Chapter 5: To Hell
Our beds weren't far apart, so I could hear the conversation that my only neighbors were having.
“How tall are you, I’m 180.”
“Same”
“Rock paper scissors?”
“The only way”
“Ready”
“Yeah”
“Rock” “Rock”
“Paper” “Paper”
“Scissors” “Scissors”
“Gun” I said.
My interruption was a success. As they both moved to play their hand, they both had finger guns pointing at each other.
“Hahaha, sorry I couldn’t resist. My names Kon.”
They both looked at each other's hand and laughed with me. Seems they could both take a joke well.
“I’m Aid Wenix,” one said as he threw a peace sign at me.
He had dreadlocks that went to the back of his head to create a manbun.
“I’m Winfred Soto, you can call me red,” he spoke as he nodded his head at me.
I nodded back and realized that these two had something in common. Both the same height and give off an intimidating vibe with just their face. They were both like bouncers, but the cool kind.
“You guys down to get some food?”
“Say less.”
“Do we even know where the food hall is?” Red asked.
“There’s no harm in looking, besides, Kon’s ahead of everyone with a merit point.”
Red nodded and we started to head for the door that our Drill Sergeant came out of. What greeted us was a huge open room. On the wall to the right was a red circle, I looked to the left and a red square was on the opposite side.
“We came out the side of the circle,” I said pointing at both shapes.
“Nice catch, I think this is where we’ll be in formation”
“How’d you get that Aid?” Red asked.
“It’s empty and looks big enough for 30 people.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
It was pretty sound logic.
We started to walk down the room and it opened up. On our left was the cafeteria, on the right was a lobby type area. It had couches, chairs, tables, and places to charge electronics.
“Well, this is nice but I’m hungry.”
“Hey Kon, Reds already in line.”
I turned around and like Aid said, our new friend was already grabbing some food.
“Guys, my only hope right now is that it tastes as good as it looks.”
Walking up with Aid, we looked at the food. It was buffet style, with different options and limited portions. There were trays and utensils at the start. Since we were the first ones here, we had the opportunity to try everything and we did just that.
As we moved down the line, the rest of the group was coming out of the rooms and exploring. I looked over to try and find Zoya, while Red and Aid looked for a seat. I didn’t find her and didn’t want to look like a weirdo so I joined up with the two.
They had a seat at the table furthest from the hallway, the tables were round with six seats. I sat next to Aid with Red on his other side.
“Is it good?” I asked.
Red just nodded while scarfing down another spoon full.
“At least we’re getting fed good, we even get a nice choice of drinks.”
“You talking about the K-Raids? They probably own the brand.”
“Yeah,” Aid nodded.
“So, you guys remember any faces, like the ones in the tutorial.”
“Faces? I just got an instructor.”
“Same here you got something else?”
“Yeah, if I made a mistake, I would’ve been broadcasted in front of everyone. Doing some embarrassing and cringy thing.”
“Holy shit, thank god I didn’t get that.”
“Yeah, it took me a while to learn how to drill. That would’ve been a nightmare.”
“It really was. Every time someone failed a knowledge check, a video would be played and I literally could not look away. It was awful” I said as I shuddered.
“That means they were different for some people. But then it was timed for all of us to exit at the same time.” Red spoke.
“Well, what about the ladies, they were a bit behind us?” Aid asked.
“They had extra time to shower” I told.
“Spilling our secrets Kon,” a voice behind my shoulder said.
I looked back to Zoya standing with her tray of food and two others behind her.
“You guys mind if we sit here. There three of us in the three seats?”
“I don’t mind, you two?” I asked the others.
“Sure” “Sure”
“Great” as she took a seat next to me.
Her friends sat down with her, filling up the table.
“Sorry, I’m Zoya.”
“I’m Aid.”
“Winfred” he said as he went back to eating
Zoya looked to her right as a cue for her friends.
“Oh, I’m Daphne”
“And I’m Estella”
Daphne had short wavy hair that matched her bronze skin. Estella had longer, ginger hair with some freckles on her face. Getting a good look at Zoya, she had bluish hair and sultry eyes.
Surprisingly our group dynamic was good. Our chatting mixed in with everyone else in the mess hall. It strangely was like the first day of high school lunch. But like lunch in high school, it ended a little too early.
As we were putting our dirtied trays away a voice started to speak from the intercom.
“ALL PERSONNEL, PLEASE REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS IMMEADIATLY.”
Panic was the first thing I felt from everyone.
“Our beds,” I yelled and started to run to the rooms.
“Circle for the men’s” Red shouted as he and Aid sprinted with me.
Zoya and the ladies weren't far behind, soon everyone was running towards the beds.
I was the first to run into our door and stand at attention. In less than a minute after the alarm, all of us were here. A shout from the door we first came through rang throughout the room.
“A good start to a greater race. Welcome to Hell.”