Survival Strategy: 2

2

“Rune, I'm sorry." A deep voice echoed in the darkness. It seemed so familiar, but I just couldn't remember who it belonged too; just that the feeling was nostalgic. "Rune, forgive me." The voice came again, but still, no matter how hard I tried to, I could not put a face or name to that voice.

"Rune! Rune! RUNE!!" I heard my sister yell. "It's time to get up! You're going to miss it!"

"Huh?" It took me a second to remember what was happening, but the moment I did I immediately got out of bed and began frantically walking in circles around the cabin.

Most of the people in our village didn’t have houses, because only the wealthier people could afford them. Instead, the villagers live in cabins which they built themselves and would be shared up to around ten people. My father had helped Kevyn’s father in building our cabin so both our families had lived in one cabin and we had known each other ever since way back. There were five sections in our cabin – our parent’s bedroom as well as Kevyn’s father’s bedroom, our bedrooms – Kevyn, Ryn, Krystal and I used to share a bedroom, a bathroom and the living area. Usually, the living area was for all purposes, dining, relaxing, and more. Food was always cooked outside and the villagers would usually share their meals in the village square – none of us would starve.

Kevyn and Krystal both got their own rooms now that our parents were gone, Ryn refused to sleep alone since she was scared of someone attacking her during the night. I couldn’t blame her though, in this place, anything could happen.

“Hello?” Kevyn peered into the room.

“Oh, Kevyn! She’s almost done; you guys should take some food too.” Ryn replied as I continued to look around for stuff.

“Yeah, we’ll stop by the village square. Are you and Krystal alright here?” Kevyn asked.

“We’ll be fine, you should worry about Rune! Not me!” Ryn assured him.

“Oh, Rune, you don’t need to bring anything much, they’ll provide it there and we can probably get stuff there. I’ve pretty much saved up quite a lot for something like this.” Kevyn added.

“Okay.” Finally, I grabbed my pistol and effortlessly slung my backpack, containing water and spare bullets, onto my back. “I’m all set.”

Kevyn and I first headed to the village square to see if we could find something to take with us on the way so we wouldn’t be hungry. Luckily, the baker’s wife, Mrs. Aldegale, had a loaf of bread that she wanted to give away since it had gone stale.

“Well, we’ve gotten a lot of things worse than this; we wouldn’t die from eating stale bread.” Kevyn joked.

In the end, we took the whole loaf and the lady wished us good luck when we told her where we were going.

“I hope you stay safe. My daughter lost her husband because of the Sacrifice, and if you were to find the missing-” The lady cut off with a look on her face that showed that she was remembering the events that occurred in the past. Not wanting to force her to think about it anymore, we bid her farewell and went on our way.

At the village gate, you could see crowds of people marveling at a transportation vehicle that clearly came from the city. It was a vehicle, painted a tinted black color, and was about five to seven meters long, something you saw on the TV in the village square – a car. We never had those here; we travelled on foot or by wagon pulled by horses. Rarely there would be a carriage for the wealthy people of the village but this was one of the rare occasions that you’d see a car like this in the village.

“I guess we didn’t have to do that far.” Kevyn said the moment we saw a uniformed man stepping out of the car. As he walked forward, the villagers cleared out a path and he walked straight up to us.

The man announced himself as a General from the military and asked for all recruits to step forward while the rest of the crowd were to move back. Kevyn held my hand and pulled me forward and I stood there in awe. The man seemed so high-classed; there was a completely different aura about him, almost to the point I felt uncomfortable just being in his presence.

As the villagers stepped back, not wanting to go against the man’s words, Kevyn and I as well as another boy, with extremely broad shoulders and a tall build stepped forward. I recognized that the boy was the butcher’s son, he had taken over his father’s business at a young age since his father was probably also forced to join the army, he seemed at least two years older than me.

When the Military General directed us into the car, we found that there was one other girl there, dressed in a white, short-sleeved dress shirt, navy blue colored shorts, and matching combat boots we were supposed to have been the only ones but apparently that wasn’t true.

“How old are you guys?” The girl suddenly asked us. She seemed like the calm and reserved type, in her hand, I could see a book which I could make out to be a light romance novel.

“I’m seventeen.” Kevyn replied and then pointed at me “And she’s sixteen.”

“Eighteen.” The buff guy replied.

The girl didn’t reply after that and it went silent, Kevyn and I exchanged a few words about whether we were hungry or if we needed the toilet but that was it. We rode in silence and stationary for a while before I dozed off, I wasn’t sure if Kevyn did too but I was woken up by the sound of the car door slamming shut. The Military General opened the door on our side and said “Rein, we’re here. Let’s hope that they don’t figure it out, tell the recruits to move fast.”

“Yes, sir!” the girl that sat across from us replied before turning to us.

“So, what happens now?” Kevyn asked.

“Follow, but be discreet, we must not let anyone discover that we’re here.” The girl replied, she slipped on her tie that was a stripped navy blue and yellow color and attached a name badge onto the socket above her right shirt pocket. The name tag read “Rein” and on her sleeves would could see several badges were sewn on.  Immediately, I knew what she was and so did Kevyn.

“Is she-?” Kevyn started, but I stopped him before he could finished and nodded.

“She’s a special squad agent.” I said.