Chapter 22 – First Day
Kiyokazu Lazar — POV
Darius gave us our first orders. In our case, a punishment — but an order all the same.
When he finished speaking, everyone in the room lowered themselves to their knees, then onto their backs on the floor.
I crossed my arms over my chest in an X, getting ready, and waiting for his voice to signal the start.
He walked around the room, observing all those lying on the white floor.
"ARMS BEHIND YOUR HEAD."
He had stopped on the far left side of the room, looking at someone there. I moved my hands immediately, shifting them from my chest to behind my head.
He turned and stepped toward the five of us. Two steps away from me, his eyes moved to the brown-haired one first, then tracked slowly across all five of us, spending a moment on each face.
Then he lifted his left arm just slightly — barely off his side — and his open palm closed into a fist.
The vibration were the first to come. A low tremor moving through the floor beneath my back, spreading upward into my arms and legs until my whole body was humming with it.
Thum. Thum. Thum.
Pieces of earth began to push up through the floor. They were shaped like icicles — not thick, with gently rounded tips rather than sharp points, roughly the width of a drinking glass. They came up one by one, leaving thin cracks in the floor around the places where they emerged, spreading out to where each of us was lying.
One rose from the floor close to my left leg.
It moved like something alive—slowly wrapping itself around my ankles, coiling just as a snake coils. This lasted for another second or two, and then it gently spread my legs apart and stopped. It positioned them exactly the way it wanted.
Then it hardened.
Not gradually, the way it happens with cement over time. It was instantaneous. As if it just wanted to shift. And I could feel the moment when it happened.
I tried to move my legs.
I couldn't. No matter how much I pushed, they wouldn't respond. Even worse — I could barely feel them at all.
„What is this?"
„What just happened to my legs."
"ONE."
Darius had already started counting. I snapped out of my thoughts and pulled myself up into the sitting position, then back down.
The earthen pieces holding my ankles were more useful than I'd expected. I didn't have to worry about my feet slipping out — they held my full weight without a single crack, without any sign of strain, no matter how much force I put through them.
"TWO. THREE."
The first twenty were manageable. Even for me, who hadn't trained in any real way in a long time.
"TWENTY-SEVEN."
The twenty-seventh was where I noticed the burning starting in my stomach. Not severe yet — but present, and growing with each one. By the thirty-fourth crunch it had become something that demanded attention.
Among the five of us who were punished, I was the only one visibly slowing.
DU-DUM. DU-DUM.
My heart was loud in my chest. My breathing was shortening, and the heat in my stomach climbing with every repetition. I started the thirty-ninth sit-up — got halfway through the movement — and the strength just wasn't there anymore.
I went down.
I lay there staring at the white ceiling, chest heaving, sweat running down my forehead and into my hair.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Darius was beside me. Looking down. His greenish eyes had the quality of something that had found exactly what it was looking for.
I opened my eyes and gathered what I could.
"N-nothing, sir."
"WHO GAVE YOU THE ORDER TO STOP?"
"No one, sir." I was still on the ground when I replied. Still breathing.
"Since you don't want to follow the order." His voice dropped.
"I'M ADDING ANOTHER PUNISHMENT. ALL FIVE OF YOU WILL DO FIVE MORE SIT-UPS."
"WAIT — WHAT?" The brown-haired one's voice came from Kieran's direction.
"AND YOU—" Darius pointed at me— "WILL DO TWO MORE PERSONALLY. AS YOUR OWN PUNISHMENT."
"Get up off the floor already, you worthless piece of trash" the brown-haired one said, and his voice had none of the softness it had carried when speaking to Darius. "No one here wants to do more because of your weakness."
I looked toward the line of five. Kieran was already back in the sitting position, watching me. Waiting.
At the far end of the line, Luiz had turned his head toward me.
"Lazar." He called me, then our eyes met. "Ignore him. Get up and do it at your own pace — you don't have to match ours. We just have to get through it. Nobody here except those two cares about your speed." Luiz said, pointing with his hand at brown-haired guy and the other one.
"What's that supposed to mean?" The guy with the red streaks at the end of it's hair said right next to him.
"Yeah," Kieran added from the sitting position, then moved to demonstrate rather than explain.
"Don't try to force your whole upper body at once. Start with your hands, use them to build momentum, then bring your body up. Like this. It should be easier, try it."
He showed me once — hands in, then body, fluid and controlled, back to starting position with what looked like almost no effort.
"Also you can—"
"SILENCE."
Darius's voice cut through the room like it always did — immediate and complete.
