Verity
"You are holding it wrong. Again." Kenny's low voice made me jump in place. I turned sharply, my sloppy grip on the blade wavering and the weapon dropping to the uneven stones of a walkway with a loud clang.
"How long were you watching?" I gasped, avoiding looking into his eyes. His gaze often made me uncomfortable. It was too scrutinising and calculating. It felt like he was constantly testing and evaluating me, looking for a reason to throw me back into the dirt pit he had picked me up in.
"Enough to notice that the last lessons I'd given you went nowhere," he grumbled, nearing and leaning down to pick up the discarded weapon. He offered it to me, holding it by the sharp edge instead of the handle. My hand slowly encircled it, thumb drugging along the rough surface encrusted with leather cords and meeting my forefinger. Kenny shook his head in disapproval.
"You know better than this. Tell me, what is your target?"
I focused on the log I was hitting before Kenny showed up.
"A wooden dummy?" I finally offered, shifting into a fighting stance.
"No. You are fighting humans, not logs. Not even Titans. So, you need to hold your weapon accordingly." He reached out then, the tips of his fingers barely touching mine.
The wave of sickness rolled over me in seconds, burning the back of my throat with the acid-like taste. Unpleasant goosebumps rose at the back of my neck, shivers rocking my body. I jumped back on pure instinct, barely avoiding Kenny's touch. When I was a few steps away, and he couldn't reach me, I exhaled, forcing my breathing to slow. My heartbeat flew up in a matter of seconds, just on a threat of a single touch. A feeling that was ruined for me, stained with years of pain and suffering. The fear was as uncontrollable as it was enslaving.
"I'm sorry...." I mumbled, still fighting for a breath and searching for words to explain my behaviour yet again. Kenny ignored me, though. Instead, he moved to the side and picked up another blade, showing me his hold on the handle instead of moving my hand. His palm slightly turned to the side, and his thumb followed a straight line formed by his outstretched wrist and the blade's sharp edge. I looked down at my hold, only now realising what he meant.
"I don't need that much power when I fight humans. I need speed and agility. Hence, I don't need to grip the blade this tight," I looked up then, finally meeting his gaze.
He smirked at my answer and kicked the back of my boot forward, forcing me to shift my leading leg. "This is much better. Soon enough, you will actually be of help."
***
Training went better than I'd thought it would. I could lie and tell myself I was strong and could do whatever. But I knew my limits. And everything physical was outside of my abilities. That didn't stop Kenny, though; the training he'd put together was more than my frail body could handle. At least in the very beginning. It took weeks to build up some sort of stamina to keep up with his cardio routine. All the muscle-training exercises, as unbearable as they were, slowly grew fruitful. My body turned into a hurting mass by the end of each day. Most evenings, I couldn't even wash up before falling asleep on the floor of Kenny's one-room country house.
He made me spar, hand-to-hand combat being my least favourite. I could handle blades, however weakly. But being touched was something else entirely. Pure fear overpowered me with a solemn idea of physical contact. It had taken quite some time for us to figure out how I could still train using gloves and long-sleeved shirts. Tree trunks and dummies were my most common sparring partners. It was better than not having any training at all. However, it left Kenny in a sour mood for a while.
The shooting range, on the other hand, had become my favourite. Archery, no matter how hard and painful when my technique sucked, gave an unexpected feel of power mixed with superior calm. Something I had never felt. The gun range was all right as well. However, I found it too easy to occupy my mind compared to the bow and arrow.
ODM gear was something else entirely. It took me a long time to overcome the horror of not having solid ground underneath my feet. The initial drop was the most terrifying.
I would probably never forget the first time Kenny made me use it. We climbed a hill deep into the forest. I had never dared to go that far off, the fear of losing my way and starvation twisting my stomach into a tight knot keeping me to the well-known tropes. Kenny was carrying a heavy-looking sack that made metal rattling noises when it shifted along his back. I couldn't help but eye the damned thing. Thoughts, one scarier than another, flew through my mind like an eagle after it'd spotted its prey. Finally, Kenny stopped on the very top, dropping his sack on the ground and leaning on the tree. His breathing was heavy and uneven, perfectly matching mine. He lifted his free hand, gesturing towards the cliff. Once my gaze shifted, meeting the seemingly unending depth of the fall, I stepped back, choking on the air descending into my lungs. The ground underneath my feet slowly shifted, the world moving and turning, making me nauseous at the very look at its edge before my eyes.
