Draken and his forty-nine classmates sat in a classroom, after leaving the mess hall. By the electricity in the air, he wasn’t the only one dreading this moment. No one would admit their fear, and Draken despised himself for being so weak, but as his father always told him, a coward is not the one who is afraid. It’s what we do about fear that makes the difference. Was he a coward? He had never faced his worst fear, so how could he be so sure?

He gritted his teeth, pushing away that idea with annoyance.

The instructor entered the classroom. Draken stood with the other cadets. In unison, they screamed, ‘For the Halden,’ and straightened their left arms above their heads, then sat back.

The instructor paced before them in silence, which set Draken’s nerves on edge with anticipation.

‘Collecting information is an art that follows scientific rules,’ he said, pausing his stride and taking his time to range his gaze across the room before moving on. ‘Today, you’ll learn what that means. Before you can become a collector yourselves, you must understand what it feels like to be broken.’

Despite the threat, a glimmer of excitement shook his body. One more test. Once I pass, my candidacy as an officer is assured.

Since his military training had begun when he was three years old, Draken had never failed his missions and tests. Nothing would stop him from getting the prestige and the honour of command. He was born to lead. Even Rotima understood that.

‘You all understand the rules of behaviour during questioning,’ the instructor continued, pacing again to one side of the room to fix a student with a stern look.

‘Draken? Are you afraid?’ Zamal whispered to him.

He stiffened. Admitting his fear? No, never. ‘Of course not,’ he whispered, his fists clenched.

‘They will weaken you physically and attack you psychologically. The test will last as long as the collectors see fit. It’s like a game of polika to them,’ the instructor said. ‘I’m interested in your reactions because the result of this test will make you a superb leader or a dead recruit. Don’t fail me!’

A superb leader or a dead recruit. Draken didn’t intend to die. Failure wasn’t part of his plan.

A team of five clad in black, wearing black balaclavas and dark goggles over their eyes, entered the room and ordered them out. One led them to a basement. The door closed behind the last student to enter.

No one spoke. They barely breathed.

A group of students with Zamal and Derrin among them sat down. It appalled Draken. How could they show so much slack? During their last exam, no less. He stood there, keeping his senses on high alert, expecting anything.

When a deafening sound trumpeted, mauling Draken’s ears, he plugged them with his hands, but that didn’t stop the piercing sound from hurting his eardrums. Then he smelled it, the sweet scent of a korilis flower. The psychotropic substance extracted from the pistil was also a powerful sleeping drug.

A moment later, he lost consciousness.

He woke as something solid connected with his stomach. He opened his eyes a bleary crack. A steel-toed boot moved, ready to strike again, but Draken grabbed it and sent its black-clad owner to the floor.

He jumped to his feet, eyes darting back and forth to take in his new surroundings: a grey room much smaller than the one he was in before. No furniture or windows gave away where they were. Or what time of day it was. Just nine lights on the ceiling and a door to the left.

The curves on the body lying down betrayed her gender. Of course they choose a woman to break me the easy way. But it’s not gonna happen.

A noise behind his back distracted him from his thoughts. He spun around.

Three broad-shouldered, muscular figures surrounded him in a semi-circle, holding wooden clubs.

Three men and a woman.

Draken moved away from the woman, monitoring the other three who followed him.

All three attacked in unison. A club struck a blow to his right knee, another sank into his stomach, sending him down. He doubled over, breathless. The drug had slowed his reflexes more than he thought when he decked the woman.

Two men grabbed him and forced him onto his back. The steel-toed boot crunched into his nose. Blood dripped down his face.

Draken couldn’t deny the pain, but he kept his lips sealed and tried to shake the fog out of his head. Something whacked his right temple and knocked him out again.

When Draken came around, he lay naked on the floor, hands bound in front of him with a tight cutting rope and a blindfold over his head.

A cold liquid wet his face, and he instinctively licked it.

Blood.

Was it his own? He couldn’t tell. Dizziness messed with his head. Was he still on drugs, or had they beat him so badly?

While he tried to get a grip on himself, the temperature of the room dropped.

