"You're all failures." Bright spoke in a condescending tone. "That's why." Esme's complaints drew silent. He'd woken them before the morning sun rested along the horizon. Bright had not given Team 12 even a modicum of sleep. Priar rubbed his eyes open, crust clinging to his finger tips. He wanted to complain just as Esme did, but knew it would cause more trouble than it was worth. All teams gathered in the classroom once again yawning and stretching their sore limbs. Bright admired the silence before he spoke. "As it stands right now, you're all less than bugs, hell- if I caught you outside of this basement I wouldn't even notice you!" Slug stifled a laugh, Priar nudged him with his elbow. "You wanna be the best? You want to never see my ugly mug again? You've gotta learn how to crawl your asses outta here."
Just then the door swung open. Rudolph came in carrying two duffel bags at his side
"My desk!" Bright commanded.
"Yes sir!" He followed without question.
"You can't afford to rest in your positions, it's gonna take a lot of work to catch up." he said, unzipping the bag, "Luckily for you, we have ways of making that happen in just a few days." revealing something Priar had never seen before. It was a headset that went around the eyes. It held the shape of glasses, but there were no eyeholes. It's made from carbon fiber all the way around, leaving the wearer in complete darkness. It opted for a sleek, but durable look. The arms of the headset folded allowing for easy transportation. "This piece of tech is called Harmony." Bright smiled. "This is the magic of this school you hear me?" The class looked between one another shrugging their shoulders. "State of the art technology made to turn young minds like yourselves into the greatest soldiers this world has ever seen". The class turned to each other in a silent confusion. "Now, who can tell me what this does?"
Esme stood from her chair and spoke, "It allows wearers to enter a training program." Bright's smile dropped.
"Correct, but you're missing the most important part. When you wear it, you don't just go into a program. You dream of one. You know what that means right? You'll never be wasting precious time by sleeping. In Harmony, each and every second goes into training." His smile returned once more at the thought of tormenting the kids. "It allows the wearers to come into a place called the dreamscape, where anything can exist so long as you got the imagination for it."
A boy from team 11 stood from his seat. "Sir, with all due respect, how is this going to train us? It sounds like you're trying to work us to exhaustion. Isn't rest important to maintain the quality of our training?" Murmurs spread around the room in agreement.
Bright chuckled. "Have a seat Issac, you didn't seem to catch my meaning in that thick skull of yours. When you're in Harmony, you ARE sleeping. You'll wake up just as rested as you would normally." Issac slid his chair back under him, with no further questions. "Just because you have access to this, doesn't mean you all get to pump out whatever sick teenage fantasies you have either. These are not YOUR dreams you're running around in. They're mine. That's right, I'll see everything you little bastards get up to, so don't even THINK about doing something stupid" Bright jerked his head in Priar's direction. Priar gulped back a wad of spit. The class groaned at the thought of it. Bright scoffed, "You all sound tired! let's get you hooked up, shall we?"
Half of the class was brought into the dreamscape while the other half was tasked to keep track of the time. Unluckily enough, Priar's team was the first out of his mouth, along with teams 11 and 9. Priar fumbled with the locking mechanism behind his head. He hadn't a clue how the machine worked and no one thought that receiving instructions from a blind man would be so difficult to follow. Silent as a mouse, he'd felt a pair of cold hands at the back of his head, locking him in. He quietly thanked his savior, but they did not respond. He questioned Slug, who was at his side, but he was already in the dreamscape. He broke into a cold sweat, afraid of what could happen if it went haywire. He didn't have time to think about it because as soon as he laid back in his chair, his consciousness faded.
From behind his eyelids, he saw a white light that only grew brighter with each blink. He'd awoken in an instance outside of what he could constitute as reality. The ground he stood on was pure white blocks separated in a grid-like pattern. There were no walls or ceiling, just the endless expanse of unknown that eventually faded into a heavy fog.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Slug standing beside him just as he was in class.
"Woah, this place un-fucked your eye!" Slug shouted. Priar felt where the swollen lump should've been and instead felt only the smooth warmth of his skin returned to him. Not much further ahead, he saw the rest of his team waking up in the dream as well. Finally, a mass of neon blue blocks floated from the air to form the figure of a man, then sculpted the details of a face in quick succession. The hair folded and fell to his shoulders, the scars that once covered his face were no more, revealing a younger and much more attractive looking man, one that very closely resembled their instructor. His blue eyes looked between them all, Bright was no longer blind.
"You're all a lot uglier than I thought." Bright said from behind a grimace.
Priar's eyes went wide, "You can see us?"
"I've got eyes don't I?" Bright responded. He loved harmony for that reason. Before his vision was taken from him, he'd been able to enjoy life as it was. Take in the sights of an open sky. His gaze would meet with the woman he'd been fond of. He'd see his nephews and nieces grow older into the brilliant minds they were destined to become. It was all taken from him in an instant, but Harmony allowed him just for a little while, to live in those moments again. "Let's get this over with. I would like to enjoy my dreams again."
With a wave of his hand, the endless white was painted blue. A single thorn bush formed at Priar's legs, then not soon after trees sprouted from the grid, the pattern fading away and taking the shape of rolling humps, ponds, and cliffs. From above birds chirped their songs loudly. A snake the size of Priar's leg slithered along the ground attempting to sneak by without notice. Sloths as big as Lance slept on the hanging vines, rocking to and fro at the shifting of their breath.
