Chapter 3, Part 4

A student of the future faces overwhelming odds during a life-threatening tournament.

Waking up was every bit as painful as dying was. Wailing at the top of my lungs, it felt like my ribcage reflated itself, it felt like my thigh stitched itself up. My mouth, nose, and eyes steamed as my sinuses attempted to clean themselves of nonexistent salty water. It was torturous, and all of the other students woke up in equally painful distress.

“Welcome back.” Minerva murmured, unhooking me from medical instruments. I was shaking so badly I might as well have had Parkinson's Disease. She took my forearm in her hand to stop me from shaking too badly as she unplugged me from the system. A frustrated sigh fluttered through my lips, and the last of the students woke up.

“Update?” I grunted, swinging my legs to one side of the medical bed.

“You were one of the top twenty-five students who lasted the longest. You survived thirteen minutes in the field.” My caretaker drummed rapidly on an alienistic keyboard, seeming to be impressed. “It's 7:06 right now. You should... You should spend the next twenty minutes relaxing. From what I heard of your experience with Stoker, you're going to need your energy when you see him at dinner.”

“He deserved it.” I swept my annoyingly thick hair to one side and nonchalantly braided. He may have been a punk, but I was a jerk to break rapport like that, and the appropriate amount of guilt gnawed at my freshly regenerated gut.

“He may have deserved it,” Minerva unhooked the last of the machinery from me, “but I chose you as my patient because I was impressed with how mature you are. You disappointed me.”

I felt the heat crawl up my throat and jaw into my pale cheeks, turning them into a nice pink color. “I apologize,” I murmured truthfully, tying up my new braid. The will to make things right overtook my body, and I determined that I would formally apologize to him at dinner. I would always be on my guard around him, though. We couldn't be friends... My actions this morning assured that.

Absentmindedly tugging at the braid, I stepped onto the cold, hard ground with my bare feet, and had to clutch the sheets of the bed to prevent myself from toppling over. Minerva instantly turned around and caught me, then stabilized me by clutching my elbows as I tried to regain my balance. Black spots crowded the edges of my vision, and I inhaled and exhaled deeply and quickly. “Are there any health problems I should know about?” My caretaker looked into my eyes with her startlingly green ones.

I avoided her gaze, pulled away as quickly as I could without being rude, and walked away hastily. “Just some heart stuff �" nothing to worry about!” I slithered through the door of the warehouse and rested my forearms into the wall, bending over, panting hard as my ears rang. Back when my life was ordinary, a heart that never beat fully, beat at double the average speed, and occasionally skipped a bit wasn’t the end of the world. I lost my breath a little more quickly than others. So what. Walking up stairs was a little bit difficult for me. So what. Now that I die every day, though... A heart that doesn't work correctly might become an issue.

But I was going to put off help until the last minute. In spending just those few minutes with me, the Warden had managed to successfully make the other student jealous of me, and potentially hate me. Whether he did that accidentally or intentionally, I didn't know. One way or another, it would be harder for the others to accept me. Maybe everyone would make life more difficult for me. I couldn't let any other student know my ailments, my weaknesses.

I was isolated.

Author's Note

This is an old work of mine, written when I was fifteen, inspired by a dream that I had. I discovered the work recently and liked it, so I have decided to revisit it. I will likely do a lot of editing and may add on to the story, or I may scrap it entirely. I would love constructive criticism over every aspect that could be improved.