Hearing Bryce ask to show everyone my back, I got slightly nervous and said, “Why do you need to see mine? It’s just a rippling drop of water isn’t it? Same as everyone else.” Everyone looked at me with confused faces and then it hit me.
“Ohhhh, unless you’re trying to say that each person is marked with a different tattoo?”
Bryce smiled and nodded. “That’s exactly right. I mean, two others in here have the raindrop like me, but where I only have one smaller raindrop, Teresa and Matthew over there…” He pointed out two other people around my age who were sitting at the edges of their beds. “…have multiple raindrops of varying sizes, but there’s doesn’t ripple like water as clearly as my one drop does.”
He then gestured towards the other people in the room, “Samantha over there has blue lightning racing across her back and it’s constantly writhing in motion as if it’s straining to come free. Pretty awesome if you ask me.”
Bryce continued until he had pointed out each person, given their name, and described the type, size, motion and color of the tattoos on their backs. There was one guy whose bed was nearest to Bryce’s and he had a skull on his back surrounded by blackness floating behind it although it wasn’t very easy to see the skull due to its faint outline. Four others in the room had varying types of tattoos that were related to fire, but only one had the smooth flickering of a real flame while the others appeared choppy at best. The last two had faint outlines of what appeared to be a pair of rocky fists with hands clasped together as if they’re in prayer.
After carefully taking it all in I turned back to Bryce and asked, “So are these all the types of tattoos that the aliens marked us with?”
“That…we’re not sure of yet. You saw that there are different types of tattoos and my best guess is that they correspond to different elements. My rain drop represents water. Flames represent fire. The praying rock hands represent the earth. The lighting represents electricity. It’s pure speculation that the skull with black clouds floating through it would represent either darkness or death-”
“So that would mean that there has to be one for light or life depending on which one that skull is.” Bryce nodded at my deduction. “And so I guess since none of us in here has it, you still don’t know what the air element’s tattoo looks like, right?” Bryce nodded once more and again looked at me the same way he had after showing me his tattoo.
I took a deep breath and sighed. “Well, since Bryce and you all were so kind as to enlighten me with your marks, how could I not show you mine?” Everyone turned towards me expectantly as I faced my back towards them and pulled off the strike vest. I heard a gasp and then a couple whispers behind me. Turning around quickly, I instantly looked at Bryce and he seemed to be thinking about something.
“Yo!” Snapping my fingers at him he looked up and a smile spread across his face. “So what is it man? Don’t leave me hanging.”
“It’s a cloud, Alex. It’s dark gray…looks like its breathing in and out and it takes up nearly half your back. How’d you miss it?” He laughingly asked me.
“I guess I just didn’t look hard enough is all” I dismissively waved my hand. “So a cloud, huh? I must be air then. That means we’re only missing that light or life element then, right?”
“Yeah” Bryce responded.
“I just don’t quite understand why everyone has different types of marks.” I said back to Bryce. ‘It’s not entirely true that I don’t know what any of this could mean, but it would be weird to say it out loud.’
Before Bryce could open his mouth to respond to me, the lights shut off and we all heard a voice come from the front of the barrack. “Alright, ladies. It’s time for lights out.” Giving Bryce one last look, I shrugged at him and he did the same.
“Night, bro.” I said before walking off towards my bed.
Reaching my bed, I tossed my strike vest on top of my pack and fell on top of my bed in exhaustion. Soon after, a more welcoming darkness embraced me as I fell asleep.
………………..
“Rise and shine marked ones! It’s time for p.t.! Five minutes!” A sharp voice rang throughout the barracks and shocked me awake.
‘Physical training? I didn’t come here to join the freaking military.’ Groggily lifting my head, I looked up and saw a small amount of sunlight shining through the windows. Everyone around me was shifting and seemed to be getting up out of bed. ‘Oh, screw that. What do I look like to these guys?’ My face fell back into my pillow and right before I could fall back into blissful sleep I felt something soft grasp my shoulder and slightly shake me.
“Mmmmh? I’m going to sleep. Screw p.t.” I mumbled as coherently as I could through my pillow and turned my face away from whoever was shaking my shoulder.
