3 MORNING EXERCISE

"The four of you! Stand in the middle!" The announcer stated while pointing his finger to the four people sitting farther from each other, exhausted and tired from the fight. In over hundreds of children, Sofia was the only female who made it to the top four and she was the only one who fought barehanded. The three other children were males, older than her for few years.

"Tsk! If I had known, I would have spent my money on her."

"She's skilled in hand to hand combat and she knew few defense moves."

"If this woman is trained correctly, she'll be a great foundation to the organization."

"Huh looked at the board!" One man pointed out and the screen showed the people who earned so much from the gambling earlier. "Someone paid for No.13! Holy cow! That's sick." They found that someone paid Sofia and not just thousands but millions. "Tsk! This girl. Someone was already eyeing on her."

Sofia and the other three children sat on the podium, getting cheers from everyone. After getting their prize money, they were ushered to another building were other children stayed.

"In the next two years, you will be studying in this building. You will learn a lot of things but one thing that you must always remember, do not let your guard down even when you're sleeping. The other children will take their chance in killing their opponent, whenever and wherever. Anyway, you will receive your class schedule tomorrow. Have plenty of rest." The man left them to their own accord, not knowing what to do.

"Do you guys want to stick out together?" one of the male children asked. "We came from the same batch so, I thought we should stick together and learn from each other."

"If you make friends now, what if they will ask us to kill each other later. Isn't that sad to kill your friend?" Sofia retorted and walked away from them, looking for a room with a vacancy sign. "If you want to stay alive, litter some things on the floor tonight and stay alert. I'm off."

She's barely ten years old but she just experienced the most horrible thing in her life. When she found a vacant room, she immediately opened the door and looked for a bathroom, vomiting whatever she had in her stomach, retching until only bile came out. If possible, she'd like to vomit all her internal organs and just die in the bathroom.

She flushed the toilet and sprawled on the bathroom floor, looking at her hands she used to kill the other children. She's exhausted but when she closed her eyes, the eyes of those children she killed would stare back at her. She was scared.

"Mom, how did my life turn like this? I just wanted to be your little girl forever. I just wanted to be cheerful and lovely forever with you and daddy. Why did you guys leave me alone? Why is that no one looked for me? Why?" her sobbing in the bathroom couldn't be heard by the other people outside. She got the privacy she wanted and she just cried her heart out.

Feeling safe inside the bathroom, she locked the door and slept on the cold floor.

'Criing! Criing! Criing!

The blaring sound of the alarm bell jolted Sofia awake. Last night, she didn't get the time to explore the room because she was too tired. Now, she realized that the room was equipped with little speakers in the corner of the room and the alarm bell was connected to it. Even if you sleep like a log, you will still wake up with a fright from the loud sound.

Sofia opened the door and found many children running down the corridor. Not knowing what to do, she followed them and she found the other three children she came with yesterday.

"Where's your uniform?" one of the males asked her.

"What uniform? I didn't get any. Where did you guys get that from?" Sofia returned the question when she found that everyone was wearing the same kind of clothing except for her.

"We got it from the room we stayed. The room was full of clothes that you can put on and there were notes of what you should wear every day."

Sofia was alarmed with what she heard. She had no idea what will happen to children who don't follow the rules but she knew that it wouldn't be a good thing. She ran back to her room, cleaned herself and put on the clothes that she found in the closet. She's the only one living in her room so she didn't care about anyone.

She didn't even dry her hair and just ran back to the ground where she saw the other children standing. When washed and properly dressed, Sofia was actually a pretty girl. Nobody noticed it because she was so dirty and unkempt. Now many, children were looking at her with interest.

But many of them looked at her with jealousy.

One of the students standing stuck her foot to trip Sofia but she saw it before she could hit on it. Sofia kicked the girl's leg and frowned. "Don't stick your leg like that. It's dangerous. It's either I trip over it or I step on it and break it."

When she's with everyone, she wouldn't show a single trace of emotion but when she's alone, she's back to the delicate girl she was.

Sofia was about to ask what they will do when a man with an undercut showed up with his hands on his back. "Go and get inside the drill room. It's time for your morning exercise."

The newcomers had no idea what it was and when they got inside the said drill room, they were horrified. The place was small and it was stinky. Sofia vomited once again when she caught whiff of the rotten smell. However, that wasn't her concern. What was important to her was to get out of the cell alive because a hungry and rabid dog was looking at her with saliva dripping on the floor.

"Ahh! I don't like this morning exercise at all. You, stupid homo sapiens! Get me out of here!"