Melanie's Adventures

The night passed as it always did without fail and everyone, just as instructed, was at it. The training and stuff just that this time, it was a bit realistic. They were using war simulations and for physical prowess, they would run miles and lift tons. Was Melanie doing all that?, you might ask. Well, no. Not really because she overslept, dreaming of a life with Pete and two children. She was locked inside the room for the whole day and she only woke up because she was feeling hungry.

The siren sounded again but this time, she didn't mind it not because she had got used to it but because she couldn't get out of the room anyway so she just lay on her bed and planned to wait for updates from Lucy or her other two roommates.

Later on, the door was opened and Melanie darted through them with her famished self praying along the way that the canteen was still open. Luckily, her advocate, Lucy, had informed the canteen staff about her lazy friend and so they decided to wait just for her. A staff member saw her from afar and brought out the warm leftovers that was cut from the dogs' ration.

She looked at the crap with disdain but then a familiar voice rang through the halls,

"Beggars cannot be choosers. Eat that up and make it quick."

The Commander sat a chair or two away from her and asked her another question,

"Do you think you are cut out for this?"

"What do you mean, sir?", Melanie said innocently as she took her first bite and frowned.

"Do not give me that", the Commander scoffed back.

The girl took huge scoops of what she once repulsed just to avoid that question or rather the answer that comes with it.

"You're young, with potential but not for the military. Take my advice and drop out before it becomes too late."

The Commander may have cared for her or hated her and he had expressed it the only way he knew how but either way Melanie felt derided. He left her company and left her sinking to the bottom of a pool of doubt with dead weight dragging her down.

"So you think you're cut out for this" was what played on her teeny tiny feeble mind.

Melanie lost her appetite and ceased to eat causing the staff member that was in a hurry to go home grumble indistinctively and collect the remains. What was he saying? Melanie really couldn't tell. All she saw were lips moving up and down without sound, well, in her state all she could hear was

"So you think you're cut out for this", as all other sounds went undertone.

Eventually, she had leave the canteen. She dragged her feet along the road in a hunched-back manner. Gradually, gradually, Melanie reached an endpoint, her dormitory. She found her two other roommates who surprisingly weren't asleep.Both of them were called Afia but they definitely had contrasting personalities. It was like seeing a raven and an albino dove in the same cage.

To differentiate between them, they were given prosaic labels like Afia .A. and Afia .B. So Afia .A. , the mean one, sat with pouted lips fidgeting furiously with her fingers whilst Afia .B. walked up and down across the small chamber like she was about to lose it.

Even Lucy, who was famously known for being socially insensitive would notice the dramatic effects of this somewhat repugnant field of tension.

"Ahem", Melanie drew attention, "Is something wrong?"

"Is something wrong?", Afia .A. mockingly repeated, "Of course, you wouldn't know if something was wrong because you overslept. Always getting on nerves."

"Alright, that's the last straw. First of all, she wasn't talking to you. Secondly, stop acting like you're in this pickle alone. All of our lives are at stake.", Afia .A. retaliated.

Wow, that was a first. Melanie stood with mouth ajar. She had never seen .B. so defensive before. The most she ever said were, "Good morning", "Good evening", "please" and "thank you".

Afia .A. rolled her eyes at the wannabe hero but she also didn't stop either.

"Have you seen her in training?", she asked .B., "She's useless and we have a lot of that in this year's batch. God knows if we will survive this war."

"I only asked a question, jeez", Melanie raised her voice.

Melanie turned back to .B. and asked her where Lucy was as she had not seen her that day.

"Oh yeah, she was summoned by her father, the Commander."

Melanie felt betrayed. Lucy never told her that but she dismissed the thought quite quickly.

"And what about the war?", she asked again, this time making sure to avoid .A's piercing eyes.

"Right, uhm, it has gotten out of hand."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You're aware that after the war threat was found out, we reinforcd our borders right?"

"If course, yes", Melanie lied.

"She's lying", Afia .A. saw right through it.

"Anyway", Afia .B. continued, "Somehow the Raineans managed to go through it unnoticed and attack our military headquarters. The soldiers that we had readied for battle are either dead or are critically injured and because of that we have to fill in for them".

War was fast approaching and the realization gave her chills, "But how?".

"We don't know yet. Even our records don't show anything. They really thought their plans through and through".

"You sound so chill about it, weird.", Afia .A. murmured from her bunk bed.

The recent pair went on talking but Melanie couldn't hear a single word as she recalled the Commander's words, "Do you think you are cut out for this?"

That night, Melanie slept with constant pangs of the fear of war and the fear of not being cut out for it.