The shaking returned, but with greater strength this time. Turning back towards whoever was shaking me, I wiped my eyes tiredly and got into a sitting position and slowly opened my eyes. I was met with the sight of the girl whose bed was right next to mine. I hadn’t taken a really good look at her last night during my talk with Bryce, but now I could fully appreciate the sight. She was a pale white female who looked to be about half a foot shorter than me. Her eyes glowed the color of sapphire and she had an innocently refreshing face. Her hair was the most interesting though. It was straight on top of her head, but after a neat bun at the back of her head, the rest of her hair was dreaded a couple inches past her shoulders. Her hair shone in the dim light with a paler blue than her eyes.
‘I hope the other marked girls are made like this one’ I involuntarily thought.
“Hey, didn’t you hear?” She asked me in a soft quiet voice. “It’s time for physical training. You have to wake up!” She finished with a warm-hearted smile.
Completely forgetting my earlier frustration at my rude awakening, I stared at this girl slack-jawed for a few moments before reaching down on the ground for my combat boots. “Right…physical training…haha. Thanks…ummmm?” I sounded like a complete fool, but I had forgotten her name and only remembered her as the girl that Bryce had pointed out the night before with the blue lighting racing across her back.
Seeming to understand my confusion, the girl gave a sweet laugh and then, “Samantha. That’s my name. Although, my friends call me Pixie.” Immediately I was flabbergasted at the nickname, but was looking down tying on my boots so thankfully she didn’t notice.
“Oh…haha. Well, what should I call you?” I laughed out while finishing with my boots.
She put a finger on her chin and looked off into the distance. “Well that depends, Alex. Are we friends?”
‘Oh, damn she remembered my name? Now I look like an ass.’ Standing up, I looked down at her and laughed. “Always open to having new friends. I’m sure you saw how Bryce and I instantly hit it off last night. Speaking of…where is he?” Looking around, I realized that ‘Pixie’ and I were the only two left in the barracks.
“Oh! We’re gonna be late, come on.” She hurried down the aisle of beds and out the door before I could even respond.
‘Ugh physical training.’ I looked down at my shirt which was lying across my pack on the ground. ‘Might as well leave that here if I’m gonna be sweating.’ After thinking that, I dashed out the door after Pixie and the rest of them.
Stolen novel; please report.
………………..
The sun was shining down hard on my back as I sat outside on the ground in an open area eating a turkey sandwich with my barrack mates and a couple other people I’d come to know over the last few days.
‘Tomorrow evening we’re supposed to head into the tower and now barracks one through eleven are all nearly filled up. Assuming each of the barracks has twelve beds like ours, there are at most 132 people at this one tower alone’ I silently thought to myself.
Getting up, I excused myself from the group of people and headed towards the nearest bathroom. As I walked, I saw groups of people chatting happily as they ate their meager lunches, glad that they could make new friends even in this type of situation. However, I also saw the occasional one or two people sitting off all by themselves in a corner.
Making it near the bathroom, I heard loud cheering coming from the back end of the building and immediately changed direction to go and check it out.
‘Amazing that the military could construct all this stuff in just a couple days’ I silently praised the hardworking construction workers I’d seen over the last couple of days. I hit the corner of the small bathroom building and was puzzled by what I saw. Two African-American guys were leaning against the back wall of the building cheering on a hugely built and bald headed guy who was doing squats nonstop.
“One hundred twenty-six, one hundred twenty-seven …” He puffed out after completing each squat. I leaned against the corner of the building and watched the huge guy keep going.
‘This guys a monster! He makes the bigger half-breed I fought look lanky!’ I thought to myself.
Once the big guy hit one hundred and fifty, he stopped and turning away from the two African-Americans watching him and began breathing deeply and slowly while stretching out his legs. He had no shirt on and his muscles looked tough as stone. Even after all those squats, not one drop of sweat could be seen on his body. Focusing my vision on his back, I strained my eyes to catch a look at his mark and there it was; Taking up a space that was almost as large as the cloud on my back was, I saw a sky blue rain drop thrashing around as if it had waves rolling through it.