I couldn't deny, though, that the view was breathtaking. The skies, as cloudy as they were that day, beautiful in their gleeful glory. Different shades of grey mixed with the greenish white of a faint fog covering the tips of the pine trees the furthest from us. Sunlight broke through the thick layers of the floating hoards, separating into beams looking as solid as my own arm. The faint steam coming out of my mouth and the goosebumps covering my skin were nothing compared to the astonishment the view in front of me caused. If I had any air left in my lungs, it would have caught that very second, mixing with the cleanliest of smells on the early dawn in the forest surrounded by the mountains.
Before I could take it all in, Kenny unpacked the ugly-looking metal gear from his sack and dumped it on the ground with a loud thud. I looked at it questionably, as though it could tell me my future, and forced my features into blankness before looking up at Kenny. He smirked, seeing my attempts at hiding emotions.
"The long stripes go cress-crossed your calves and then meet at your waist, then slowly move upwards, connecting to your upper body."
His description didn't help with the confusion clouding my brain when I picked up the entangled leather cords. Huge scabbards on the thighs and the cylinders of manoeuvring gas attached to my waist felt unnatural and heavy, making irritation instantly spike within my blood with hot embers. Based on Kenny's description, I could tell that the operating device seemed unreliable, and I couldn't just trust it with my life while jumping off a cliff. The wiggly handles of the swords felt uncomfortable and sticky. I pressed the middle button twice just to see what happened, only to notice nothing outside of a small puff of extra air around the gas tanks.
"Are you sure it's functioning?" I questioned, meeting Kenny's gaze. All the words died on my tongue at a look of pure irritation on his face. If I'd learned anything in my life, no one, including me, irritated Kenny if they wanted to keep living. And I did — more and more every passing second.
Swallowing complaints and fear, I looked away and towards the cliff — the clicking sound of gear set in place felt like metal bars shutting down on my prison cell.
"This equipment is designed for high-speed three-dimensional mobility. You will be launched at the aiming point if you jump and click the button at the correct time. Move your weight as though you are fighting to get up under the pulling-down weight. It only looks effortless to manoeuvre one of these when in fact, it's a system that only works through strenuous use of muscles throughout the body," he instructed. The heat of his hand only barely scraped the small of my back. He knew better not to touch me directly. However, I wasn't sure how I would have reacted to the physical contact then.
His nearness pressed me to step toward the cliff, and the tips of my toes touched the air as I watched small stones drift down from under my feet.
"Don't think about it. Just jump."
My throat dried, and I could no longer feel my limbs as Kenny's command sounded. My heart wouldn't calm, and the terror, shaking my body, would not subside, freezing me in place. Finally, I forced one of my feet up, my mind entering a state of desperation. I knew I couldn't escape what awaited me, but I also didn't want to do it. The fear of the free fall, no matter that I hadn't experienced it before, burned me raw from the inside. My thoughts turned to pure acid. I could not focus on anything but the fall itself. Only the idea of the inherent jump clouded my mind, making it impossible to stop shaking.
Five seconds, Kenny had said. Only five seconds of free fall. I could do it. It was faster than what I'd had to experience before, even on my luckiest days...
Looking at the horizon and forcing my mind to conjure a vivid image of a walkway I was jumping through, I leapt into nothingness.
I'd always thought I was strong.
Yet when the ground was swept from under me, I screamed like a baby. Falling and only partly believing that I could stop it with the gear so uncomfortably strapped around my body, I screamed from the top of my lungs, closing my eyes only not to witness the ground getting closer as the cold morning wind whipped my chicks and whistled in my ears. My body flew downwards through the emptiness of the air.
*Clank!*
*Whooooosh*
My finger wobbled at the trigger, and my waist jerked forward at an uncomfortable angle. The change of direction took the air out of my lungs and cut me off from the eternal scream rippling from my chest. The cords at my belt screeched, pulling me upwards by pure luck, avoiding all the dry yet sharp branches. When the operating device changed its sound, I opened my eyes, only to witness a tree trunk nearing me at a formidable speed. I would have screamed If I had enough time to react. Instead, my brain switched into panic mode, my body responding independently, preserving its life better than I ever would.
My hand clatched on the sword handle, pressing the release button to the hilt while my other hand moved the hook mechanism into motion. It flew off in a seemingly random direction. My body was jerked forward as though of its own will, following the steel wire released from my belt. I turned mid-air, trying to balance myself and not hit the closest tree face first, following pure instinct — the only thing I could rely on at this point.
