After the meeting, Melissa led me halfway up the ramp, stopping in front of a large, metal door. “Behind this door is a training facility, called Gold Team Headquarters, or GTH, for the people who are going to be part of the first escape team. That’s your team. Gold Team. Mariah and I are Gold Team leaders. Jasmine is Green Team leader. Green Team will be the second out, if it works. The rest of T.R.I.B.A.U.M.’s employee’s are all part of Blue Team, and all Salef civilians are on Red Team. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in the training facility. Most days, and every night. You’re no longer going to be staying in your personal room. You’ll be staying in the bunk room.” The door slid open, and Melissa walked in. Following behind her, I saw 7 other people in the room. Four were working out, lifting weights. Two were playing a card game at a table. The last person was sitting on a couch, reading a book. Music was playing out of a speaker near the couch. “Hey! We’ve got your ninth member!” Melissa said loudly, speaking over the music. The person sitting on the couch closed her book and paused the music. “Well, let’s get up and welcome him,” the book girl said. All of the other people put down whatever they were doing and jumped up. She seemed to have the most control over the group. Melissa’s power was technically greater, but it didn’t seem to mean much to these people.
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Book girl approached me. “Welcome to Gold Team, Elias,” she said. I shook her hand. “How do you know my name?” I asked. She smiled, though I didn’t see any emotion behind it, making me question whether it was genuine or not. “We all know who you are. You were Reaper, you’re basically famous. I’m Morrigan. People around here call me Morri most of the time. Nice to meet you,” she replied. “I’m Elias,” I said stupidly. Morri laughed. “We know. Callie, Athimi, come say hi,” Morri said. The two people playing cards set down their hands and stood from the table. “I told you he’d join our team!” one of them said. She had strawberry blonde, shoulder-length hair, and her pale skin was dotted with rosy freckles. She seemed to be around my age, maybe a year or two younger. She was wearing a white, ribbed tank top over a puffy, olive green shirt. She was also wearing a dark brown skirt, covered in a print with multicoloured, small flowers. Her boots were made of black leather, but they seemed well worn, and comfortable. White socks with stitched flowers on the sides poked out from her boots, below her skirt. “Hi, I’m Callie. This is my brother, Athimi,” Callie said. Athimi smiled. It seemed very different from Morri’s. It seemed like he was really happy to see me. “Hello, Elias,” he said, shaking my hand. “Cal and I had a bet going on whether or not you would join Gold Team.” Athimi has tightly curled, short black hair. His warm brown eyes were the kind of eyes that seemed like stars that would never run out of energy. He looked to be a few years older than me. He was wearing black jeans, a light blue t-shirt, and a grey hoodie zipped up halfway, as well as black sneakers. I looked from Callie to Athimi. They didn’t seem like they were siblings, but who was I to judge? They had the joking dynamic of siblings, so I decided against asking.
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The four people who had been working out had left the room, to who knows where. Morri didn’t try to call them back into this room to greet me. I didn’t mind. Three new people was enough for now. Melissa was still standing next to me as we concluded introductions. “I’ll leave you with Morrigan to get settled. Morrigan, if you could get him a training schedule before tomorrow, that would be great. Callie, Athimi, I expect both of you to continue your training. No more slacking off. We don’t have time for that,” Melissa commanded. “Of course,” Callie said. Melissa nodded, and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll come check in on you soon.” She gave one last look around the room, then left. Athimi and Callie both sighed and dropped their shoulders. I hadn’t seen how tense they were until now. “Melissa is a pretty harsh leader,” Athimi explained. I looked up. “Wha… what?” I asked. “Melissa. She’s not always the nicest, and tends to look down on a lot of the people who aren’t leaders. If she catches us not performing to the standard she expects or wants, her punishments are swift. Cal once wasn’t allowed to eat for three days because she wasn’t running fast enough while we were training. She had a sprained ankle.” Callie looked down, shuffling her feet. “Athimi, don’t talk about her like that. If she catches you…” Her voice trailed off. I looked around in shock. “Wait a second. You all live in fear of her, while working your butts off for her, so that her and Mariah’s plan can work?” Callie nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. This is what we signed up for.”
“Then this is no better than the Elite and the demons,” I exclaimed. Callie’s eyes widened, and she looked at Athimi. “You can’t say stuff like that. You might think you’re special, but to Melissa, we’re all just pieces in her plan,” Athimi said. “Exactly! That is literally how the Elite treated the demons. This is no better than what they were doing,” I argued.
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Athimi opened his mouth to say something else, but Callie placed a hand on his arm. “Leave it. Elias is right. But right now, we can’t do anything other than help. It’s what we wanted to do.” Athimi took a step back, listening to his sister. Morri said, “Well, now that you three have gotten acquainted, why don’t you show Elias around? I’m going to go make tomorrow’s schedule with the others.” Callie nodded, and Morri walked to a door made of opaque glass. When she walked through, I could see her shadow against the glass. “That door leads to the first bunk room. Athimi, Morri, and I share the second. You’ll be staying with us. Follow me, I’ll show you around,” Callie said. We walked away, towards the back of the room. Athimi didn’t come with us. 152Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ58VUp0scnl
