Children of the Plague [NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE]

I thought the first two days were terrible, but on the third day, we started physical training. Just like the day before, we woke up to the cadre entering our room and yelling at us.

“Is there another assembly?” Brian asked. I just shrugged my shoulders as a response.

“Shut up, you walking disease!” Yelled one of the cadres. “You all have fifteen minutes to get dressed in P.T. gear and line up outside.”

“What’s-” Brian began to ask. There was a loud thud and an exhalation of air. I looked over and to see what happened, and Brian was kneeling on the ground, clutching his stomach and gasping for air.

“I said, shut up,” the same cadre member as before growled. This time he was hovering above where Brian was kneeling.

Our physical training gear was a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and some tennis shoes. We also had a pair of pants and a jacket for when it was cold. After we were all dressed in the shorts and shirt, we were herded to the gym. We once again met up with the girls, who all looked way worse than we did. This was because it looked like they didn’t have any time to fix their hair.

We were lined up and instructed to spread out through a series of commands that had us raising our arms and moving away from the person who was closest to us. The first day we actually didn’t get much exercising done because we were repeatedly going over the drill until we could do it without messing up and with sufficient motivation. We may not have done the exercise that the cadre wanted, but we were utterly exhausted by the end of the two hours it was scheduled.

On one occasion, after we had been in the camp for a few months, it was asked why we exercised so much. This was asked by either Sarah or me, and we were lucky enough to get a response.

That morning we were being led by Sergeant Gray, an older, dark-skinned and gray-haired man. His age did not make him any less physically capable. He loved to workout and adored making us sweat. However, while he wasn’t verbally abusive or mean in any way as long as the exercises were being done, his response showed us a different side. That day we were probably on about number two-hundred of our side-straddle hop, which is the military term for jumping jacks. Don’t ever call them jumping jacks to an army person. That was a lesson we learned a few weeks before and the lesson was drilled into us with a thousand of them. Literally, A THOUSAND.

I digress, we were on about number two hundred when the question was posed to Sergeant Gray, and even though he was doing the exercise along with us, we received a lengthy response.

Sweat was already dripping from my forehead and stinging my eyes. He said, without slowing down and in between our yelling of the number we were on, “Well, it’s a multi-faceted solution to numerous problems that could arise it the camp. However, first off, we do it because this is a military camp, and while you may not be soldiers, we are treating you like soldiers and soldiers train. Another reason is that you are all children, with excessive energy and also budding hormones. Those reasons are the most important to me. You all can’t imagine the issues I have seen with build-ups of those two things.

“Three hundred.” We all yelled in unison.

“Finally,” he continued, “you all have one more factor that is a complete wild card. Your abilities. No one knows what the end result of would be if there is an uncontrolled release of energy, hormones and some sort of genetic virus power.”

He was one of the more liked cadres up until that point, but his last comment showed his real feelings on the matter. After that, everyone seemed to just focus on getting through the exercise with the only sounds coming as we yelled out the number we were on.

“Five Hundred.” We yelled and then were given the command to stop.

We were all breathing hard, that wasn’t the most we had ever done, but it was a large number.

“The Flutter kick,” declared Sergeant Gray.

“The Flutter kick,” we echoed.

Despair wrenched my heart and the command to get in position for the exercise, but all of us knew better than to show it. Those displays only caused the cadre to go faster and do more. Usually, Sergeant Gray wasn’t the type do wear us down with excessive amounts of any one exercise, but it seemed the question struck a nerve since his eyes were blank and his face hard. We laid on or back with our hands under our buttocks and lifted our legs about six inches off the ground. He wouldn’t start until everyone was in position with their feet hovering off the ground. A quick scan showed that everyone was ready, but Sergeant Gray still didn’t start. It seemed like he was making us suffer. We may not have done a thousand jumping jacks, but that day might have actually been worse, and we all learned not to ask questions.

Life was strict in the camp, and so was our schedule. Every morning we woke up exactly the same. Well, I shouldn’t say exactly the same. After a few weeks, we got used to the cadre coming into our room, flicking on the lights and yelling at us. We still did what they said and moved as quickly as possible, but the majority of us stopped getting rattled the same way we did in the beginning. I’m not exactly sure why they felt the need to come in every single morning to do it, but I’m pretty sure that they just liked it.

After the morning yell fest, we all go to the gym for mandatory physical training. Physical training lasts for two hours, at the very least, but we usually do a lot more. After that, we are quickly ushered back to our rooms for our uniforms and then to the showers for personal hygiene. After that, we go to eat chow, and then to the garden for maintenance and ability training. We usually spend most of the day in the garden, but there are occasional times when we go to other places.

The days were always demanding and they began to fly by. We were busy learning to use our powers or doing details, which are like military chores and just trying to find our place. I tried to pay attention to how everything worked and where I would need to go to get the information about the events of the night I was brought in. It was a difficult task without raising suspicion, so I went about my day normally and tried to blend in.

During the first few months, there were only two rooms made up of those who had the physical ability to manipulate wood. One for boys and another for girls. Each room was made up of five bunks and we were the first ones in there. After a few months, another group came in, and a few weeks after that, another. I assumed the other Welders and Sirens received more members than the Carpenters because the few times we did interact with them, the number of cadets, as we were then being called, seemed much larger than the first time at the assembly. However, when we were at a different assembly, I looked at the colors of everyone and noticed a large number of the silver armbands of the Welders.

Looking more closely, I noticed that the majority of the people were wearing silver. I looked around again for Claire, the girl I saw in the first assembly. I managed to find out her name without anyone asking too many questions. I always liked to find her even though I never got a chance to talk to her. Although that day I didn’t want to admire her, I was curious about the colors. It didn’t take too long to spot her since I was focusing on the colors and to my surprise, there were even fewer Sirens than anyone. Except for me, I suppose.