A Year Of Celebrations

Academy Founding Day

By SynchroClaire

Kota's POV

My gaze trailed along the far wall, across the sleeping bodies in front of me, and over to the window for the one hundred and sixty-seventh time in a row. It was a loop that had been going on for hours. Wall, bodies, window. Wall, bodies, window. I stifled a yawn. The monotony was mind numbing, but I couldn't think about anything else in case I distracted myself. Keeping watch was boring work.

A finger poked my rib. "Kota," Nathan whispered.

I broke my pattern and turned to face him. My stiff muscles protested the movement. "Don't wake them," I murmured, my words barely even audible. Our seven other brothers were fast asleep on the floor of Nathan's living room. We had spent the last week outfitting the house to be our base of operations for today. March 27th—Academy Founding Day. The Academy decided to celebrate its founding with a friendly competition between the teams. Whichever team found a mystery object first won ten favors per person. Naturally, every team tried their hardest to win the favors and prove they were the best for that year.

Nathan rolled his eyes. The tired smudges surrounding them proved we had been keeping watch since midnight. I checked my phone. Almost three in the morning—soon it would be North and Silas's turn to keep watch. "Do you think we should check on Sang?" he asked.

"She'll be fine at my house. You know any sabotages have to target the teams directly." Ten favors per person was a lot, and teams would do anything to make sure they came out on top. The only rule in today's game was no physical harm. Everything else was fair game. Since we came in third last year, it was highly likely teams would target us to try and take us out of the running.

I resumed my watch pattern. Wall, bodies, window. Wall, bodies, win—a soft popping sound came from the window. I stiffened and nudged Nathan. The window shifted upward just a hair.

I lunged out of my chair and started waking people up. "We have to move," I whispered. My frayed nerves were screaming for me to move faster, but secrecy was key. I didn't want whoever was outside to know we were on to them. Nathan followed my lead, and in less than a minute everyone was up, even if they were a bit dazed looking.

The window continued to creep open. When it was about three inches above the window sill, a tiny gray sphere flew through the gap and landed in the middle of the room. My eyes widened. A glowing red dot on the sphere flickered. There was a sharp hiss, then white gas started to pour out of the sphere. I froze mid-inhalation.

Gabriel was standing closest to the door. He yanked it open and ran through. I waited until everyone else was out to go, closing the door behind me. Mr. Blackbourne was standing ready with a towel. He shoved it against the space between the door and the floor, blocking off the room as much as possible.

We moved into the bathroom, which didn't have any windows. It was cramped, but we wouldn't be here for long. I took a head count and sighed with relief when I hit nine, including myself. The adrenaline from our escape must have done the trick making people more awake, because eight pairs of alert eyes fell on me for direction. I glanced briefly at Mr. Blackbourne, who despite being woken from a dead sleep, still managed to appear perfect.  He gave a miniscule shake of his head. Today, I was the leader. 

"What the fuck happened to no physical harm?" North asked. The stubble on his chin, combined with his angry dark eyes, made him look even more threatening than normal.

I ran a hand through my already-ruffled hair. "I'm betting it was some sort of knockout gas. If we sleep all day, we can't find the object. We need to leave ASAP. I'm not sure if the team behind this is going to stick around to make sure it worked, but we need to keep a lookout for them when we're leaving."