He broke his eye contact with me and looked towards the group in the middle of the room.

I stood up against the wall frozen, staring at the floor of faded baby blue mats.

Since everyone had quieted down when he entered the room, he spoke,

"Get in groups of two, start your stations, no slacking or else three extra laps"oh shit, running. But i'm new. What am I supposed to do anyways?

I look up from the floor and see the previous group of people split into pairs, mostly boys with boys and girls with girls. That Aaro guy who showed me the way here was paired with another guy that I have not seen before, two girls, a dirty blonde and a brown haired were together, a raven haired girl and a boy with autumn-brown hair were paired up leaving the strawberry blonde alone, crossing her arms over her chest looking more disappointed than surprised that she didn't get chosen as a partner. She turned towards me and everyone that was already paired up moved to different places around the abnormally large room.

She stalked towards me looking more joyful each step she took to my figure practically glued against the wall,

"Hi, I'm Winnie", she introduced herself as shoving her hand in front of her, between both of us waiting for my hand. I hesitated but took my hand out from behind my back and gripped her callused hand slightly, she was wearing these thin gloves that didn't cover your fingers, but I could still feel the bumps through the material.

"Your Acis", she stated. How does everyone know my name? Did they like inscribe it on a sign for everyone to see? And besides I knew my own name.

"I know,'' I responded not realizing I had said it out loud.

"Well, I know you know, I was just telling you that I knew you were Acis so that you didn't have to introduce yourself when I already knew who you were". she responded to all of this with a smile and it kinda scared me how open she is, and talkative, and innocent sounding for being exiled. It makes me wonder why she was exiled.

"U-uh, we must get to our station or Cade will make us do laps".

"Cade? Who is that?"

She pointed to the familiar guy with the grey eyes, "Him. He's the head of this whole training situation, and if there's one thing to know about him, He. Does. Not. Mess. Around. So lets skedaddle."

Skedaddle? Whats that mean.

Winnie turned, her strawberry blonde ponytail flying after her towards a section of the room. I quickly followed after her as she moved towards one of those benches with the circles marked with numbers that you could put on a metal rod. She laid down on the bench after situating two of the same sized circles on each end of the rod. She slid underneath the bar and put her half-gloved hands on the rod lifting it up with almost no struggle at all.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

She put the bar down on the contraption of metal that was suspending it in the air and looked over at me with a questioning look as I stared awe-shocked at what I just saw. What did I see?

"Um, what was that?"I asked.

"You've never lifted weights before!", She questioned me this time.

"If you count lifting boxes of apples, carrots, and sacks of potatoes from the ground to a stack, then no."

"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. Do you know what any of this stuff in here is?'' she asked again.

"Uh n-", I was cut off.

"I expect you two to be working instead of sitting around and chatting, otherwise its extra laps this afternoon, do you understand?", It was the guy with the grey eyes, Cade his name is.

"Yea but she doesn't know what any of this stuff is, or how to use it.", Winnie gestured towards me, which made him look at me, which made him talk to me.

"Then I expect you, Acis to be working extra hard to catch up to the rest of the group. otherwise I'll have to reconsider your position of being a trainee with Karrie". He said her name with a lace of hate in it, I don't think I was meant to notice or he meant for it to come out that way, but there was definitely something there.

He turned and left to go supervise the rest of the trainees working at different stations and we turned back to the 'Weight lifting' thing were were currently stationed at.

. . .

We were at our third station now, after going through the first 'weight lifting' station and the second 'lap bar' station, I'm beat. While Winnie and all the other trainees are still working hard. The only thing keeping me on my feet is the fact that if I rest i'll be put through hell of running laps later which I would rather not do.

Winnie and I haven't talked much besides her teaching me how to do the activities at the stations, ever since Cade came over to threaten us about our "slacking". I glanced over to his direction to see him leaning against the wall, arms crossed looking in my direction. Our eyes met and I immediately diverted my eyes back to Winnie's tutorial of how to do pull ups. I was half listening but it didn't really appeal to me much, and I don't think I could lift myself up a bar with just my hands ten times. That was clearly insane, and probably where Winnie got all her calluses on her hands.

Winnie finished her ten pull ups and I was about to get started on mine when Cade's voice rang out,

"Okay. Since you all are warmed up we'll begin the teaching of using a weapon of your choice, then tomorrow we will most likely begin to use those weapons for live-fights".

That was just the warm up! How the hell am I supposed to survive this everyday! And weapon fighting? Whats live-fighting. I swear if I die because I was stupid and careless enough to join this 'training employment' I might die. But i'll already be dead because I'll probably get attacked by one of the trainees with a weapon before I realize what's happening. The most we ever used in the plant farming colony was hoes and knives to cut the produce. I mean yeah, it would be cool to learn how to wield a knife and use it properly for fighting but me with a knife? That's not a good combination. I could barely cut a carrot with the same width of each piece, so how would I ever aim a knife, they probably didn't even let you use knives as a weapon here.

Cade moved towards a blank wall free of contraptions of 'weight lifting' things, punching bags, or any other equipment. He pushed something on the wall which did.. nothing.

It did nothing for a few seconds until the sound of stone scraping stone erupted through the entire room, leaving a wall of assorted weapons from long metal looking bars with sharp ends and a handle at the opposite end, to giant forks. Maybe that's what I could use. I took in the array of weapons stretching from the beginning of the new wall to the end and spotted something worth trying.

A section of knives.