Draken shivered, but at least the reeling[ capogiro] sensation in his head decreased.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Silence surrounded him, broken only by breathing, but if he held his, he could detect four other distinct breathing patterns in the room. The same people he had met before, or perhaps others. It didn’t matter. His task now was to withstand the pain, the humiliations, the cold, the insults, the beating, and everything they could throw at him.

The scent of one of them unmistakably identified it as a female.

‘Your lack of stamina is disappointing. Rotima deserves more,’ the woman said.

She wanted to get under his scales, but insulting his manhood now was the worst mistake she could make. Zamal lusted after him, and Rotima would be his wife after graduation. No doubt he wouldn’t disappoint his bride.

Two hands grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him to a wall.

Someone spat on his blindfold. ‘Stand and stretch your arms above your head,’ a man’s voice yelled the words.

Draken complied, but kept his lips sealed. No matter the pain they put him through, he didn’t intend to make a sound.

‘Your mate … what was her name? Ah yes, Zamal Dortal, she confessed you didn’t impress her when she tried me,’ the same man said.

Draken clenched his jaws but didn’t reply. Zamal’s sexual maturation had happened months before. Of course she had mated with others before him. But after? Either way, it didn’t matter. Her physical reactions to him hadn’t been faked. She craved him as much as he did her.

After what seemed a lifetime spent standing in the cold in the same position, his limbs hurt. Every time he tried to move to ease the pain, they hit him with a club and yelled at him to hold his position. Some ribs broke. Breathing was agony, but holding his breath didn’t help either.

The pummelling went on until he lost consciousness.

‘Isn’t it cold in here, soldier?’ the woman asked when he woke up again from the torpor of the beating.

He sat leaning against the wall. His spread legs stretched ahead, his hands on his lap, still tied with the same cutting rope.

‘I’m definitely cold. Why don’t we light up a fire?’ she insisted, chuckling.

Draken stiffened. Of course, they wanted to play with his sensitivity to cold, but did they know about his fear of fire?[ Check if you don’t need this. If you mentioned it before, possibly remove.]

The men laughed.

With a blindfold, he couldn’t see the light, but the heat increased and the crackling noise deafened him.

His body shook, and he fell, drowning in memory, lost in a whirl of colours. An echo of laughter hung in the air, jokes told, company enjoyed. He sat in a hover with his father, his three-year-old brother, his aunt, and his uncle. Excitement for his brother’s acceptance to the military school filled the air.

Outside, the daylight faded as they travelled through a dark road lit only by the headlights of the hover-car.

The roar of the engine silenced the laughter as a powerful sensation at Draken’s stomach took away his breath. G-force gripped him, but sturdy adult hands wrapped around him and his brother.

Draken squeezed his eyes shut. Gravity shifted and changed, accompanied by the appalling screaming of his brother. Sickening crunches reached his ears as the hover rolled several times. The bumps tore him from the protective grasp. He flew through the air to strike something hard.

When he came around, thick smoke filled the shattered cabin, making him cough. The once familiar shapes looked like black smudges.

Something wet and heavy pressed against his legs. The comforting lights of the hover no longer worked, and the darkness swallowed the sense of merriment.

A noise to the left attracted his attention, but he couldn’t move. However, he spotted the flames’ reflection in a piece of metal. The heat increased as the light pierced the darkness. The black smears turned red, and the noxious smell of burning blood assaulted his nostrils. He tried to move, but he couldn’t untangle himself from whatever weighed down his legs. Smouldering flames licked at them.

Just when he thought he was doomed, powerful hands reached through the shattered window for him. They pulled him into the blessed cool air of the night.

Two bodies lay inside the hover. Draken recognised his aunt. Her head turned at an impossible angle.

He screamed and screamed again until a bat smashed into his side.

‘Stop screaming, krolaface,’ a man’s voice barked into his ears.

Darkness wrapped him around. He dreamt again the recurring nightmare of the night he lost most of his family in that hover accident.

‘Are you afraid of fire, krolaface?’ the woman asked, waking him up again.

He screamed until something hard hit his head, sending him into oblivion again.

He woke up to the foul odour of puke, blood, perspiration, and excrement. Still blindfolded, he couldn’t see but perceived the heat of the torch swinging in front of him. Closer, and closer, and closer. And he screamed. Again, and again, and again …