Now and Forever

I wake. A vanilla aroma fills my nose, and as my eyes adjust to the light, I am, once again, in a strange place I’d never been before. I’m relieved when I see someone familiar. Cole. I am in no hospital, and it clicks. I’m in his home, but a doctor is checking on my blood pressure by the side of where I lay. In a bed.

“What happened?” I ask.

A smirk. “Your dog got to excited and…” He leads off, looking to the black lab trotting into the room. “I took him home with you. You were lost a lot of blood, but that’s not why you went unconscious. You seem to faint at the sight of blood.”

A whisper of an “O” escapes my mouth. I’m glad to see Fiver. He wags his tail and looks at me. I look at the dog with a smile, but he keeps staring and a deep bark erupts from his mouth.

“He’s hungry,” I figure, “got any raw meat? He’ll eat just about anything.”

Cole nods and walks out of the room. I throw my head back and think how lucky I am. A deep, heavy breathe is released from my lungs. I inhale again. I close my eyes and whisper a thank you to nobody in particular. To the Cole, to Fiver, to the Main, to the world’s mysterious ways. I am thankful for my life and it’s a rare occasion that I think about luck or life.

Cole comes back with some steak and throws it to Fiver. The doctor left. The next morning, Cole picks up my pass and cancels my physical assessment with Kojax. I would take it when I was better. I was now a citizen, a resident of the Main, but it didn’t feel like it. I did nothing

I slept. I woke. Cole feed Fiver. Days pass. I get out of bed. I go back to bed. I eat little by little. I sleep more. I use the bathroom. Sleep.

That was my life while I recovered. It turned I also broke a leg. The doctor kept laughing, saying that I got the worst outcome of falling on concrete, but I didn’t find it funny.

One day, when my cast finally came off, I tried walking. I was fine. I didn’t fall, but I was so excited, my stitches came out, and my head bled and bled. Cole was at work, guarding the city. He came home to find my unconscious again.

A whole month passed by, I was all good. Cole and I became good, tight friends, same for Fiver and Cole. Today is my physical assessment. It was only 7:00 in the morning, and my test would be at 5:00 at night.

“Breakfast?” Cole asks me as I walk into the kitchen. Oh! His kitchen, no, his whole house, was very modern like the building I went to get my pass. He seemed…rich. Very rich.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well then,” he pretended to be hurt and I smile. “Oh, I let Fiver go out explore.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t tackle anyone.”

He smiles and leans against the counter. I sit on the other side of the counter on a chair.

“Cole. What’s your full name?”

“Cole.”

“No, your full name. Like first, middle and last.”

“It’s Cole,” he says, but then adds on, “I don’t have a last name. During the war, my parents had amnesia from a bomb. They just forgot everything but their first names. They had my three years later.”

“So, your seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Seventeen.”

Oh.

He already knows all about me from my pass. Later, he makes me breakfast saying I need food in my system during the test.



Cole drops me off at another metal building, the Combat Center. I later learned the building I got my pass at and was questioned was called the Center. Apparently, it’s one of the most important buildings in the Main. But I’m at the Combat Center, awaiting my physical exam.

Actually, I’m waiting for Kojax. He’s late. Finally I see a guy coming towards me in a navy blue shirt. I notice his emerald green eyes and dark hair. He looks friendly, easy on the eyes. He greets me with a smile, and tells me to follow him.

We walk into a black room with few windows. People were on mats training, sparring, practicing. Kojax gets things moving along. Apparently he instructs everyone in this class, even though some are older than him. This is his chosen profession combat training, and on days without classes, he volunteers questioning visitors, making passes. I asked him on the climb up to the room.

While he’s talking to the others, I walk to a window. I am several stories up. I see the whole Main from where I am. The skyscraper’s climbed high into the sky, one going up into the clouds. Few birds flew in the sky.

“Electra, c’mon! We have to get started!” Kojax calls.

I hustle over to him, his mat.

“Alright. It’s pretty basic. We go in stages, the more stages you pass, the better you do for the test,” he begins, “first, just punch the dummy.”

I almost scoffed. Who can’t punch? I shake my head, and I punch the target. I pass. The next stage involves the target moving. I punch again; and I pass.

