School continued the next day and no doubt, the main topic among the students were the governor’s talk, especially those mysterious and fearsome monsters.
They wiped out an entire legion and even the first legion had significant trouble dealing with them. To top it off, there was virtually no knowledge regarding them, and because this was the first encounter with them, it seemed highly unlikely to get any information from the books and scrolls in the libraries.
Yesterday’s news made quite a few adults afraid, not to speak about the children. Obviously the younger generation had a harder a time coping with this whole situation. However, it has to be noted that the city revered strength, power and braveness -- qualities essential for becoming a good soldier -- which was beaten into them since the moment they were born. Thus it was not that surprising that the majority of them forged this fear into motivation. Of course, its intensity varied from child to child.
Naturally, there were numerous children who could not be so easily influenced just by words and -- due to various reasons -- did not change their views of things, continuing their everyday lives just like before.
Even though Quin was not simple-minded, he definitely was stubborn and his hate for physical exercises or anything which could be considered tiring for the body made him a member for this group.
Although his mother was constantly trying to convince him to change his attitude -- without success -- his father gave up after a couple of tries saying that ‘he was not going to waste anymore of his time on a foolish son like him and he had more important things to worry about’.
Another four months have passed and now it was the second week of April, the time for the general physical exam. The test contained several kinds of exercises from long-distance running to weightlifting. Students who could not pass the requirements had to do penalty exercises during the whole summer break, which generally gave a strong enough motivation for most of the children who previously lacked it.
The first day was started by long-distance running, which meant that they had two hours of time to run as much distance as they could, without stopping.
Swarms of kids began their first lap, several of them started running in a moderate or even fast pace, while as always children at the end were merely jogging.
After dozens of minutes the gap between the runners grew quite significant. There, in the last group, Quin was jogging in a relaxed pace.
Like usual, I’m in the last group, a small sigh could be heard from him. It’d be good if I could avoid the summer penalty exercises but this is so tiring! I don't think I could keep up with a faster pace for too long or I’d end up totally exhausted, without any energy to the other tests. Hmm, maybe those will be a bit easier?
“Hey... how are you... doing? Phew... I wish… I could give it more... but I’m already... at... my limit...” Pharren, who was next to him asked laughing, while also heavily panting.
“You know me, I’m not a big fan of these things,” Quin laughed, “though I’m still fine, I think I’ll manage with this pace. You keep up too,” Quin answered and gave a small smile.
Seems like he’s really giving his all into it, I hope he can at least keep up with us... Quin thought.
He became a bit sad, looking at his friend, as he knew that despite Pharren’s dream to became a soldier and train to be the strongest, he had a chronic illness which had a great influence on his ability to breathe. Thus after doing exercises for a short period of time, his breathing became more and more difficult, making them extremely hard for him. Though Quin had a different mindset and goal in life, he still looked up to his friend’s determination, because he never used this illness as an excuse. In contrast, he always tried to do the same amount of training as the others or even more.
About thirty minutes later, Quin noticed that their instructor was nowhere to be found, granting him an idea.
Lucky! While the instructor is away I can finally take a short break and then continue more refreshed! Quin chuckled on his good fortune, then he stopped and sat down on the track while constantly looking around -- just in case the instructor came back.
He was not the only one to stop though: soon about four of his classmates joined him in the break.
Only a few moments later a terrible, shrieking voice echoing throughout the yard broke their secret rest. Not a single one of the children failed to notice it and they quickly looked in the direction of its source: the group Quin and the others split off from just before.
From nowhere, a terrifying-looking monster appeared next to those students and took its first victim in a blink of the eye, leaving behind only small chunks of meat and a pool of blood.
If one of them had the mental stability to observe the whole beast, they would have probably described it similar to a white, worm-like shaped creature with a length similar to an adult human, its body being thin in one end, and gaining more and more width towards its other end where three blood-red eyes were located; equally distanced from each other. Its mouth could be found between those eyes and when opened, several sets of knife sharp teeth could be seen with a long tongue occasionally shooting out to impale and grab its unlucky target. If this was not enough, it had the ability to hover over the surface ignoring common sense.
Terrifying, truly terrifying!
No wonder none of the children had any strength to react -- they were all frozen in place without the ability to even call for help.They did not even have time to take a couple of breaths, before one after another they started to fall, leaving only a bloody gore behind.
