V I R U L E N T n.romanoff

One

Chapter one: 5 executions

A v a l i n a

The sound of children screaming pierces my eardrums, though they aren't quite loud enough to drown out the sound of my own heart beating in my ears. The cold bites into my skin, my bare feet already numb. A man comes up behind me and grabs my shoulder, I quickly pull away, turning to face him as I do.

"Come with me," he commands.

I shake my head and scramble backwards, tears threaten to spill over my eyes. I take off running, I'm not the only one trying to escape. The second the shipping container opened many tried to run though none were successful. I am quickly met with another man who grabs my arm roughly and starts dragging me away, pulling out his gun and pointing it at me. I swallow hard and again try to twist away, though his grip remains steady on my arm.

Almost on instinct I go for his gun, which he clearly isn't expecting as I am easily able to disarm him. I don't know what to do with a gun, I've never seen one before, much less held one. Yet, I still manage to find the trigger, hitting the man in the chest. The force of the shot knocks me backwards and I drop the weapon out of shock, before I even get a chance to stand up two more men grab my arms, while another man, an older one, points at me.

"Вон tot," he says and there's a pinch in my neck before everything goes black.

I wake with a start, drenched in a cold sweat as I do most mornings. Silently, I steady myself and survey the room, out of the six other people in the room two others are awake. One of which sits up completely straight apparently struggling to catch her breath. I'm not  the only one who gets nightmares. They come with the job. My bed creaks softly as I turn on my side, trying to get comfortable. That was made nearly impossible due to my right wrist being cuffed to the old bed frame. Really, the cuffs are just a formality as I've been able to get out of them since I was five. At this point all of us can easily slip the cuffs if we feel so inclined, yet I don't. Partially because I know madame B would most definitely not appreciate it, but more because I find it even harder to sleep without the weight of it on my right wrist, I've grown so accustomed to it that I feel naked without it.

My attempts to sleep prove fruitless, and slowly everyone else wakes up as well. I notice some of the girls quietly securing their wrists back to their beds before madame B comes in to unlock them. They make good time too, because soon enough madame B comes in and slowly makes her way down the line of beds. Used to all 28 beds were filled, now there's only 7 that are occupied. Once she unlocks me I sit up and rub my bruised wrist absentmindedly.

Next to me a girl who I might call my acquaintance, Anna, sits up and rubs her eyes groggily. While she might consider me her friend I would never consider her mine. There's no room for friends in the red room.

It's mostly silent, other than the shuffle of everyone getting ready for the day. Every once and a while Anna will bring up something about graduation and I'll give a one word answer but it's mostly just the same as everyday. After no more than five minutes we file out of out room and go to breakfast, a slice of wheat bread with a thin layer of peanut butter, and a glass of water, the same as everyday.

Breakfast is quick per usual and we make our way over to the training room, we aren't sparring today, which is surprising because we have been everyday for the past week to try to rack up the number of deaths before the graduation ceremony. Instead, we move past the sparring area, where I notice that the younger children, probably the group of seven year olds are getting ready to spar.

"It's their first sparring day," Anna mutters to me.

"That is correct Miss. Novilo," Madame B says and stops walking, bringing our group to an abrupt halt before we can get to the shooting range.