With a wave of Bright's hand, he'd turned nothing, into a dense rainforest, full of life, and humid as ever. Priar had questioned if any of it was really a dream. He took a step forward, feeling the dirt beneath him shift as if there was more to it than just the grid. He kicked up a small hole in the ground as a test and sure enough, there was no resistance. Had he continued, he would've never found the barrier.
Bright closed his eyes to concentrate, trees shifted out of the way making room for something to rise from the grid. There was no shifting in the earth, only an awkward climb from the ground as a large canopy pitched itself into the dirt, under it spawned foldable tables with firearms lined neatly along. Bright waved his finger upwards and spawned target dummies at varying distances, starting at 50 meters, and going as far as 250. The farthest one was hidden at the base of a tree, its leaves shading the dummy from sight.
"12, you're up. Show me what you can do." Priar looked around to his team, not wanting to go first. When suddenly Rudolph, without a word, strode into the range, taking a rifle from the table and steadying his aim on the first target. "Look at this fine example here. If you weren't as useful as a bag of piss, I'd say you look natural with a gun." he patted Rudolph on the shoulder. "How about this," Bright pointed to the targets. "If any of you hit more than three I'll give your team a surprise before we start the exercise." Rudolph looked to the targets with a newfound ferocity. He eagerly awaited Bright's orders. Bright smirked, sensing the performance to come. "Fire"
Rudolph pulled the trigger without hesitation, he did not even flinch at the explosion within the gun's chamber.
DINK
First target hit.
DINK
Second. One after another each target had a finger sized hole plunged into it. Bright smiled proudly. The last and furthest target had been almost entirely obscured by the foliage. Rudolph took a moment to realign his shot, taking a long breath. He squeezed the trigger. His bullet penetrated the thick leaf protecting his target, causing the drop off to occur much faster than anticipated. Rudolph was no novice, he'd already accounted for that.
DINK
No one was able to match Rudolph's accuracy. Lance came closest, hitting all but the last one. Slug and Jolie hit two of the five. Priar hardly knew how to hold the gun let alone shoot it. Him and Esme were in the same predicament, they'd missed all of their shots. When Priar asked Slug the trick behind it, Slug simply shrugged.
"It's just something you've gotta get used to."
Esme sighed, overhearing their conversation. She'd also wanted to know, she'd been embarrassed by her ineptitude and this only furthered when watching the other teams leave her dust.
Lance walked beside Priar and whispered to him. "I told you, don't get complacent. I'm going to take out a corporal too." His demeanor was much colder than previous conversations. Before, he'd made their rivalry a fun challenge, now it seemed much more than that. "Then, you're next."
"What?" Priar muttered through weighted breath. Lance winked without expression and focused his attention back to the range. Priar stepped away from his teammate, obviously put off. His back slammed into someone, they stumbled back trying to catch themselves on Priar's shirt as he felt a pair of long nails scraped against his back. Priar quickly turned in time to see a tangle of golden blonde fall to the floor, covering the face of the woman he'd just knocked over. She shook the hair from her view revealing tanned skin and a pair of auburn eyes looking up to him in surprise. She'd worn an oversized shirt to bed and hadn't had the time to change out of it, her pajama pants were light blue with the design of sheep frolicing with one another.
Jackpot Priar thought.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there." he offered his hand to her. "I don't know what's gotten into me today. I think it's this Harmony thing." he said with a warm smile.
She returned his kindness not wanting him to worry about her. "No it's ok, it's all pretty confusing for me too."
"What's your name? I have a terrible memory."
"It's fine, I do as well," she chuckled to herself. "Lucile, but my friends call me Lucy." She brushed her hair behind her ear.
"Well Lucy, I hope it's not too forward of me to say this, but you might have the most beautiful eyes I've had the pleasure of looking into." he gently held her hand.
"Oh, Thank you! I've never been told that before…" she chuckled. She'd been homeschooled most of her life, so compliments like these were few and far between. Her parents would warn her about boys like Priar, but this school would be the first experience she'd have around other people her age. Surely he's just being nice, she thought.
"I'm Priar by the way-" he barely got out, then with brutal force he'd been shoved to the floor from behind. He caught himself in the dirt, his palms getting scratched on rocks, the pain still stung as if he was in the real world. He turned to see another blonde that shared an uncanny resemblance to Lucy. It was her twin brother, Issac.
"You stay the hell away from her!" he demanded, quickly closing the distance between the two of them, pointing a finger in his face. Priar put his hands up in surrender, giving up the fight in an instant. He'd not wanted to test the limits on just how much pain he could endure. But Slug had other ideas.
From seemingly nowhere, a fist flew into Issac's chin, knocking him to the ground. In a blind rage Slug mounted him, and began bashing him with clubbed fists like a wild animal. Priar raced to his friend and grabbed him by the arm, holding him back.
"Calm down!" Priar shouted. Slug relented, allowing himself to be brought away. Bright glanced over his shoulder at the commotion, then ignored it telling the boy from team 11 to keep firing. Issac held his face, stumbling to his feet.
"You fuckers!" his sister offered him a shoulder to lean on. "I'll get you both for this!" a tear streamed down his cheek as he ran off. Slug's shoulders relaxed as his breath finally calmed.
"The hell was that?" Priar questioned.
"He shouldn't be putting his hands on you." Slug said with confidence.
"What are you talking about? You started bashing his head in like a wild ape!"
Slug flinched. "Was it too much?"
"No you beautiful bastard, that was awesome!" Priar admitted, pulling him into a hug.