"WHAT ARE YOU TWO? HIS CHEERLEADERS?"
A pause.
"YOU FOUR HAVE BROKEN ENOUGH RULES ALREADY. I SHOULD PUNISH YOU ALL AS A COLLECTIVE."
Another pause, longer.
"However."
His voice dropped to something lower and more deliberate.
"The two of you were ready to help a fellow soldier in need on battlefield. You didn't abandon him. You rushed to his aid and offered what you could. For that reason only — I will not punish you collectively. Instead I will punish you individually."
"FIVE MORE SIT-UPS FOR THE THREE OF YOU."
His finger moved to include the brown-haired one.
"Why am I being punished?" The brown-haired one's jaw tightened.
"Because, Kaien, you have already broken a significant number of rules today — and you continue breaking them. First: you argued with your superior. Second: you spoke when no one gave you permission to speak. Third: when your fellow soldier needed support, you pressured him instead of offering help." Darius looked at him steadily. "Not to mention other rules as well."
"On the other hand, Luiz and Kieran willingly broke the rules to help their fellow soldier Lazar. If you had listened when I was talking about the rules in this facility today, you would know exactly what I am talking about now Kaien."
"You are all the same here. No one is above or below the others. You are a collective. And a collective solves or prolong problems together — the same way the army of Nivalis does. That is the only reason they can do what they do. Because they are one. That is a collective."
"NOW GET BACK TO YOUR POSITIONS. YOU STILL HAVE UNFINISHED WORK TO DO."
What Luiz and Kieran had done — and Darius's words cutting through the noise — gave me enough time to gather my strenght and continue. Kieran's advice turned out to make a genuine difference. Hands first, momentum built, then body following. It was more demanding in its own ways, but workable.
Somehow, I pushed through all fifty-seven sit-ups that I had to do.
It was, without a doubt, the most grueling physical experience I had ever endured. It felt as though my stomach had been wrung out and left to cool. But when I finished the very last sit-up, I lowered myself back to the floor, aware that it still wasn't over.
Around me, the other four were in the same position — all of us breathing, it was the only sound that filled the room for a moment.
"THIRTY SECONDS REST. AFTER THAT, PUSH-UPS. IMMEDIATELY."
"Uuugh." I could hear Kieran from nearby. "I've never done that many sit-ups in one stretch."
He was talking to that other guy.
"Don't tell me this is enough to finish you off, four-eyes."
"Better take care of yourself Viktor. Something like this will never be enough to bring me down."
"So, Viktor is his name?"
The earthen pieces around my ankles on my legs began to loosen as the rest period passed, and soon I could move my legs freely again. The first thing I did was spread them out flat on the floor. Everyone around me did the same.
"REST IS OVER. INTO POSITION."
However, it was ended shortly after I stretched my legs by Darius who gave next orders.
Up again. Into the push-up position now.
The earthen pieces moved again — finding my hands this time, positioning them exactly where they wanted, then hardening in place, just as it did with the legs.
"ONE."
Push-ups were harder than the sit-ups had been. By the twenty-fourth push-up, both my hands were burning and my chest felt like something was being pressed through it.
I wanted to stop. But I couldn't afford to stop, I don't want to do more of them.
„I have to do it."
"TWENTY-FIVE."
„Five more. Only five."
"TWENTY-SIX."
"TWENTY-SEVEN."
„Come on. Come on"
"TWENTY-EIGHT."
„Two left. Two."
"TWENTY-NINE."
„One more. Only one."
My hands were shaking. My chest burned like something had been lit inside it. But it was the last one — the absolute last one.
„I HAVE TO DO IT!"
I gritted my teeth and found whatever was left of my strenght, and managed to do it.
Then I let go entirely and fell flat on the ground.
I closed my eyes and just breathe.
The earthen pieces around my palms released — loosening their grip and drawing back down through the floor. The cracks where they had emerged slowly closed behind them, sealing flush with the surface until there was no sign they had ever been there.
"THAT WOULD BE YOUR WARM-UP. CONGRATULATIONS, SOLDIERS — YOUR FIRST WARM-UP IS COMPLETE."
Darius was already moving toward the stairs as he said it.
"FOLLOW ME. TRAINING BEGINS NOW."
„Wait what?"
„That was just the warm-up?"
„My whole body is on fire. I can barely breathe. I'm soaking in sweat. And that was the warm-up?"
"Wait — what?"
"That was just a warm-up?"
"Is he serious?"
The room was full of it — the same disbelief running through everyone at roughly the same moment.
