Part 5.

We weren't kids anymore that sleeping in the same room should scare us, but it did. It took days before I could be comfortable with something as simple as walking around in my robe. Thank heaven we weren't sharing the bathrooms or dressing rooms.

For an entire week, nobody was teaching us a thing.

Carlos and I grew a little distant after what he had said in the assembly hall, plus the fact that he was the director's son.

I guess the attraction hit its dead end.

The only person I called in the first week was obviously dad. Well, he would be the one person I would be calling.

There was so much to see in the academy, and so that first week was meant for us to familiarize ourselves with every inch of the school(base).

Demons!

Pf!

There were no such things. Maybe it was all a way to prepare us for the worst. Or he just meant it metaphorically. Either way, they were taking the training seriously.

Other than our class, there were two more classes, level two and three. Each level took at least six months to complete. Which meant that by the time we would be done with level one, other novices will be welcomed. After level three was graduation, then being released to the world.

The bright side of the while situation was the fact that every successful graduate was immediately employed by a secret branch or the government to aid in the 'demon-tracking' situation as we had been told.

In every unit, there had to be a doctor, a tracker and four slayers. Jae was automatically the medic in ours, that went without saying. Mary was good with tech stuff, which was why she was positioned as our tracker. The rest of us would train as slayers(whatever that stood for).

I played along, eager to see where all the games were leading to.

                      ***

    "Need some help with that?" A feminine voice asked from the far right.

I had hoped that the dressing room was empty as usual. There were scars on my body that I never felt comfortable showing to anybody.

  I made eye contact with the girl standing at the adjacent door they led to the showers. Shaking my head gently, I smiled "No thank you. I'm good."

"You must be one of the new trainees?" The female delighted while her hands busied themselves with drying her hair using the small white towel.

      "Um...yes." I answered dropping my eyes on the boots I was struggling to make s perfect knot. They felt like two times my normal shoe weight. Even after a week, my feet hadn't accepted the way those boots felt.

  "I wish I could go back to my first days around here. Things were just colorful. But now-" her tone shifted to one that carried the weight of fifty boots "-it's all black and white. Once you see the things that are out there, there is no unseeing."

Her words peaked my interest.

    "What things?" I asked raising my head.

She walked over to the table I had placed my foot on. Her brown eyes searched mine for a few seconds, sending a string of fear down my spine. "Demons! Oh they're real as you and me. I know you all think it's some sort of joke right now. But when you go out there for your first mission, everything changes."

   Right then, my throat was clogged by something, my breathing shallow. As if if I breathed wrongly, her words would slash my chest.

She took a step back, the reached for the towel draped around her chest.

      Please don't I'm strai-

"See these?" She spoke, looking down at the two ugly scars on either side of her upper abdomen. It was as though she had been stabbed by two identical blunt objects. "These are horn scars buddy. That demon mercilessly plunged its horns in my abdomen and raised me in the air before tossing me aside like trash... I thought it was the end of me. I could barely feel my heartbeat, there was so much blood from the smell of it. And then..." She drifted off, her eyes looking up at the ceiling. "An Angel flew down at me. He said, 'Your time to die is not yet here'. He placed his hands on my wounds and a bright light blinded my eyes. Then just like that, I was healed."

       I waited a few seconds, just to let the suspense in the air die out.

   "An Angel, hmm?"

She snorted winding the towel to cover up her body. Those scars really did injustice to her flawless dark skin.

  "Let me!" She insisted snatching the laces from my hands. "Nobody cares about the knot as long as you don't trip out there and fall on a sword or a horn."

Wow! Feisty!

   "What about you? I saw the strange scars on your back."

"They're nothing!" I darted pulling my leg off the table. "Thanks!" I breathed rushing past her for the exit door.

My past, my privacy.

   I had nothing to tell, I could not even remember what happened, how I got those double scars on my back.