Adam's face was completely fine two days later. So fine, in fact that he ended up putting his fist through the glass of the mirror, shattering it. He looked dully at the shards of glass still left in the mirror, his face haunting him in a hundred different tiny slivers, and turned away from the mirror, shuddering. He had no idea why he had just done that. It was just the sight of it, looking so normal, so familiar. It was alien. He hated it.
He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by glass shards when Curtis came in. There was no familiar dance of knocking and bidding someone to come in. Adam felt the urge to punch his mirror surge up again. He glared at the ground at Curtis' feet until Curtis stomped his foot, directing Adam's attention back to Curtis face and hands.
'What happened?' Curtis asked.
Adam shook his head, 'Nothing.'
Curtis looked back at the glass, the broken mirror, and at the way Adam's arms, once they were finished signing, went right back to being wrapped securely around his legs. Curtis lifted his hands and Adam hurriedly shook his head. Don't ask. Curtis sighed.
'Fine. Fine. Talking to people who understand usually helps, though. Just so you know. I'm supposed to bring you to the training ground. Are you ready?'
Adam rose to his feet. Training. This was the one thing he had now. More importantly, this was an outlet he had now. He could train in the sea now, breathe the water like air now, kill the sirens that lurked there.
'I'm ready. Let's go.'
When they got to the big door Curtis had told him was the door to the training room the previous day, Curtis stopped and waved his hands briefly in the air to draw Adam's attention away from the door.
'I just want to make sure you know how this works. I don't know much because I've only been to one of the trainings, the one yesterday, but the one yesterday was led by the top Ensigns. Those are the people with the bands. I don't know how they do bands or how they're assigned or anything, but they're important. Yesterday one of them broke us into pairs to sparr. Try not to sign that much when you're out there. They'll probably say something about it..' Curtis' hands stalled and his brow furrowed slightly.
'I'm forgetting something,' Curtis said. He stared hard at the ground and Adam waited for the thought to rain down on Curtis' brain once more. They stayed like that for a minute.
Curtis mouth rounded to form an 'o'. His stalled hands and arms drifted once again through the air, 'The door is a double door system. It's weird and I have no idea how it works, but basically there's a door behind this one and a tiny room and it's going to fill up with water. And just so you know, breathing water is really uncomfortable.' He waited until Adam had nodded to this information before he began to unlace his boots. They set their boots next to the others–the line was much longer than four this time–and Curtis began to turn the large wheel attached to the door. Curtis' strained to turn the wheel, his entire body tugging the wheel to the left. When he had opened the door, he shooed Adam in, swatting his hands at Adam until Adam stepped into the room past the door.
The room was tiny and Adam strangely felt a bit claustrophobic, especially when Curtis joined him in it, a moment later. It was all strange and damp and small, though Adam could tell that four people could easily fit inside of it, sandwiched between the two doors and their wheel door handles. Curtis shoved the two dripping swords he had brought with him into Adam's hands and began to turn the inside wheel of the door they had just come through. The room shook and vibrated under Adam's feet. When they were sealed in, Curtis turned to the side, to a dull blue button Adam hadn't noticed. He jammed his thumb into the button and then turned back to face Adam, his face screwed up into an apologetic look. Adam braced himself as the tiny room began to fill with water.
When the water was at chest level, Adam could feel his body starting to panic. Those awful nervous feelings, the ones that had started to send his blood pumping hard through his veins in a furious, desperate manner, started to surface, the way they had on the day before he died, when his body had the time and the energy to worry about drowning. He tightened his grip on the sword in his hand. He tried to think about something, anything. He wondered if he would get a change of clothes or how that would work; all of his other clothing had presumably been left in the dorm on the trainee side, and he hadn't seen any clothing other than that armor in his room. Was he going to walk, soaking wet, to the trainee side for that change of clothes? Was he just supposed to drip all over his room?
The water reached his neck and his breath started to stutter. Breathe in and breathe out. There was no way that he could drown, despite the warnings racing through his veins. He felt like he wanted to cry. He felt even more stupid and embarrassed for feeling that way. Something smacked hard against his arm and he looked at Curtis, startled. Curtis looked at him pointedly, taking in a large, visible breath and releasing it. He kept on breathing like that, in and out, and Adam matched him. His eyes were wide and wild, he knew, but Curtis had done this once before, and his dark eyes were calm and steady. In and out. The water sloshed against Adam's lips. In and out. It passed over his nose. He panicked for a moment, holding it, but Curtis' arm smacked against Adam's again and Curtis shook his head. Slowly, Adam breathed in and out.
It was the strangest feeling in the world, breathing water.
It was similar to breathing air, Adam rationalized, but thicker somehow. It was uncomfortable. His lungs strained with it, his neck burned, but despite the discomfort, he was still breathing. His lungs, filling with water, were fine like that. There was no blackness creeping into his vision, no burning for air. Just water filling him and leaving him with each inhale and exhale. Curtis smiled at him.
'How are we doing this without gills?' Adam asked him. The water was over their eyes and had just about reached the top of the tiny room.
Curtis shrugged, 'No idea. Guess it's the weirdness of the sirens. I guess they don't have gills either.'