"You good, Lazar?"
I opened my eyes. Kieran's hand was extended down toward me.
I took it and came to my feet slowly.
"I will be," I said.
We moved toward the stairs with everyone else, following Darius. Kaien, the brown-haired one walked past us, and his eyes moved to me for a few seconds as he passed — nothing said, just that look — before he continued up toward the door.
"Looks like he still has something against you," Luiz said, positioning himself between Kieran and me.
"Still hanging around with that weakling, four-eyes?" Viktor called back to Kieran as he climbed ahead of us.
Kieran looked at him. "Yeah, Matchstick. Got a problem with that?"
Viktor glanced back over his shoulder at me for a moment. "Nope. You choose your own friends."
He turned and passed the doors.
"Let's go," Luiz said, patting both Kieran and me once on the back. His voice was easy and unhurried. I looked at him — no sweat that I could see, no sign of strain anywhere on his face. He looked like the warm-up had been exactly that.
We climbed the stairs and turned into the hallway. Past the door where the interviews had been, all the way to the end — where another set of doors stood. Not a door, really. More of a gates like the once in our room.
"Isn't it a bit cold out here?" I overheard someone talking in the crowd.
"Yeah you're right, I've got goosebumps."
They were right — it was colder than the room had been, and it kept getting colder the longer we stood still to this doors. A steady drop in temperature that settled right into the skin.
"OKAY, SOLDIERS."
Darius stepped up to the gate and pushed both sides open with his hands. They swung wide.
Cold air poured through immediately — a strong cold wind carrying snowflakes, blowing from every direction at once at us.
"A SOLDIER OF NIVALIS DOES NOT FEEL COLD. THIS IS CHILD'S PLAY."
He said it while the rest of us covered our forearms with our hands and tried to protect whatever skin we could. The sound of teeth chattering spread through the crowd.
I could barely manage the cold myself — and the only reason I could manage it at all was because my body was still running hot from the sit-ups and push-ups I did.
Darius stepped outside and turned to face us, arms crossed, waiting.
"I-is he not human?"
"He doesn't feel it at all?"
"I would kill for a jacket right now."
"COME OUT, SOLDIERS. NOW." He demanded.
We moved outside.
The snow crunched under every boot, and the wind cut straight through black T-shirts that we were wearing, without bothering to warm up even slightly first. Shivers rippled through the crowd—some tried to fight them off, while others didn't even bother to try.
It was deliberate and strong, impossible to ignore.
"Sir Darius." A voice from within the crowd came. "I have a question."
"Speak."
"Can I get some spare clothes this is too cold for me."
"Can I get something as well?"
"Me too."
More voices joining, all asking for the same thing. Clothes.
Darius lifted his head a bit.
"No."
Simple, yet an absolute answer.
"A soldier of Nivalis does not feel cold. It is engraved in who they are. What you're feeling now is the result of your own focus. You feel cold because you are thinking about the cold."
"B-but this is — it's too much to simply not think about."
"HAHAHA!"
He laughed — open, spreading his arms wide.
"LOOK AT THIS, SOLDIERS. I am standing in front of you right now, wearing exactly the same clothes that you are wearing, and I do not feel the cold. Not even slightly. And that's because I am not thinking about it, and I have no desire to."
"What kind of answer is that?" I overheard someone whispering that to my left.
"And since thinking about it seems to be the problem — we are going to train. At the end of this path, approximately three kilometers from here, there is a place where you can warm yourselves. I am heading there now. You will follow after me."
He pointed down the snow-covered path ahead.
"That is for those who can make it."
"Those who believe they cannot do it — you can go back into the building. But you will be cut off immediately. And those who choose to follow me: be prepared for anything on the way. So choose carefully."
He turned and began running down the path. Within seconds he had disappeared into the grey distance.
The crowd held for a moment.
Then it moved.
"Three kilometers — is he serious?"
"There's no way that I can do this."
"I'm going back inside. Good luck."
People were already talking themselves out of it before they'd taken a step.
"Come on." Luiz grabbed Kieran and me by the hand, one each, and started pulling us forward before we said something.
"Why are you just standing there like some frozen logs? We'll turn into pine cones if we don't move."
And just like that, we were running.
All around us, there were only trees—on both sides. To the left, to the right, wherever one looked, there were nothing but snow-laden conifers; they lined the edge of the path in a dense row, blocking the view of everything else. The path itself stretched into the grayness ahead, appearing to extend endlessly. The sky above was heavy with clouds, from which snow fell like rain.