My feet finally met with the solid wood of a tree branch. And it took everything in me not to moan as I dropped to my knees, hugging the retched wood to my chest as though it was the most precious thing in the whole damn world. The distant laughter I could partly distinguish was faint enough to blame it on my sick imagination rather than accept it as a reality of my teacher being a sick piece of shit.
I could blame it on Kenny however much I wanted to. But I couldn't deny that every passing second of me having solid ground underneath my feet, ever since flying through the cavern like a screaming lunatic, felt boring. Even a little painful. Who would have thought I would enjoy one of the most terrifying things in the Walls damned world?
Flying.
The feel of freedom from flying through the trees, the overwhelming choice of direction mixed with the power held in my own hands by the two blades allowing me to escape in any direction... It was addicting.
Once I'd tried it, I couldn't imagine going long without it – the air rushing through my hair, the sting of cold on my cheeks, and my stomach dropping when my body left the ground on the stiff pique. It was a pure drug. The most freeing feeling I'd ever experienced. I was in control. And it was more than I could speak of for most of my life.
I didn't have much of an opportunity to practice, though, because the gas used to run the gear was quite hard to come by. Yet, the experience I got from the little practice I'd had was worth it.
My new life in the upper ground was going better than I could have ever imagined, yet one question marred my mind. And no matter how scared I was of asking it, I overcame my fear and questioned Kenny as to why he had picked me up on the streets and brought me with him. His answer was short and slightly aggravated, although I couldn't tell if he was irritated with himself or me. "Gut feeling. Now stop wasting breath and put yourself to use!"
I'd tried to make myself useful. Scrubbing floors, dusting the lonely few pieces of furniture in the small cabin, and cooking. Chopping wood and bringing buckets of water was considered an exercise, not a choir, as I had to go a long five miles to the closest creek, and chopping wood with a dull axe was a new kind of horror I'd never known to exist.
But I was not going to complain. I was out. Clear blue skies above my head, and the air tasted of moth and soon-to-come rain; it tasted of freshly cut grass and wet wood instead of fresh blood and waste, death and decay.
The forest's quiet in the early dawn hours was my favourite. I have never experienced such an absence of sounds. The Underground was always buzzing, filled with metal screeches, random bangs and thuds, voices screaming and whispering, murmuring, and moaning. It was always loud; therefore, people soon stopped listening. But here, on the edge of the woods, out in the nowhere, I didn't have to play deaf any longer.
Skies started to burn with a vivid scarlet flame, the sun slowly climbing from the east. I stared at the beams breaking through tall pines, morning fog gliding along the ground, pierced with light. Wildlife was slowly coming to life; screeches of squirrels were heard here and there, old needles covering the earth as a carpet shuffled with a light breeze, crunching branches, and weeping of a tree trunk bent on the wind.
I smiled, taking in the peace and quiet of my new home. It had been two months since Kenny brought me here. My training only got more brutal, and Kenny grew more annoyed with my failures. I couldn't blame him; I knew I was no match for his hopes, no matter how hard I'd pushed myself. He was increasingly unrestful, commanding me around and yelling when I couldn't deliver. That's why this morning's quiet was especially priceless.
I shivered at the cold and picked up the two buckets, starting my run toward the creek. The route was familiar, and I could probably make it with my eyes closed. I jogged lightly, jumping over the roots and uneven ground, my mood unusually uplifted.
The water was cold, and I could not feel my fingers when I lowered the buckets one after another into the wet coldness. The weight of both pulled at my shoulders when I started up the hill back to the house, the usual pleasant thought of a hot cup of tea and breakfast warming my chest and making me go on.
Kenny was not asleep when I got back. Instead, he was sitting at the dinner table cleaning his guns. I knew it was a bad day when it started with him cleaning his weapons. I tried to make myself invisible as I slipped inside and behind him towards the small kitchen area. I put down the buckets, set the kettle on fire, and then looked through yesterday's leftovers.
"We are leaving in an hour," Kenny rumbled, his low voice vibrating through my body with the weight of his words. I let go of a loaf I was holding and turned toward the man, my stomach sinking deeper with each passing second.
"Leave where?"
