Dragon Deep

Chapter 14 - Breaking Point

Very gradually, a routine took form. At first, training was hard. Very tough indeed. Waking up to a sore and exhausted body was hardly providing any form of motivation. To make it worse, I had to wake up at 5.30am daily and go for a morning jog right after waking up.

What a great day to start the day! Do sense my sarcasm.

“GET UP!” Ren shrilled in my head, before biting my finger very nastily.

The quick jolt of pain shocked me, causing a spike in my body’s systems. I growled, still groggy from being woken up. I had told Ren a million times NOT to wake me up by biting my finger.

Such a fun thing to be woken up by a painful nip on your finger. Of course, his act of a ‘living alarm clock’ only added to my annoyance after being rudely awoken.

At 5.30am, the air was still chilly. Do you know the feeling when your whole throat becomes dry and burning cold because of the cold air? Well, it isn’t pleasant. If anything, running so early in the morning was going to make you suffer from some throat infection soon.

It was not helping when your body starts sweating despite the cold temperature outside. The combination of sweat and a cold atmosphere never failed to make me shiver slightly. Raphael had said that the cool air was calming and soothing to him. It cooled his body to a more satisfactory temperature, to him at least. He’s just cold-blooded. How would he understand how it felt to be warm-blooded like me?

“You know, all mammals are warm-blooded. It’s not possible for Raphael to be cold-blooded” Ren quipped in timely.

“Not that scientific ‘cold-blooded’. I meant being accustomed to lower temperatures than I find comfortable in.”

“That’s not even the meaning of cold-blooded. Essentially, cold-blooded means lacking emotion or feeling. Definition extracted from the walking dictionary named Renevyere Luminova Stellaruis.”

Despite knowing that keeping silent would let him win this argument, I ignored him. I was in no mood for fun and games right now.

I did a few simple stretches before grouchily heading out, Ren tagging behind, obviously comfortable in the cool temperature.

It was still not easy to run more than five rounds around the whole school. Raphael was hardly panting after one round while I was already soaked with sweat. Unfortunately for me, my predicament was not unnoticed by my arch-enemy, Bain. For him, nothing was funnier than the sight of me huffing and gasping for air.

Did I mention? I had received a total of five incision wounds, eight big bruises the size of a palm, seventeen abrasions all scattered over my body at various locations and not to omit the lovely, enjoyable sprain I got. It was a welcoming gift from the rancid chunk of meat, Bain. It was just so pleasant to have somebody smacking you right on your cartilage-filled nose daily, perhaps even multiple times per day. You could also refer him as the pompous tyrant. He never missed an opportunity to prove his greatness over everyone. He was incredibly selfish and ostentatious for a supposedly mature 16-year-old gentleman.

 Despite the infinite reasons of why I absolutely detest him, I couldn’t help but notice how fast he learnt things. During lessons, he could grasp difficult and complicated moves within minutes. He was good at basically everything, which just irked me so much because I knew I couldn’t beat him at anything, no matter how hard I tried. Thinking about Bain seemed to rejuvenate me, filling my tired muscles with newfound energy. 

I dashed forth to complete the last stretch, surprising Janice and Raphael. As I crossed the line, Janice smiled and congratulated me. Raphael, on the hand, smirked and merely said ‘good job’. How encouraging. His eyes fluttered over to Janice and a radiant smile broke out on his face.