The snow crunched underfoot. A cold wind blew from the side. With every breath, steam escaped our mouths, and with every such breath, my throat grew increasingly dry.
"Are you okay, Luiz? Your hands are shaking," Kieran asked.
"So are yours, Kieran. Don't worry — I'll be fine."
"Lazar, you aren't shaking. How are you doing that?"
"I don't know. I'm just running. Like Darius said — I'm trying not to think about the cold."
"That doesn't help us at all, Lazar."
"You really are a strange person," Luiz said, while running. "Has anyone ever told you that before?"
"I'm strange? How so?"
"Yeah, you."
I didn't have a good answer for that. Perhaps the residual heat from the push-ups and sit-ups was protecting me from the cold, or maybe it was just having them around me. Either way, I kept running without thinking too much about it—not that I had the time to dwell on it anyway.
We covered significant distance in relative silence, broken occasionally by a question or a comment — small things, just enough to keep the air between us moving.
"You know, I was just thinking — WHOA—"
Luiz's sentence cut off sharp. His foot went out from under him and he went down into the snow before any of us could reach him.
"Luiz!" Kieran and I said at the same time, stepping closer and pulling him up.
"What the hell was that?" He said brushing snow from his hair.
"Look." Kieran pointed at the ground.
"What is this?"
"Is this ice?"
A thin sheet of ice, nearly invisible under the snow layer was there.
"We have to keep moving either way," Luiz said, steadying himself. "I'm barely holding the cold as it is."
Even I had started shaking. Whatever warmth the exercises had built up in me was running out.
"ACHOO!"
Kieran sneezed hard enough to stagger himself.
"This isn't good," Luiz said, looking at the two of us. "We can't keep going like this."
We slowed to a stop, the three of us standing on the snow-icy path trying to think through the problem.
I placed my hand over my mouth and began to assess the surroundings and what we could do.
"Come on Lazar, think. Think. We will all get hypothermia and freeze to our deaths if we don't do anything."
"I know there's something that we could do but what is it?"
I looked to the left at the trees beside the path, covered in even deeper snow than the path where we were standing.
"Build a fire? No, that's impossible… There is no dry wood that we can use, and we also have no way to light the wood for a fire even if we had it... What should we do?"
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Footsteps on the path behind us were heard.
"What's the matter, four-eyes?" A sharp, mocking voice from somewhere back there. "Have you started turning into an icicle already?"
Viktor ran toward us, easy and unhurried, as though the temperature was not affecting him at all. The red streaks in his black hair stood out against the grey of the sky and the white of the snow.
"Mind your own business, Matchstick," Kieran replied. His voice cracked slightly from the cold despite himself.
Viktor came closer and stopped one step away from us. He looked at the three of us with that lazy, superior smile —then raised his right hand, palm open.
Heat came off it immediately. Slow at first, then building. We all moved a half-step closer without thinking, we all came closer to him and the heat became even hotter.
The ice under Viktor's boots cracked and softened into water as the warmth spread.
"You guys are pathetic sight," he said — but he didn't step away, and the heat kept coming.
"The Ruler will cut you from this before you even reach the end of this path if you keep moving at this snail's pace."
"Did you stop here just to brag at us?" Luiz asked, though he had, without seeming to notice it, leaned subtly closer to the warmth.
"Actually, I was just passing by. When I saw the three of you shaking like rabbits waiting to get devoured." The corner of his mouth moved. "It really brought a smile onto my face. So I decided to help you out."
His eyes moved to Kieran.
"Also — it would get boring if my favorite rabbit dropped out on the very first day. We have unfinished business, remember?"
"Are you trying to put me in your debt," Kieran said with a serious tone.
"You can view it however you find easiest. Besides, I'm not imposing this debt on you alone." His gaze shifted to Luiz, then to me.
It stayed on me.
Longer than the others. Long enough that something in me became aware of it and grew uneasy — the feeling of being looked at too directly, too carefully, as if he was looking directly at my soul.
Then he withdrew his hand and closed it.
The warmth vanished with it.
"That's as much as I can give you, rabbits."
He turned, picked up his pace, and continued down the path without looking back, or saying anything.
"Arrogant bastard," Kieran muttered.
"Arrogant or not, he just saved our asses," Luiz said, rubbing his hands together as the warmth faded. "Let's move before we began to freeze again!"
And so we ran — Luiz out front, Kieran behind him, and me at the back — down the long white path between the snow-covered trees, somewhere toward whatever was at the other end of these three kilometers.