The Last Battle

Chapter 8

Stone walks in with blue tray in his hands with burnt eggs and bacon on it.

"Here you go, eggs and bacon! Make sure you eat all of it. You need some more energy."

"Thanks."

He hands me the tray and I devour all the food on the tray as quickly as possible.

"Have you eaten?" I ask Stone as he watches me finish the last few bites.

"Yeah while they were stitching you up last night I went to go grab a bite."

"But no breakfast?"

"Nah I'm not in the mood for burnt breakfast." Stone says trying to be funny, so I give him a smile.

"Have you talked to anyone yet about joining and stuff like that?" I ask.

"Well um actually yes. A woman named Jennifer says that we need to fill out a form, then she will show us around and help us get settled. I was just gonna wait until you were recovered enough to walk around."

"Ok, how about tomorrow. I feel pretty good right now, just a little tired. I think I'll get some sleep ok." I give him a smile.

"Alright tomorrow at noon?"

"Sounds good to me."

"I think I'm gonna walk around while you sleep ok?"

"That's fine. Can you come back for lunch though?"

"Yeah sure c'ya."

Stone walks out of the room. A couple minutes later I fall into a deep sleep. I wake up a couple hours later from Stone walking inside.

"How are you feeling?" I had totally forgot that I was stabbed. I guess the pain has gone away. I shift to a sitting position. Nope! That hurt! I grunt.

"Yeah, I feel better, but I feel it when I move."

"Well I'm not surprised your supposed to be in pain for a little while." he giggles a little.

Silence fills the room. Stone looks at the ground as I look at him. Where was he?

"Stone?"

"Yeah?"

"Where did you go today while I was sleeping.......you were away for a long time."

"Um..... I was just wandering around the building. It's ginormous!"

I give him a suspicious look.

"What! You don't believe me?"

"I don't know."

"Aw never mind!" I finally give up. He's not a liar. But for some reason I still don't believe him.

"I'm gonna get some food now."

"Ok," he walks out of the room and returns about five minutes later with two hamburgers and two fruit cups on his tray.

I guess he'll be joining me for lunch, I think to myself.

He hands me a plate with the smallest hamburger I've ever seen. The meat was small and undercooked with cheese that had barely melted, and the buns were hard, not the nice soft buns that I'm used to.

Obviously Stone had been watching me observe my hamburger.

"I know it's not what we're used to, but we just gotta get over it. We didn't come over here to critique their food we came here to fight."

I know he was just tying to help, even if it didn't. I start laughing historically. Then I realized that laughing was NOT a good idea, the pain from my laughing was killer!

"What?" Stone asks across the room, annoyed by my laughter.

"Nothing," I say trying to hold in my laughter to cease my pain,"I just thought your little "speech" was funny."

"You're an idiot." He says starting to giggle a little realizing his speech was kinda stupid.

I start laughing at his laugh. Soon enough we're both laughing at me, because my, half laugh and half in pain noise was amusing to both of us.

After that, someone walks in. She has brown hair, and very beautiful green eyes. She was a little shorter than Stone, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

"Hi......uh sorry for barging in but uh I wanted to stop by and meet you guys. I heard you ran all the way over here with your sister on your back."

"Uh yeah," Stone blushes, " who are you again?"

"Oh yeah! Sorry, I'm Miranda. I'm in the same group as Emma."

"How do you know who I am?" I ask from across the room.

"Cat told me that you guys would be joining the Raiders. She said you would be in my group and Stone would be in the group above us."

"Who's Cat? And what's a group?" I ask.

"Um, Cat is one of the leaders so she has to teach some of the classes, which are 14-16 and 17-18. Once you have shown that you are ready to be a real Raider, then you are finished with training."

"So it doesn't matter how old you are or how much training you get, if you show them your ready, then you're a Raider?" I ask confused.

"Yeah pretty much." A few seconds pass by while Stone and I are trying to take in all this information.

"But that's very rare. The youngest someone was, was 16. Some people may never pass, they can try all they want but they may never become a Raider. There are only classes for ages 8-18. So, if you grow out of the age groups your screwed."

That means Stone only has one more year to become a Raider! That's not fair!

"What happens if you never become a Raider?" I ask trying to sound as calm as I can but I am just so scared for Stone that I can't concentrate.

"Well, um..... they are forced to leave. Even if they have family here, they have to, or they will be executed."

My eyes go wide. I know that if Stone doesn't make it that he will want to stay with me here. Will he make it? Will I make it?

I was too concentrated on thought to notice she had just left the room. I look over at Stone and see a worried look on his face. I wanted to reassure him and tell him that I was scared too, but I didn't know how. So I kept the silence going.