"Get up weakling! Naptime is over!"

I jolted awake and sat up suddenly. What? What's going on? My eyes were a bit blurry and I was still tired but the person yelled at me again.

"Get up now!" There was a sharp Zap! to my torso this time. I yelled out, bending slightly in pain. I hurriedly stood up, saluting automatically and still trying to clear my blurry vision. What is going on? Why did I just get poked with that shocker thing? I wiped my eyes and saw the man clearly, an older guy with close-cut black and grey hair and a crisp black suit, adorned with multiple medals. He was pacing along the hall, doing the same with older kids. I quickly went to the doorway, not wanting another painful zap.

More kids appeared in the doorways until it seemed that the whole hallway was awake. The officer zapped one more person and came back down the hallway. "Everyone! These are your barracks. You will sleep and dress here. You are expected to wake up at 500 hours sharp and make your beds to perfection every day. There will be no dilly-dallying, no horsing around, no disobedience or rowdiness whatsoever and I will not tolerate anything other than what you are asked. You will all do exactly as I say! Meet on level 2 outside in exactly 5 minutes!" He yelled. "Sir, Yes sir!" Everyone shouted and immediately went about getting dressed. I only had my pants buttoned when he was yelling for us to get outside for training. Uhhh, what do I do? I grabbed my shirt and ran, putting it on as I went up the stairs and outside.

I looked down and was surprised to see a number, 118, stamped on my shirt. I looked back at the hallway I had just stood at attention in and was surprised to see that it was different than yesterday. I must have somehow been moved while I was sleeping. Others who were older than I were running too and also had numbers. "Hello," I said between breaths to the kid next to me.

The boy next to me turned to me and answered as he ran. "Hey, I'm Scott. What's your name?"

"Steele, what are we doing?" I said as we slowed to a halt with the others.

"This happens every day, we will train, eat, then go to our lessons and more training." He pointed to a girl next to him, "This is Selina by the way." He said, and then shushed me as the Drill Sergeant started speaking. He explained something but I didn't catch it because someone pulled me aside. It was a woman with grayish hair and blue eyes. "Hello Steele, Sorry for the harsh start but it is necessary." I looked at her with suspicion. Would she poke me with a hidden stick for not answering? "Hello. Do you want me for something?"

She nodded, "You catch on quick, yes. I have a few questions for you, why don't we move off to the side some more." She gestured for me to move near the wall and I did.

"So, have you met anyone so far?" She asked.

"Yes, a kid named Scott who seems nice, and a girl named Selina, but I like my old friends better," I said. My buddies were the best.

"How so?" She asked.

"Well, my old friends liked to talk about cool stuff and I like to listen, but here no one rarely speaks. I don't like speaking either but it's always fun to listen and add a suggestion here or there. They also like being with me and doing stuff together with me because I come up with all the ideas for games and ways to defeat the other teams and I'm the strongest. I was told I can be a little too rough on the other kids sometimes though, especially when they cheat or pick on other kids, but I think they deserve it."

She smiled, "Yes, they do sound like good friends, but I'm sure you will get along with the kids here too."

"Yeah," I smiled halfheartedly. She smiled back and reached her hand into a coat pocket, searching for something. I watched with interest. She finally found what she was looking for, and took out a coin. It was silver and had a UNSC logo on one side and a different symbol on the other. She held it up for me to see and said, "I have a game for you, and it involves this coin. I am going to toss it into the air, and if you guess the correct side it lands on a couple times, you can have it. The UNSC side is tails. Are you interested?"

I nodded, "Yes."

She smiled again and flipped the coin into the air. "Heads," I called and caught the coin. Opening my hand, the coin had landed on the head's side. She smiled and took it from me, tossing it again.

"Tails," I called and caught it again. It landed on the tails side. She threw it 3 more times. "Heads...Heads...Heads." Each time, I was correct. "Five out of five..he's just like John." She mumbled.

"What?"

She looked up quickly, "Oh, nothing, here is the coin, you have won." She smiled and handed it to me. I smiled and tucked it into my pocket. I could maybe buy something later. I looked back up and opened my mouth to ask her if I could go back. She started first. "You can return, but you must promise me to watch this later." she pulled out a small chip. "It has all of your rules, responsibilities, and other information on it. If there is anything not on it simply ask for me." She handed it to me. It had a small logo on one side and the word RULES written by hand on the other side.

I tucked it into my pocket and felt it hit the coin. I withdrew my hand and smiled again at her. "I promise, Thank you," I said, and turned around, walking back to the place my group had been but they had disappeared. Where did everyone go? I turned around only a few paces away, mouth open to ask her the question... and closed it. She was gone, somehow already down the hall and out of sight. I shrugged. I'll look farther down. I walked outside farther and found all of the 10-year-olds and up in a large training area with different obstacles. They were just going over what we had to do and I hurried over. The Drill Sergeant glanced at me but said nothing. Thank goodness.

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"You will train on this course every day until you can move up to the next course. You will not leave anyone behind and stick with your teams. For our team exercises, you must work together. A leader will be appointed to each later. Is that clear!" He shouted. They saluted and I mimicked. "Sir, Yes Sir!" They shouted.

