December 7th

(alright yes forget about the chapters being on their corresponding days)

(bet no one noticed anyway :D continueeee)

 

On my first day I shot my first man.

Cadet training was in the GAPP camps, up the North. It was always winter there. The snow made the blood easier to see.

I was sent to Camp 7, the one nearest to the city of Kovast and furthest away from the Residence of the Lady Labyrinth. It was a bit of bad luck I was landed there, because the camps furthest away from Her usually attracted far more activity from the Revolutionists; higher chance of getting into trouble.

“Have you all been outside in below 50 celcius?”

Our Instructor didn’t have a name, none of them did. And we weren’t allowed to know each other’s names either, so we just got called numbers. I was number 15.

We had only been here for a few hours, but we had learnt by now not to say anything in response to questions. If you said something stupid you would be shot, and to the Instructor, whatever came out Cadet’s mouths was always stupid.

“Good. Let’s go then.”

The Instructor was grizzled, grey-haired and rough looking, with a thick Russian accent and broad shoulders. A typical Mosgraskt Agent, you might say, but I had no experience in these matters. I’d only been to one parade before and that had been when I was very young.

But I liked him, probably because he was the only other Russian there and made me feel not so alien.

We were shoved out into the blizzard without further ado, with only our thin standard issue jackets.

The Instructor handed out pistols, seemingly unaffected by the painfully harsh wind, handling the guns with ease. All ten of us lined up instinctively, hardly even being able to see a few metres in front of us through the slashing snowstorm and shivering madly.

“Shoot the target.” he said simply, standing to the side and kicking the first Cadet in the leg to indicate that he was first. I swallowed; I’d be second.

We all squinted into the ivory curtain. About twenty metres in front, barely visible, were dark shapes, all in a line. There were circular shapes and others that I couldn’t define.

The Cadet next to me didn’t dare wait any longer so lined up his shot and fired. It was barely audible against the screech of the wind. The Cadet lowered his pistol and glanced at the Instructor for approval. One tiny nod.

Then a tiny nod in my direction.

Clasping tightly with both hands I raised my pistol and squinted, trying to aim for the dark thing that was my target.

The snow cleared a little and I could make out my own target.

It was a human, still alive, strung up on a pole, rope tied around the feet and hands above their heads. Eyes staring, terrified.

“Well?” I heard the Instructor enquiry mildly.

I had obviously paused without meaning to.

I lined up my pistol and fired.