The Master Plan

Chapter 14 - One Hour.

Abbie’s POV

Shit. How long had it been? How long had it been since Luke had called me back? I pushed Jonny off me and he landed with a thump beside me.

“What the hell?” He exclaimed.

“I need to do that track again! Luke called me ages ago!” I practically flew out of the tent, making sure my uniform was still looking pristine before I ran off. “I’ll be back in an hour!” I shouted back as I ran over to see everyone standing in a group watching me run. I’m in trouble.

“Abbie, we called you 15 minutes ago. We’ve been standing here wait for you!” The Officer folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Sorry, Sir. I was trying to sort out the cramp I had.” I lied.

“Better now?” He hissed.

“Yes, Sir.” I looked down at the floor.

“You need to do this in 1 hour. Go.” He pressed the stopwatch and I shot off, feeling full of energy. I need to prove him wrong. You can tell how much he hates me; the way he speaks to me, the way he looks at me… I don’t know why but he obviously wants to see me struggle through this! I ran through the tyres, jumped over the walls, climbed the ropes, went across the rope steps, across the monkey bars, crawled under the net… I felt my energy draining as I ran this course. How long had it been since I had eaten? Last night? This isn’t going to end well. My breathing got heavier and heavier and I felt my throat closing up. I began to feel zoned out and was sweating profusely as I ran across the finish line. I doubled over, hands on my knees and breathed in and out heavily.

“That was an hour and ten minutes.” Another recruit said to the Officer as they checked their stopwatches to see the times matched.

“Go again, now. Ten minutes needs to be cut. You took a long time on the crawl. Go!” He shouted at me. I breathed in sharply as I began to run again. My entire body felt like jelly as I used what was left of my strength to pull myself over the walls. I knew this time was going to be double what I’d done before… I dropped off the largest wall and landed in the mud, crawling out of it slowly. My head is pounding, my sight blurry, my legs are like jelly and my lungs are burning from lack of oxygen. I climb up the ropes to reach the rope steps and take a step on the first one, my legs nearly give way and I cling on to the ropes. Come on Abbie… Just a few more steps… I feel like death as I move along the rope steps, my legs barely being able to hold me up any more. I take the final step onto the safe, stable surface and breathe a sigh of relief. Right, all I need to do is climb down this rope ladder, do the monkey bars, crawl under the net, climb another wall… Oh fuck it, I’m never going to do this. I can’t feel my body, I don’t even know if I can make it down this rope ladder. Positive thoughts, come on Abbie!

“I can’t do this!” I say to myself as I climb down the ropes, my hands red from rope burn. I step off the ladder and run towards the monkey bars, jumping into the first and grabbing hold of it with all the strength I had left, but white squares appear in my eyesight and I felt sick and dizzy and felt like the world is spinning around me.  Please say my landing wont hurt…

***

“Abbie? Abbie!” I could hear someone shouting my name. I stir, moving my head from side to side and a pain shoots up my back. I breathe in and out slowly, trying to steady my shaking hands. I slowly open my eyes, everything is blurry but I can work out Luke leaning over me, concern etched on his face. “Abbie! Thank God! Are you alright?” I blinked more and more until my sight seemed to be back to normal. I sat up slowly, Luke having his hand on my back to steady me and I rubbed the back of my neck.

“What happened?” I looked around to see everyone surrounding me.

“You passed out!” He said hysterically. “You fell off the monkey bars. You’re lucky you’re not paralyzed, you fell on your back!”