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Quin suddenly remembered that one of his best friends -- Pharren -- should be amongst the group. However, just as he found him in the crowd, he barely saw the monster shooting its tongue towards Pharren. He tried to open his mouth to shout, to scream to his friend to watch out, but no sound came from it and then it was already too late.
Before he could even think about what happened to Pharren, the monster not wasting any time on the remains, set off towards him. In mere seconds the distance between them was only a single meter.
Facing it, his whole body was trembling in fear, and tears started pouring from his eyes. Then suddenly, his legs gave out and he fell to the his knees. He had heard it many times from the tales of soldiers, what it was like to be in the clutches of death their life flashing before their eyes and feeling that time itself slowed down. This was not the case for him, however. In this moment, there were only two things going through his head: fear and helplessness. These emotions totally suppressed anything else in his mind, and the only thought he had was: ‘I’m going to die’.
The creature shot its tongue and only fractions of a second was left until his inevitable death. Instead, in the next moment it dropped dead with the instructor standing next to it, cracking his fingers.
Quin just knelt there staring, and not understanding what happened at all.
“Poor kids, I arrived a few seconds too late... ” the instructor said, and sighed with a sad face.
Realizing that the monster was dead and he was still alive, Quin looked at his teacher. Though he was truly grateful, somehow he could not shake off the unnatural and alien feeling of his instructor’s expression.
“Alright! The tests are over for today! Everyone gather before the school building, I’ll go and arrange some guards to escort you back home,” changing back to his usual demeanor in a flash, his voice rang out in the whole yard, waking up many students from their terror.
The kids were still shocked but followed the orders without a second thought, and quietly waited for the guards to arrive. Then they were split into different groups, each of them having two soldiers, one at the front and the other at the back. They departed and one house came after another, until it was finally Quin’s turn.
Just as he was entering, his mother was angrily shouting at his father and arguing about something, but its content eluded his ears -- submerged deeply in his thoughts he was not able to make much sense of his surroundings. Releasing a small sigh, his mother was about to ask him something with a concerned face, however Quin just went past, without even glancing at them, and went straight to his room and laid on top of his bed.
Numerous thoughts swarmed his mind but it always came back to those few seconds, when he saw Pharren and the others die and that terrifying moment when he thought that it was his end. He could not escape this cycle of thought at all, which repeated itself throughout the night not giving him anytime to rest, only nightmares. An experience of this magnitude could greatly impact even an adult and he was just a six and a half-years old kid.
After what seemed an eternity for him, the morning finally came and he went down for breakfast. Although Quin felt exhausted and sleepy, his mind just did not care: it was still stuck in yesterday’s events and was shutting out nearly everything other than bodily necessities.
“...?” his mother asked Quin about something with a worried face, but he was completely in his own world.
“Yes,” he nodded without even knowing what the question was and started eating his meal.
This repeated a couple of times, his mother trying to have a conversation with him, however his only response was the same nodding. He only half-finished his meal and it was already time to go.
Making sure they were protected in case the attack from yesterday happened again, the students were escorted by guards this time as well. This queue before Quin’s house contained several children, divided into pairs of two. Not surprisingly, the majority shared similar looks on their faces as Quin did, with only a handful of them being in a not-so-sorry state.
Not much time passed until they arrived at the school, and then training class immediately began. The school decided that the lessons would be continued but the tests were to be put off at least a few weeks to let the children recover.
They have been running for at least half an hour but many of them did not notice the passage of time nor the distance they made, they were like mindless zombies, only doing the task before them. It was the case for Quin as well, until he looked at a sign on the side of the track which meant that they were at half of the whole track.
Oh, this means Pharren should be nearby- he reflexively looked around searching, for a moment -- this had been the time when Pharren’s body usually gave up due to his illness and he had to slow down and join the last group -- just before remembering yesterday’s events and realizing that Pharren was no longer with them.
Another surge of negative emotions hit him, tears began to form and drop from his eyes. One of his best friends had just died and there was nothing he could do about it. Along with the sadness, memories started flashing through his mind, times when the five of them were together, playing or even just going home, but this was no more. After minutes passed like this, he tried to focus only on running in the hopes of shutting out these unbearable emotions.
The hours went by, soon it was the end of the day and Quin found himself back in his bed. Unfortunately the night was just like yesterday’s and the few times he was able to fall asleep, he was soon woken up by the horrible nightmares haunting him.