"I've been gone from the capital long enough. It's about time I get back to work," He glanced up at me from the barrel of a gun he'd been examining after a meticulous cleaning job. His face didn't give out any emotion, which I could, by this point in time, read as non-negotiable. Instead, he put a gun on the table with a quiet thud and signed, closing his eyes for a moment. "I know what you are about to ask, and all I can give you now is that you are to use all the skills you have acquired here to protect me, and you are to follow every command I give you. I can't tell you the exact range of jobs you will be doing alongside me as my right hand, but I can promise you it is gonna be in the range of 'loyalty' you'd promised me."
The stern look in his eye sent chills down my spine. I swallowed the knot in my throat and nodded slowly, stepping hard on the panic loitering on the threshold of my conscience.
"I keep my promises," I said, voice unexpectedly steady.
Kenny nodded and went back to his cleaning job. I took a whistling kettle off the fire and poured hot water into two cups. Then, adding a dried concoction of mint and hawthorn to the water, I leaned in, smelling nothing but ash that covered my throat with every breath.
***
I had seen capital before when we exited the Underground with Kenny a few months back. It was a night back then, lights illuminating every public facility, loud voices mixed with laughter braiding in with the sound of a city falling asleep.
It was unsettling.
The noises were familiar and yet foreign. The combination made me stare at everyone and everything in wonder and... fear. The cold chill of the unknown crept down my spine.
Now it was annoyingly noisy, and I had to stifle the groan of irritation when we passed one of the local taverns. Visitors decided to pay us some attention, whistling and yelling obscenities. I cringed while looking at the closeness they held to one another. Hands intertwined, touching shoulders, whispering voices, and sharing breaths. Just thought of any of that made a painful sting shoot down my spine, forcing me to jerk and move my gaze elsewhere.
Kenny led us into a quiet district. Buildings grew more extravagant with each block we passed. Heavy murals and sculptures hung from their sides, portraying angels and random characters. Each passing house was covered in intricate work of various stained-glass windows and sculptures adorning entryways. I caught one of them portraying a soldier dressed in ODM gear and raising his swords above his head in a cheer. His cloak waved behind him in the wind, his face full of determination, and his lips stretched in a battle scream. This piece of art stood at the entryway to the mansion, mailbox and a chipping wooden fence flanking it from every side.
I froze in place, staring at this stunning artwork handled as though it was in the same price range as the ordinary mailbox. Fury slowly blinded me, fire spreading through my veins.
Kenny's voice was the only thing that could bring me out of my stupor, and I turned away from the atrocity, following my master's command, the figure of a warrior long stuck in my memory.
Sun was setting down on the capital as we entered the building where Kenny had his apartment. When I put my bag down, he commanded me to stand guard and retreated into the bathroom, leaving me alone in the two-bedroom apartment. I walked toward the windows and opened them, instantly missing the cold fresh air of the forest. I sat beside the window to observe the entrance and the door to the bathroom, as Kenny had taught me, shifting my backpack close.
Naturally, I didn't have many possessions — only a blanket and a raggedy Ann doll that I had no idea why Kenny'd brought me, a few sets of clothes, and a journal, which I used to keep track of his training advice.
The rattling noise of the city outside the window was unwanted and unfamiliar. It was neither the Underground nor the countryside. I'd realised quickly that I had to get used to this, as it was unclear if or when I would get a chance to escape into the comforting silence and loneliness of the woods.
Kenny entered the room, his stare that I knew better than to label lazy, sliding across the room and stopping on me. I looked downwards instantly, avoiding eye contact.
"Make yourself at home. I have a meeting I need to attend," he said, moving towards the exit. Kenny had a lot of meetings. He even had to leave me alone in the forest a few times in the past months. Yet, this time felt different. And the heavy feeling tightening in my chest and choking me made me open my mouth and ask:
"Can I come with?"
Kenny froze in place, the entrance door half-closed behind him, when my voice broke the expected quiet of the room. He turned, his cold gaze scalding me.
"Why?"
"I want to help," I lied.
"If you come, you get to join something you are not ready for," he replied, his voice steady and kind of curious. As though he was anticipating my reply. I met his eyes, refusing to cover anything after I had so bravely overcome my fear of heights and accepted my fear of touch.
"I am ready for anything you have in store for me," I promised, lifting my chin. "You have my loyalty, and you have my interest. Do you wish to keep me locked up in the 50 square meters?"
Kenny smirked at that, pushing the entrance door out a little farther. "What do you offer?" he asked, corners of his lips stretching farther, making it look as though he was really smiling.
"Whatever you need me to," I promised, ignoring the nagging feeling underneath my skin, telling me that I would regret my promise soon enough.