Chapter 7

"Eesh! Beesh!" Heavy breathing of fighters mitigated the tranquility accompanied by the early hours of the morning, 4am to be precise. Well, to be a Glazier is quite demanding but I'm pretty sure the sparring sessions are more demanding.

"Ah!" Suddenly, there was a groan from a female fighter. "That's Mirabelle!", Oscar mumbled. This split second distraction allowed his opponent to deliver a suplex and put his back on the mat. "Wow! He defeated Oscar." "That's Oscar's first loss." "What went wrong?" "Damn, I never knew Simon was that strong." Everyone seemed startled, no one expected Oscar's defeat.

Commander Wade marched towards Oscar, tossed him a towel as he barked, "get up and dry yourself. To the rest of you, disperse."

Oscar went to his room with no intention of answering the questions his counterparts were asking. While he was washing his face, he heard a knock on the door. With reluctance in his voice, "come in". It was the Messiah.

The Messiah surveyed the room and finally a book caught his attention.

"Bottled emotions!",he read out the engraved words. "Let me share with you a story. Years ago, even before I was born, before my forefathers existed, the son of the Good Lord was crucified to save our souls. After he died, he went to the abyss to battle the beasts. It took him three days, no, he didn't conquer on the first day, he didn't conquer on the second day. He didn't conquer till the third day, setbacks are okay. What is not okay is when we allow the setback to weigh us down."

Oscar heaved a sigh of relief, "I saw Mira."

"What about her?", the Messiah asked.

"She was hurt, her opponent hit her. I got distracted and Simon capatilized on that. He had me in his clutches and before I realised..." At this point, Oscar couldn't continue. He was expecting a reaction from the Messiah. To his surprise, the Messiah chuckled, "Witticism! That was pretty funny. When I was in my teenage age, I was probably 19, there was a girl I was always stalking. Beautiful eyes, tall ebony. She was very divine."

"How did you always feel around her?", Oscar decided to satisfy his curiousity.

"Fidgety, restless, I couldn't even look into her eyes. Oh, Oscar, it was that bad." The Messiah laughed at his cowardice. "If you love Mira, you should tell her. Time is.."

"No, I don't love her. She is just a friend, there is no crime in caring for a friend", Oscar cut him short.

"Well, the cute thing about a boy having feelings is the denial. We are all guilty of the initial denial, then we come to realization, sooner or later. If you love her, you should tell her how you feel."

Oscar took three paces towards the window, looked outside the yard while he ran his fingers down the pane, "isn't love a rather strong word? I like her.... as a friend". He stuttered as he managed to complete his sentence.

The Messiah chuckled as he made his way out of Oscar's room, "have some rest, my son!"

It was a cool evening with the birds chirping, just the perfect atmosphere for my thoughts to sink in.

"Hmm! Why is the Messiah keeping his identity a secret? Not to mention that he has a family? This is just too much to take in, who can I share this with?"

"Mira! Yes Mira! Why not? We're both involved in this, she was also manipulated. I will head to her once it's dawn. I have nothing substantial to sustain my claims."

As usual, the alarms blared, doors were opened and slammed, the synchronized march and we filed as usual. Next to me was Mira, "good morning Oscar, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed?"

With a straight face, "Mirabelle, I need to share something with you."

Like a strict mom, "where are your manners? What could be so important that you couldn't say good morning. I am not interested in whatever you have to say."

"I'm sorry mum, it's just that I don't have the patience to keep up with your attitude this morning".

At this point, she wasn't going down without a fight, "excuse me! That's rude."

"I'm sorry, my apologies", I apologized in a bid to let the sleeping dog lie.

"You didn't mean the apology. It wasn't heartfelt", at this point she just wanted to frustrate me.

While we were going back and forth, we were oblivious of Commander Wade's presence. I couldn't pick a point he made, neither did Mirabelle.

We were snapped back to consciousness when General Wade yelled, "hey lovebirds! Fall out."

Giggles and mumbled remarks flew all over the hall, "these lovers couldn't wait for the Commander to leave. Typical lovebirds." These were the remarks I could pick while I made my way to the front of the "hoi polloi", the Glaziers. What a way to get under the spotlight!

"Good, I am most likely going to be punished, apparently, your own Jack is all play and no serious moment. Way to go Mira!", these were the words I wanted to throw at her.

"I don't condone indiscipline here, look here parrots. Whenever I stand in front of you, I don't want to hear you make a sound. Not even you breathing, it's too loud", Wade definitely had a lot to say but I didn't want to hear what a despicable man like him uttered. .

"You are going to learn and I'm sure you won't repeat this mistake", he sounded so certain as he flexed the whip in his right hand.

"No! Not you. It's you 'Juliet'", the smirk on my face vanished without a trace.

Commander Wade wouldn't let any opportunity to tease me slide, "I see you are concerned now, Romeo. She is going to take your portion of the punishment."

"Woosh! Woosh!", I could see the pain in her eyes, I did bring this upon her. My eagerness did, I couldn't just wait. Now, the Commander isn't showing any mercy while using the whip.

I saw her whimper as tears rolled down her cheeks, I whispered under my breath, "I'm sorry Mira."