The water reached the top. All was still for a moment and then, suddenly, strangely, the water seemed to... shake. Adam looked up. A buzzer had gone off at the top of the little room, the light red and strange, the vibrations of it, the sound of it, shaking through the water. Adam could feel the currents. The way the water ushered itself away from the buzzer, rounded off the solid forms of Curtis and his own body. His mouth dropped open. He could practically feel the sounds around him. The movement of the water was visible and strange, and suddenly, it occurred to Adam that this strange feeling, this strange vision in the water was how the Ensigns got away with deafening their soldiers. To be well trained as a unit was one thing, but to feel–to see–the water and any movement in it? It was incredible.
Curtis moved forward, unscrewing the opposite door and letting them out into the training ground. He pulled one of the swords from Adam's hands and moved forward, his movements effortless. He wasn't swimming. Hesitantly, Adam took a step forward, the way he would if he was on land. It was all so strange. He was walking in the water, like his feet were hitting pavement, but there was nothing around him but water. It made no logical sense. The water was no longer something to force his limbs to move against, as it had been when he was alive, but almost the same as air. Thicker, in that same uncomfortable way as breathing it, but so easy to walk and moved through. It was the strangest thing he had ever experienced. He moved forwards to stand with Curtis, who had joined the small knot of other Ensigns floating–no he supposed it was standing–at the center of the training grounds. He tried not to look into any faces. He recognized Mohammed, who smirked at him, and too many others from the Culling and his stomach flopped around like a gutted fish. He focused his attention on the sea around him instead of any of them. The grounds were marked off by lengths of rope, drifting slowly in the water. They were knotted together loosely to form a great cage around the Ensigns, with a small door that resembled something one might get from an underwater wooden ship attached with more knots of slimy, ocean tainted rope. Once Adam had made his way to the other Ensigns, he turned curiously to view the bunker.
It was a monstrous mass of metal, rising out of the depths of the sea on heavy metal stilts. The outside was rusted and patched. It was incredibly large and looked old. He thought back to what Curtis had told him, that nobody knew where it had come from, bewildered. It was such a large, weird object to be hiding in the depths of the sea unnoticed.
He felt the water currents of movement, like someone was waving to get his attention and he turned back around to see that Curtis was indeed waving to get his attention. He couldn't prevent the shiver that ran down his back. The fact that he had known that Curtis was waving when he had his back to Curtis. He turned to face the two Ensigns standing before the knot of them, his mind focused solely on the currents. If he concentrated... he could almost see the ropes behind him drifting minutely back and forth. Could feel them waving back and forth.
The Ensign on the left began to sign.
'Welcome, all new Ensigns. I believe there are two new ones today. My name is Anton and I am the current oldest Ensign. For those that are unaware, ranking in the Ensigns is loose. We fight and we die. If you make it for six months without dying, you are awarded a band. If you outlive all of the Ensigns you knew after your Culling, congratulations, you are the oldest Ensign, like me, and you lead group trainings and Hunts. Today, you are going to be introduced to the life of an Ensign. My second in command, Fabayo here, will be splitting you off to train in pairs.'
Adam's heart stopped when Fabayo stepped forward. She had been the one to feed him the blood. He could remember her telling him to drink, her eyes apologetic and her expression gentle and pained. They had all been so gentle. He tried to move his thoughts away from Fabayo's face and the way the blood had burned him alive as Fabayo moved forwards, pulling Ensigns into pairs. She moved swiftly through the crowd, leaving Adam for last. He was partnerless.
'No partner means you are stuck with me,' she told him, but something about her smile seemed more challenging than reassuring. She was going to test him. And by 'test him', he knew that was code for she was going to kick his ass. She pulled him to the side, away from the other pairs, and turned back to Anton expectantly. Anton glanced over all the pairs, nodding his head slowly to himself. When his gaze reached Fabayo and Adam, his eyebrow raised slightly, but he merely turned back to the rest of the group.
'Well, Ensigns? Tell me, what is our motto?' Anton asked.
Adam glanced at the rest of the group as most of their hands moved in unison.
'Death can only make us stronger.'
Anton nodded, 'Never forget it. Now, we begin. Remember, holding back your skills is for trainees. We aim for the best battle possible. Hold your ground, do your best, try not to kill each other before you get the chance to put your blade to a siren. But if you do kill each other, remember, death can only make us stronger. Come. I'm going to circle and step in when necessary while you train.'
The training began.
The training never stopped.
Adam had been right; Fabayo was relentless. She paused occasionally to tell him things he could adjust on, but for the most part, she simply kicked his ass. Her blade nicked his arms and legs, painting the sea around them pink. He wasn't the only one, either. There was no wooden sword, dull blade nonsense. Fabayo was lethal and she made sure he knew it. Furthermore, she was making sure he was too. As the days of training went on, she would switch certain partners, but always kept him with her. Their partnership was a simple one; fight hard, aim to kill, never speak. They dodged and attacked each other on the training field, in silence after day one adjustments, becoming a swirling, dueling mix of skill. The more days Adam accumulated training, the more he could read the water and sense where Fabayo and the others were in space. He seemed better at it than the others; even Fabayo herself suddenly couldn't seem to keep up with him. The days seemed to blur together. He woke, waited for Curtis to barge into his room, they went to the training grounds, they trained, they returned. He had no idea how long they had been training. The Ensigns they needed joined them and moved from the bottom, training with poor Curtis, to mid level. Adam moved from training with Fabayo to training with Anton. He couldn't have told anyone what day it was. He couldn't have told them his own name. By the time his first Hunt was announced, he had only two things floating around in his brain; his fighting maneuvers and the motto:
Death can only make us stronger.