I was trained by my father, so it was easy. Eventually, I passed so many stages, I had to spar against Kojax.

“Alright, on three begin.” He starts. “1…” I take my stance. “2…” If I pass this stage, what’s next? “3!” He immediately threw a punch at me, hitting my jaw hard. “C’mon, Royce! On your feet!”

I smile, my lip bleeding. I don’t care. I punch; miss. I punch again, but he dodges. We dance in circles, each of us trying to land a hit on the other. Finally, I kick him, hard in the gut. He double over and I punch his side.

Kojax swipes a leg at me, and I collapse to the ground. I do the same to him, and kick his legs from underneath him, and as he falls, I stick my fist into his face. He lands on top of me. He rolls over, and pins me down.

I roll over so I’m on top. I know I can’t hold him down for long so, I place my forearm in his neck, threatening a choke. I won.

“Like I said Royce, on your feet,” Kojax smirks. I don’t get what he means. But he throws his head at mine. Kojax just head-butted me. It’s so on. I get up, my head throbbing. My libs stopped bleeding until I smiled, causing the scab to break open.

I kick a place where the sun doesn’t shine. He cringes; I take the opening and punch his jaw. Just as I do, he hits my gut with his hand. He takes his palm and hit me in the center of the chest and I fall backward.

He kicks me on the ground, merciless. He won’t stop until I surrender. But I won’t. I endure blow after blow until I’m coughing up blood. He stops, worried. I smile a bloody smile and, once again, kick his feet from underneath him. This time, I hold my arm stronger down, and I knee in between his legs. He cringes. I do it again and press my arm down.

“Give up,” I say, “if you ever want to have kids.” I knee him again. One more time, the hardest.

“Okay, okay,” he gives in, “You pass. Now get off, you weirdo.”

I glare at him. “Me? A weirdo? Nahhhh.” I laugh, spitting blood on his face.

“Yes. Now get off.” He’s laughing too, wiping spit off himself and back on me. “Unless you like it there.”

I get off, saying, “Well, I’d rather be a weirdo than someone who kicks a man – no, a woman – on the ground.”

“You didn’t tell me to stop!”

Though the conversation was just full of sarcasm and teasing, it made me a bit angry. I don’t know why. I cross my arms, not even trying to hide my anger.

“So. What’s the next stage?”

“That’s it. You got as far as you could.”

“Oh,” I breathe out. I was a bit disappointed. “So what was the point of this?”

“Well, since you’ll be living here now, you’ll need a job. With this grade on your file, you’ll be very high up. Not many beat the last stage. I believe Cole did which is why he’s a guard.” I sensed a bit of jealousy in his voice, at the mention of Cole.

“Did you?” I ask, curiosity taking the best of me.

“Did I what?”

“Well, I tied, knocked myself and my instructor out. I retook it, but I got a harder person to fight and I lost. So now I train soldiers, guards, anything involving close-up combat.”

I sit down, my chest hurting, my head throbbing, my body sore. We fought for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of punches, hits, kicks, pain. But I’ve gone through worse, and frankly, the pain didn’t bother me. The blood, on the other hand, did.

I took a shower in the women’s locker room. As I got out, Cole was outside the door of the sparring room. So was Kojax. I listened in, and hid around the corner in the halls.

“-more than that!”

“Yes, but there’s a line, Kojax!”

“Whatever. Treat it all like another assignment. I’m done and I won’t cover for you again if it ends up like last time.”

Cole’s voice dropped, low and quiet. I couldn’t hear anything. Then I hear Kojax:

“Looks like you’re crossing the line” Kojax retorted. I turned the corner, just to see Kojax shove Cole out of the way. Cole shoves Kojax back, but then I step in. I say nothing. I just stare at them.

“Cole, I’m tired. Take me home.”

Kojax corrects me, “Its Cole’s home, and you’re only staying there ‘til you get a job and your own place.”

“She can stay if she wants to,” Cole argues.

“Oh, so you do like her?” Kojax retorts.

My face turns red as I look to Cole. He’s blushing too. Cole I leave without a word, hearing Cole’s footsteps behind me. What just happened?