Culling

Part I • Chapter X

☜♡☞

I almost died. Died.

Juliana was relentless and demanding. She had forced me to run forever, then do situps and pushups for even longer, before putting me on a weight training routine. 

She asked me about my skills and what I might be interested in, so I mentioned archery. It was then she insisted that I needed at least a few days to try to bulk up before I'd be able to use a bow and arrow.

My arms hurt. My legs hurt. Abdominal muscles that I didn't know that I had even hurt. I think my hair was in pain too, but I was aching all over too much to differentiate.

I think my training regimen actually pleased the rest of my group. 

After it was clear that Juliana was both skilled and seemed to care about my welfare, I noticed that the boys didn't appear as stressed out. Once I started with Juliana, they focused on their own training during my torture routine. 

However, they all seemed so adapt and in-shape that I persevered. I would not be left behind!

By the end of the day we were all dripping with sweat and gross. I didn't even have the energy to listen in on the conversations around me as the boys compared teachers, techniques and plans with each other during dinner. 

Once we arrived back to our rooms I fell asleep on one of the couches. Dr Green woke me up a few hours later telling me the shower was free for my use and to go to bed.

However, this brought up the issue of the showers. 

I obligingly played along. I let Dr Green lead me to the bathroom and closed the door as he left me there. I washed in the sink as best I could, changed in my pajamas and crawled into my bunk. No one seemed all the wiser and everyone was too tired to talk long into the night.

I knew I was going to have to face this problem. I had known this would happen the moment that I found out that we had only showers available to us.

My only option to wash during this time would be that big shared bath. The one that happened to reside within the big shared bathroom. Lovely. That was about par for course with my current luck. 

So when I heard the sounds of nine men sleeping, I knew that the time had come.

The sneaking around was almost worth it.

The bathroom itself had been easy enough to find, it was the only room down the hallway on the opposite side of the floor. It was late enough to where I was confident that our hall-mates were sleeping as well. So the entire room was currently my own. 

I had been right to assume that the elevator was centrally located in the building, because the whole bathing facility was about twice the size of the room where we were staying.

The bathtub itself was gigantic and reminded me more of a pool than a tub. Surrounded by marble, it was cut deep into the floor and was already filled to the top with water. I noticed a sign with a posted schedule nearby that indicated that the tub was heated automatically and was frequently filled and drained throughout the day. Clearly it was a soaking tub of some sort. I assumed that people were meant to shower before going into it. 

Since that wasn't an option for me at least, I cleaned as best in the sink (again) before I went in.

It was heaven. I had never been in a tub this deep before, so this was an entirely new experience. 

The bathtub at home only filled with few inches of water, and so wasn't all that relaxing. In this tub the water came up to my neck. At first I was afraid the water would be too warm, but after a moment I realized that it was actually the perfect temperature.