A/N This chapter is seriously unedited, I've not even proofread it, so pls ignore the typos and spelling errors...
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Turned out that we all were a special group that the grand master himself would manage.
Led into a secluded study, he explained to us that to be chosen to be in this group has not been because of our abilities or that we are better than the population but simply because of a play of fate that led us onto such paths of life that require both, a lot of sacrifices and a lot of courage.
What a morale booster! Hear the sarcasm...
Thankfully, the pep talk ended here and he proceeded to the main topic. The curriculum, the tests and courses. It made me mentally yawn. Though I heard attentively because this was not what we were taught in stupid schools back at Earth.
The course here was primarly focused on teaching us what we would actually use in life. Skills and values, a perfect blend of both theory and practicals, the mind of a student was allowed to explore and come to conclusions and theories and yet they were reined in.
At least that's what I thought till the classes started and maybe even afterwards when I wasn't working my ass off managing to juggle two school lifes and two social lifes that were a stark contrast to each other, yet similar in many ways.
Michael and Hillian (surprisingly) became my bestest friends. Though both of them weren't that fond of each other, I became a sort of bridge in between them and our trio became close.Though the five of us were friends, the girls stuck together.
Instead of being given specialized classes like the others, we were taught by each of the masters, the basics of each specialization. They said that for the positions we were being trained, at some point we would require them all.
Though I think it wasn't fair that we had to cope with five courses while other did only one.
The first round of assessments came and went. To make things worse, their timing clashed with those of my boards on earth. The results of boards wasn't out yet but in the exams at Teras academy, I fared badly, coming last in class in the theory and fourth by a score of .5 in the practicals.
Only Pansy did worse than me in practicals but then she came third in class in the theory...
Hillian came out to be the bright child among us, with a neck to neck competition between Ferelith and Michael with one beating the other by a hair margin.
Handling two lives was taking a toll on me. Both physically and emotionally.
I started to go to sleep at 8:30 at night (much to the surprise of my parents who in turn started sending my sister to bed early too) woke up around midnight barely catching three hours of sleep, attended TAP (a short form for Teras Academy of apprenticeship, don't ask me where the P came from, I have no idea!), returned back around 6am and went to school.
I juggled homework and schoolwork like a mad clown and barely salvaged time to study for tests. Left the soccer team and often ended up doing TAP assignments in my english class.
I found a life-saver in Mecranin, a medication prescribed by a TAP infirmary doctor when I was caught dozing off in the Diplomacy and Admin class for the second time.
In simple words, I was pushing myself beyond my limits, and my dependency on Mecranin only increased as I started taking the dosage four times a day instead of the prescribed two.
Still, my performance gradually slipped.
My friends noticed, they helped too, but even they couldn't do anything about my worsening condition except offering to do my written work for me while I caught a snore, which I gladly accepted.
Mom also started worrying, thinking that I'd gone into depression or something. I sure had lost a life. There were dark circles under my eyes, not very prominent because of my tanned skin and a lost look in my eyes. I detested looking at myself.
Eventually, after successfully coming bottom in my class in the second round of assignments by a huge margin, Michael threatened to report my condition to the masters, or his dad.
I didn't even tell him to not do that, I was just too tired. Too tired to even protest. So, I slogged on.
My only goal was managing my life and maintaining my performance in class, forget about improvement.
But looks like fate had other things in store for me... and before I knew, the last straw snapped.
One fine day, on a rare pleasant evening, under a mild sun, I was playing soccer (Mom had literally kicked me out of the house to go get a life).
My sister was on the opposite team. I was having fun mainly because our team was winning.
"Ha! what happened, loser" I stuck my tongue out at Sophia as she started chasing me, muttering a string of profanities for teasing her when she was already jealous.
Much to my amazement, her vocabulary had expanded to accommodate a wide range of colourful words which had Mom warning her with a stern tone - "Language, Sophia!", preciscely about one hundred times a day.
She ran behind me, hot on my heels with a squeezy bottle in hand, which was a recent trend because of its ability to squirt a nice shower of water on anyone's face.
I didn't mind it, because I was already drenched in sweat, though I did act offended as she squirted water all over me.
I ended up lying on the drying grass on my back, as she triumphantly towered over me.
If I wanted, I could've flipped her over easily. The Combat classes had taught me as much.
But I let it pass, after all, I can let her enjoy a victory, the poor girl...
Hehehe...
I covered my eyes as the sun glinted off a silver object at a distance. Realization hit me with the force of a speeding truck as I realized that the silver object in fact was a knife. Time slowed down to a turtles pace as it spun and sliced the cool evening breeze.
With the corner of my eye, I saw a man jumping off the field wall and running away. A man wearing all black training gear used at TAP.
My sister laughed at her victory, so innocent, unaware of her probable death inevitably approaching her. Speeding towards her heart with an assassins flawless aim.
She did not have to die, did she? I was trained to assist and survive these type of encounters. I had already been taught how to catch a knife throw.
With that thought, I leapt up, my legs still untangled under Sophia's.
I saw her eyes widen as she too saw the blade of death, looking at me with a plea in her eyes, watching my fingers stretch in vain and my brows furrow in concentration.
She looked at me gratefully, a sad smile etching her usually jolly face. Glad that I at least tried to save her.
But I had not given up.
Not yet.
With a grunt, I stretched my muscles to a limit, a piercing pain erupted in my lower abdomen, my eyes closing in response.
I didn't see it, but I felt the smooth nylon hilt brush past the tip of my index finger with a melancholic cerainity.
The pain in my stomach reached its peak as I sank back in a wave of painful spasms.
I hoped that my feeble attempt changed the direction of the blade.
Everyone froze to watch the knife sink into my sisters chest with a concluding thud, making her topple to the ground.
It was only after a second of eerie silence that all hell broke loose.
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A/N I feel too guilty to even write an author's note. As you might have noticed that I kinda skimmed past the time he spends at TAP (I have no idea how the P got there. seriously!).
That was only because providing details about his time spent there would only have been a filler and no real contribution to the plot. It was boring to write and that could've reflected in the chapter. So I sped things up to one of the most impactful events/situation in Daniel's life.
I've also enrolled this story for the wattys and that was part of my motivation to pick it up and write another chapter. Also check out the werewolf book that I'm writing on my profile - VDhriti, the book's name is The Lycan Prince's Erasthai .
Thanks to JayaPrabha21 for being a motivation and morale booster who has made this update possible.
-VDhriti-