they going to send me next?

Either back to the jail cell, or they might even remove me entirely. So now I had a choice. Either keep getting my ass kicked, and at least look like I tried, or my life would really be at an end. I had nothing else to lose other than the next day, and the next meal, just merely hoping something would get me moving again.

[Andrea], after beating me, took on a streak but finally took a loss just the next week. However, that was not humbling at all. Week after week, as I was there just kind of at the bottom, while others shuffled about above me in the leaderboard. It was all a revolving door, going nowhere.

One night I stood in the locker room sink with the shard of glass in my hand. It's rare that the custodials didn't see this. I danced the edge of the glass against my forearm, trembling and unsteady.

Could I even make the cut straight enough?

Whinging at the cuts forming, I push a little harder, hand trembling more, until I drop the glass.

I can't do it. I can't even do this. No, it's what I want.

The glass, showing a reflection of a pathetic brown-haired teenager looking back, sobbing, shaking, just wasting her own time. Only a few more seconds pass by before I pick it up and hold it up again.

"Lorianne," a voice from behind says. "Why?"

"I... don't want anything... other than silence," I mutter, between sobs and gasps.

"You put an end to me, now what was the point of the revenge?" the voice calmly asks.

I turn around, to see a white-haired girl, hair draped over her face, only for her to vanish less than a second later.

"I didn't even ask for retaliation. All I wanted was for you to stop," the voice reappears again behind me.

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"Bullshit!" I turn around to see nothing. "You would have only kept escalating! Where the fuck did you go now?"

"And now you're turning on yourself. Is that really all that you'll be? Another body in the lab for them to study in science class?"

"Yes!" I scream.

I stab the shard in, in frustration of hearing her voice, then immediately regretting it. But now it's too late. I already made the decision, frantically squeezing my arm, unable to look away. I slip on the blood, landing on my side, watching more and more flow out. The room starts to spin, and my head starts to feel like a balloon.

And this is all you'll be.

~~

A blonde, middle aged nurse stared at my face after a bright light woke me up.

"That really wasn't necessary, Lorianne," she muttered, muffled by her sanitary mask, and brushed my bangs across my forehead. She ever so gently held my left forearm, heavy with bandages from my elbow to my wrist.

With the O2 machine controlling my breath, I couldn't even ask "why? why bring me back?"

"A lot of life is just a gambler's fallacy, when people say a new day awaits, sometimes, what gets us out of bed in the morning, is just plain curiosity of what might happen, with no expectations whatsoever," she held my snow-pale hand in hers, the latex gloves not exactly reassuring. "I was curious as to what your next day would be like, and here we are. Isn't that something?"

Struggling to keep my eyes open, I stared at her blankly.

"We're really privleged to live in a day and age where we have the resources to bring you back like this, and even luckier to have each other in this kind of world. So now, we can care about others more than they do themselves, and then do something about it," she wipes a tear with her knuckle. "I know you girls are really bitter towards each other, but outside of this base, there's not many other places where you'll spend so much time with others and remember it."

I almost wish I could care.

She touched my forehead once more. "My name is Tania, we'll speak again soon," I fell back asleep.

Just months later, I was soon on the top of the class. But I didn't really care. The revenge was not at all worth it. I just wanted a way out, and dominating the class was the only way.

At the lunch tables, the other students would slide their lunch at me whenever I even glanced at them. Flattering, only for a short period of time, and I devoured the incredibly bland food without spite, only as a means to an end.

"Even the best get their asses handed to them sometimes," I mutter, lying on the ground after cueing the training bot to stop. "When you get better, you just tend to get bored," I groan while slowly getting back up, still stuck in the thought of Tania holding me as I cried in the base's locker room, on her shoulder, while she said those exact words. I was 20, and I was the sole graduate for the Jackal Hunter program, and that night was the last night I'd see her before they sent me out.

"But that's okay, feelings come and go, all you can do is your best and follow what you want in life, and you can only know afterwards if it was worth it," she held my face, wiping my tears away. "You were most certainly worth every moment. You grew up so damn much in the past four years. All it took to turn a misfit to a marvel was a second chance."

"I don't know what I want, other than out, and for you to come along," I sobbed.

She sighs through a tight throat. "We all are birds in a sequence of cages, waiting to fly to the next, bigger, shinier cage. They won't let me leave, and I don't think I need to tell you how much I'm going to miss you." She slowly takes one breath in, wheezing. "It's about my time to go to my next bird cage."

I looked at her choker.

"I'm sorry, Lori. I'd just be dead weight on your wings anyway," she tenderly held my face. "You're going to be something incredible, and just know I'll be proud of you, even if never see it on Earth. Whether or not I wake up the next day, I will always rest easy knowing you can handle whatever the world will throw at you," she runs her hand over my hair. "Don't ever forget, in the darkest of moments, I want to see you come out the other end. And you will."

"Thank you, Tania."

I helped her stand up from the locker room bench, almost as weak as her myself.

She never told me what her illness was. Nor was there a point to even write letters, if the UWWADF would even allow communications in or out of the base.

Standing on the mat today, my lips tremble, knowing I would never have a chance to see her funeral.