‘What the hell? I haven’t one do that yet.’ After he finished his breathing exercise, he turned around and the other two guys started clapping and I joined in on it surprising them all with my presence.
“Damn you’re strong man!” I heartily exclaimed out to him. He looked at me with a serious look in his eyes. I involuntarily tensed up at his look.
“The physical training they have us do in the morning is just running, push-ups, and sit-ups. It’s not what I’m used to, so I try to do more by myself in the spare time we have.” He said in a strong, deep voice.
After hearing him respond to me in a friendly manner, I loosened up and came closer sticking my hand out. “My name’s Alex. Nice to meet you.” Now that I’d gotten much closer I could see that even though I had a couple inches on the guy, he was much wider than me and it was all muscle. He also looked to be about one or two years older than me, but his light brown eyes gave me an impression of talking to an intellectual bear.
He grasped my hand back in a hard, firm grip. Like a steel vice. “I’m Akito.” He gestured towards the two African American guys. “These guys are Kualin and Milik.”
I looked over towards them and found that they had a striking resemblance. Not enough to be twins, but definitely siblings. Kualin was the same height as me, but with a much slimmer build. His complexion was darker than Milik’s and they both had dreads that went a little past their shoulders. Kualin had high cheekbones and a neatly trimmed beard running along his jaw, whereas Milik had no facial hair and less prominent cheekbones. The only other difference between the two was that Kualin’s dreads were all black while Milik’s had blonde highlighted tips. I could tell that Kualin was two or three years older than me and Milik was at most a year younger than I was.
Reaching my hand out to Kualin I said, “Alex, nice to meet you.” He looked down at my hand and started laughing hysterically. Milik joined in soon after and a moment later, they were both dying laughing. I watched, perplexed, and withdrew my hand from where I’d had it and waited for them to finish.
Kualin looked at me with mirth in his eyes and a huge smile, “Yo, man you don’t gotta be super formal or nothing. It’s all good though. Aye, Milik, we gon’ teach this dude the ways of the Lin Que.”
I got even more confused and turned to Milik. “The ways of the Lin Que?”
Milik started laughing even harder. “Dude, I don’t even know! It’s just this thing he’s always saying!”
Although I was confused, I was being drawn into the joyful mood that Kualin and Milik had created and started laughing for no good reason. After about ten seconds our laughter died down and I looked over towards the big guy, Akito, who’d just been watching the proceedings with a confused look on his face.
Pulling out my phone, I checked the time. “Damn. Hey, I gotta go find a way to do laundry. We’re entering the tower tomorrow and I don’t wanna have to go in smelling like straight up funk.” They all nodded and Akito even sniffed his own armpit then turned away disgusted. I almost started laughing all over again, but kept control of myself.
“If any of you guys see me tomorrow in or out of the tower, just link up with me. It’s better to go in with friendly people, you know?” Everyone sobered up at my words and nodded.
“Yeah, dude. We’re all in barrack eight, but if we see you in there we’ll hit you up” Kualin said with a smile.
“Alright then. Akito. Kualin. Milik. Hope to see y’all in there.” Leaving them, I made it back to my group in five minutes after using the restroom.
They were all just sitting and chatting away as they had been when I left. I noticed, however, that none of them were talking about the tower or what would happen tomorrow, instead focusing on their lives back home.
Approaching the group, I announced to them, “Hey, guys. I’m about to go find some place to do laundry. Y’all in or what?” Pixie was the first to stand up, her pale blue dreads swinging as she did.
“I’m in. This sun is killing me.” She feigned passing out in my direction and I playfully pushed her back onto her feet.
“Alright, Pixie’s in. Anyone else?” Everyone grumbled and stayed in a sitting position except for one.
“I’ll go. I also want to go and prepare everything for tomorrow.” Bryce’s voice broke through the grumbles of everyone sitting on the ground. Everyone looked at Bryce and then towards the tower and slowly began getting up to join us.
As we walked off in one big group laughing and chatting, I couldn’t help but naively hope when we entered the tower tomorrow that maybe we wouldn’t have to go through anything like the catastrophe that had started all of this.