Getting into his room, which he shared with his fellow cadets, Graves sat down on his bunk. The mattress wasn't very wide, but to him, it was the height of luxury. The first week he had arrived, he hadn't been able to sleep comfortably at all; he had actually tried to sleep flat on the cold tile floor. His roommates had fiercely disagreed with that, forcing him back onto the mattress, which had resulted in him getting little to no sleep.
Pulling off his heavy military boots and undressing, he walked into the bathroom and stepped inside the automated bathing pod. Graves felt a sudden swell of pride; he wasn't mistakenly boiling his own skin anymore. After months of patient lessons from his roommates, he had successfully mastered the machine's numerous buttons.
A while later, he stepped out of the washing pod feeling thoroughly refreshed. He still found it incredibly bizarre that bathing was a strict daily requirement at the military school. In his experience back in the outskirts, washing oneself was almost unheard of. Everyone out there smelled incredibly foul, but because it was the only environment he and the other slum children had ever known, they had simply grown used to the ambient bodily stench.
Stopping in front of the mirror, Graves studied his face for a moment. Surprisingly enough, it was only recently that he had discovered he had green eyes. One of his roommates had randomly mentioned that they liked the color, sending Graves scrambling to the mirror—and lo and behold, he actually had them. Ever since, he loved staring at his own reflection whenever he got the chance. He brushed his hair back with his fingers, a nervous habit he found himself doing more and more frequently.
Academically, his progress was moving smoothly. During his first week at the academy, he hadn't even known how to spell his own name or recite the alphabet. No one could blame him; none of the recruits harvested from the outskirts could. But through a combination of continuous lectures and the military's cognitive booster solutions, Graves was finally able to grasp the fundamentals of literacy, matching the pace of the other outskirt kids.
Yet, his biggest lingering fear was the threat of discovery. He was a no-talent individual living a lie. Fortunately, the NHF military trusted the integrity of their outer perimeter compatibility tests implicitly, figuring that nothing could possibly go wrong with the biometric data. Because of their administrative blind spot, a smart kid like Graves could easily keep his head low and avoid any attention that might expose his lack of power.
Lying back down on his mattress, he closed his eyes, his thoughts immediately drifting back to Old Man Lee—the sole reason he was breathing inside the safety of the Wall.
I hope he's fine, Graves muttered to himself. The old trader had done something no one in the outskirts would ever dream of doing. Graves knew deep down that he wouldn't have sacrificed his own safety for another person like that, no matter what. He needed to survive, if only to eventually pay back Lee's five NHF coins.
Gradually, his mind drifted toward his mother. Even with his eyes closed, he couldn't stop the vivid, metallic image of her being violently devoured from flashing across his consciousness.
Why did I leave when she explicitly asked me to stay? I could have saved her. I killed her with my own stupidity. What was I even planning to do anyway? What kind of power did I have to change the outcome? Or fight devils.... why didn't I stay just so we could be eaten together?
Tears began to drip down his cheeks.
Right at that moment, the dormitory door slid open and his roommates walked in together.
"Here we go... he's crying again," a voice as thick as the armored glass of an APV cut through the air. It was Apollo.
Graves snapped his eyes open and quickly sat up, aggressively wiping the moisture from his face. His roommates were notably older than him; both Apollo and Julius were eighteen, while Graves was only sixteen.
"Give him a break, he needs some alone time," Julius chimed in, defending him.
"I know," Graves replied quietly.
"But having a roommate who could potentially be a future teammate with this much emotional turbulence won't be good for us," Apollo insisted, digging his heels in. "It's a liability."
"Yeah, yeah. He came from outside the Wall, he probably just misses his home and his friends," Julius countered, dropping his heavy textbooks and pulling off his boots.
"Hmm... whatever. If you ever need anything, just tell us. You're a man, and soon you'll be a soldier," Apollo said, his tone softening slightly as he began to undress.
"Everyone is allowed to possess emotions, Apollo," Julius replied, disappearing into the bathroom.
Sitting directly opposite Apollo, whose bunk faced his own, Graves let out a slow sigh. "I hope class went well," he offered, trying to steer the conversation away from his outburst. He already knew exactly how Apollo would answer.
"Yeah, it did. Still stressful, but who cares? What we'll be doing on the field will be ten times worse," Apollo replied.
With his dark skin, sharp features, and bulging muscles, Apollo was exceptionally tall, carrying an physique that made him look like a statue of an ancient god. He kept his dark hair cut exceptionally low, a style he constantly justified by saying, 'Low hair brings military decency.'
"Hey, Graves. Tell me another story about life outside the Wall. How was it really?"
Apollo asked this question constantly. And every single time, Graves would sit down and recount his past, leaving Apollo exclaiming in pure awe. Graves always made sure to inject a heavy dose of exaggeration into the tales. One could easily say Graves loved telling the stories just as much as Apollo loved listening to them. Though Graves knew he was weaving a web of lies to keep things interesting, Apollo never seemed to mind.
"Where do I even begin..." Graves muttered rhetorically, running his fingers through his white hair as he prepared to spin another narrative.