"Training starts now! After the course, you will run through the forest on the path. Get to it, Cadets!" He shouted and they ran to the training course. He leaned towards me. "You are on the Orange team." He pointed to the red and orange side of the course. "Get to it, cadet!" He said and I ran over as fast as I could. I did not want to be on his bad side.

I zoomed up the wall and passed a teammate. I crawled through the mud and wires as fast as I could, passing another. I was about to go on when I remembered what he said about sticking together. Man, I shouldn't leave them behind. I went back and came back to where two girls were stuck in some wires. I unstuck them and helped both of them through the mud, now in my third pass through. The two girls smiled at me and we ran up to the two guys on our team who were climbing poles. We scaled them, and got a rhythm going, catching up to the third guy. We got a few drinks on checkpoints along the way. After a ton of other courses, we finally made it to the end together, though I had to keep reminding myself to stay with the group.

I paused during the last section of the run and panted, kneeling in exhaustion, desperately in need of water. The last checkpoint had been a while ago. The girls and one of the boys had sat down. I needed to stay strong for them because there was still more training to do today.

"Come on guys, up. We have to keep moving. He wants us to run to the next camp, then we can rest." I said, trying to stand up as tall as possible to encourage them since they all looked as worn out as I felt. It was weird trying to encourage older kids. Maybe I just push through better. The girls groaned and stood up, as did Scott and the other boys. We got a quick drink and started running. Scott followed behind the other boy and then the two girls, me last. I tried to keep up, pushing through. My heart felt as if any second it would give out and I would collapse.

As I ran I found myself wondering, has anyone ever died from this? Probably. That didn't give me much comfort.

At last, I saw the end a little way ahead. By now I had fallen far behind. I pushed harder, my heart beating like crazy. I breathed heavily, almost there. I saw the end where my new team was waiting. Then suddenly everything went dark, the ground coming up to meet me in blackness.

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I woke up abruptly, gulping in air. The worried faces of my team came into focus. I coughed a bit and breathed deeply. "What happened?" I asked. One of the girls replied. "We were so worried, you were right behind us, and then suddenly you just fell like something tripped you. When we got to you, you weren't breathing. I thought you were going to die. I don't even think anyone noticed. Thankfully Selina knows a bit of first aid and I called her over. She did CPR and saved you. I'm sorry we were going so fast, we forgot you're just a kid." She said, eyes down in shame. There was a chorus of "me too"s.

They helped me up. The girl named Selina came over and said, "I just did CPR, without Sift here we would have never known and it would have been too late. Thank you for encouraging us though, I don't know if I would of had the willpower to get through it and I would have been thrown out. I owe you one." The one girl nodded, "Yeah, thanks. I hope we can become great friends."

I smiled at them, brushing myself off. "Thank you both. I have the jist of your names but we never really introduced ourselves. My name's Steele, number 118." I said, pointing to my uniform. At my number, they exchanged a quick glance at each other, eyes wide for no more than a second. Then the moment passed and they started saying their names. What was that about?

The girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and a relatively average height said, "I'm Sift, 201" The next girl said, "I'm Selina, 245" She was a quite tall person, just over average for her age with golden-brown hair and blue eyes with green and gold specks. "My name is Kade, 164." Said a kid with brown hair and brown eyes. He seemed to have a stocky build. "I'm Grayson, 283." said a boy with an average build on the buff side, brown hair, and green eyes. "Last but not least I'm Scott, 489." Said the boy I met earlier with a smile. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and a slim but tall build.

"Nice to meet you." I said, smiling a little. "You too, we better get going though, the rest of the teams just arrived." She said, pointing to the gathering group, some completely exhausted and laying down. "Ok, let's go." I said, walking over with the rest of the team following. We joined the group, hanging in on the side. I looked out towards the woods and saw the Drill Sergeant coming towards us. "Officer on deck!" Someone shouted. The others quickly formed a block and saluted and I followed suit. We happened to be on the first row of the block. He stopped in front of us. "At ease cadets." He said and we relaxed. "I heard we had an incident on the course and I must apologize." The cadets exchanged glances. I guess he never apologizes.

"That was my fault, I did not take into account the physical condition of our newest recruit. I have been told by tomorrow he should be able to keep up with the rest of you due to his ability to adapt to conditions quickly. Now since that's over, you will report to your barracks. You have an hour before you are required to be at lunch at 1200 hours. You will receive your daily routines then and be appointed your team leaders. Dismissed." We shuffled around and Grayson came up to me. "Hey, want to join us in my quarters?"

"Sure!" I said enthusiastically.

He nodded for me to follow and led me back to a few doors down from my barracks. The rest of the group had come in and we're watching videos on the monitors. Board games were on a shelf and a hat from his home team was resting there. I went over to see what they were watching. There was a big soldier in a suit of armor similar to the one I had seen previously on the desk was leading a group of soldiers into battle. As we watched, he engaged a Brute. These were the large, shaggy, bear-like creatures of the covenant with giant powered hammers called gravity hammers that could create shockwaves on impact. He did a backflip off of it and they all made sounds of awe, "Cool." Kade said.

We watched him a bit more and then played a game of chess with teams. By the time we finished, we had to go to lunch but as I looked around at the team, a smile appeared on my face. This was my team, my new family, and I would do everything I could to help them.