But What If?

Of Course

"Come on Trodaire, you gotta keep trying,” Diane, my trainer, scolds gently. I had just failed to do a double layout full out and was walking away, limping slightly.

Mal gives me a look that says, ‘Keep trying.’

"I'm tired,” I whined. “Can we stop now?"

"We can take a break for a little while,” Diane sighed. She pulled sandwiches out of her bag, and tossed them to us. I looked over as Mal caught hers. She had been staring at me, and she quickly turned away, blushing. I blushed myself, and unwrapped my sandwich.

“You didn't stick the landing,” Diane started. “You need to have more confidence, Tro, or you’ll never advance forward. If you had just-”

“Stop,” I growled. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Diane gave a disapproving look. “You need to learn from your mistakes, Tro, or you will never get past the dictators.”

I shrugged. “Drilling me into doing the same thing everyday does not help.” I took a bite of my sandwich. It was PB and J. “It just gets repetitive.”

Mal butted in with a,” Well, if it's drilled into you, your muscles will remember how to do it, so, in an emergency, your body will know what to do.”

Diane smiled at her while I gave her the death stare.

“Thank you Mal,” Diane grinned. “See, even she knows why I drill the same thing into you everyday.”

I grumbled something about how stupid it was and finished my sandwich.

“Jenn?” Mal asked quietly. “Can you teach me how to do a flip?”

I stared at her. “Uh, yeah, sure, whatever,” I mumbled, pushing myself off the floor of the dojo. Mal smiled, and started to speak, but was cut off by loud sirens.

“Jen?” Diane started warningly, using my first name for once. “Why don’t you go? Like, now!”

I scrambled backwards, tripping over my robotic leg. “W-why?” I sputtered. “Those aren't for me, are they?”

Diane didn't answer, just shoved me into the kitchen. She flicked a switch, and a tunnel opened up in the floor.

“Cool, secret tunnel!” Mal sais in awe. “You never told me-”

“I didn't know,” I muttered, gazing into it. I started to turn to Diane, but she shoved me down the tunnel, and it shut behind me. I was encased in total darkness.