5. ''SOLDIER''

When the common soldier brought me to the Leader, as he said, I saw Tan was also brought in. By opening and closing his eyes calmly, he was trying to convey the message, "Everything will be all right." Although his comfort like this gave me confidence, I was aware that nothing would get in the way.

When we were both told to enter the small but well-equipped hut where the Leader was perched, we were pretty quiet.

There was no one inside but the Leader and his two soldier guards. The noise and bustle of the outside, was not reflected in. The ammunition covering the walls was spoiling the cozy and warm appearance of the hut. "So, you have come." Said the Leader, as if we were in a position to do the opposite. Still, I kept my silence and continued to stand.

After about half a second, two transparent bags were left down to our feet. "Wear these." Ordered the Leader. Inside the bags, there were clothes worn by the common soldiers. "Are you kidding me?" I said, trying to grasp the situation. "You think am I?" Leader said, solemnly.

"We'd rather to die than wear these uniforms of an army coming to destroy our people." I said. Tan shook his head up and down, as an agreement.

The leader got up from his seat and, after circling the two of us, stood in our midst. "I know you can afford to die," He said and turned his head to me. "And can you afford your mother and your little siblings to die as well?" When he completed his sentence, I felt like I got shot from my head. I didn't answer, the answer was already obvious.

While I was trying to keep my face calm, "I thought so. Dress up now." he said and walked away from us. At that moment, all I wanted to do was hug Tan and cry like crazy.

We kept silent as the two soldiers next to the Leader dragged us to a different part of the hut. The commons opened the door of another room and pushed us in, then closed the door on us and left.

"Are we really going to do this?" Staring at Tan, I asked boldly, given the space of the room. With his ailing face, he looked straight at me. "Do we have any other choice, Alya?" After what he said, he tear the package apart and put aside the clothes he had taken out.

"You better start dressing up too. Piss off the Leader mean's your family is in danger."

I pressed my lips together and I began to dress the way he did. Without hesitation that Tan was here, I took off my clothes and started wearing the overalls provided. Yet, he turned his back to me as if denying this daring attitude of mine.

Unlike the usual, the clothes were not green but a near navy blue, with a large "POST" logo on the left side of the top. Below there was "Planned Organization Suicide Team" labelled, which stands for POST. Because we were without any senior, they were neither a star nor a symbol on our arms, but even appearing as a POST soldier was considered a rank for normal people. The scary one.

"Are you ready?" Tan said, behind me. "I mean, you finished looking at that mirror, right?" He continued. At least we should have smiled at what he said, but neither of us had a gesture that came close to smiling. Instead of turning around, I nod at his reflect on the mirror which is looking at me. He pointed at the door and said, "Let's go out." I could not tell, if he was so hasty because he was wondering what Leader was going to tell us, or whether he liked the idea of being a POST soldier.

Still, I got out of where we were, accordanced to him.

The Leader had a big smile on his face when he saw us, he liked it so much that I could swear his eyes were shining with excitement. "Well done guys! It looks great. You will officially become a POST soldier with the tasks I will give!" Said. His voice was heavy and rude.

Why did he liked us this much? What did we mean to him? There were a lot of soldiers already.

"You're just bluffing." I said, with a mocking laugh.

"Being a POST soldier? Hah! I haven't heard something funnier yet."

Nobody was laughing except me.

Leader and Tan were looking at my face frivolously while I was trying to suppress my laughter. I had tears in my eyes from laughing even though there wasn't any funny thing.

After a while, I stopped laughing, collapsed to floor and started crying. While this was happening to me, no one was speaking, all of them were watching with a great care. I was feeling like a mad person. Finally Tan came to me and started patting my back, at that moment I couldn't help but hug him.

•••

"You're going to point it over there and take a deep breath. Yeah, stay like this, you're in a nice position. Now..." I was trying to apply what the senior soldier taught behind me. They had gave us huge guns and sent us to two separate instructors, and we were not even in our town right now. We were brought to a special place with a plane. This area was based for training only, so I have never seen here before and had no clue about where we were.

Before entering to this place, they also covered our eyes with a black bandage.

The training phase was simple afterall, but the main issue was; where to use what we learned here.

Judging by what the soldiers did until now, we had to kill people, torture people and do things like that. I was the last person to do this, yet, I had to try to forget this for now and keep my family alive as long as I can until I save them. "Are you sure you're listening to me, Alya?" said the senior, behind me. He didn't even tell me his name, but he knew mine already. "Huh? Yeah. I'm listening, please go ahead." I said. He was just looking into my eyes while his eyebrows were frowning, I couldn't hold my eyes any longer on him.

"Look, if you have a little bit piece of a brain, you will do what I say and complete this stage. Otherwise, I don't think I need to tell you what will happen." He said in a stern voice. I listened quietly what been said. "Understand?" He shouted.

I did not answer.

I must have annoyed him that after he got so close to the bottom of my ear, and "I said do you understand?!" he shouted as loud as he can.

"Yes!" I said as I withdrew myself. "Yes, understood!" "Good." He said, calmly. "Then let's continue, raise your gun again and return to the previous position."

After doing what he said, I was waiting for a new order. "Shoot now!" I started shooting one after the other when he ordered. Of course, it was not a coincidence that I shot them all. My father taught me and my brothers how to use rifles and weapons when the army named POST started to occupy every village. He also emphasized that it would be necessary one day and would be useful to know. Well, what he said happened eventually. As I see there was not even a bottle left intact, I took the gun down and looked at the senior. "I didn't tell you that you can get the gun down, soldier." When he said, with a guilt, I moved the gun back to its original position. "You can, now." He said, annoyingly.

While rolling my eyes, I lowered the gun. "You will not roll your eyes again to me, soldier, learn to do what I say. Understand?" I just nodded. "Do you copy, soldier?" He repeated. "Understood!" I shouted. I continued to stand where I was, suppressing my urge to scream until squall. "Follow me now." He said as he turned around. "Now that you understand this very well, we can move on to the next training."

The interior of the place where we continued to progress was felt very low, but this was not due to the ceiling. There was an unpleasant odor around, and the yellow lights were distressing. Strange things were written and drawn on the walls. It was all about POST soldiers, I was able to remotely select names and ridiculous POST marches.

"Are you afraid of heights, soldier?" Senior asked, as if he wanted to excite me while we are still walking. "No." I replied, but in fact I was not afraid of anything else as much as I fear of heights. "Then today is your lucky day." After what he said, he pushed a long huge door hard, with both hands and made it clear to me that I was dealing with another educational fallacy.

About five minutes later, without even telling me what I was going to face, he asked me to enter the dressing room, put on the clothes there and return to him within 60 seconds.

I started wearing hooked clothes without much examination. This time it was not overalls and consisted of two pieces. After I wore a dark blue, short sleeved t-shirt, I wore loose pant made from the fabric of military overalls. Since no new shoes or boots to wear here, I put the boot that was given in the first time back on my feet.

I was out of breath as I rushed back to the instructor. I was stressed while the senior checking on his watch.

"You're about 13 seconds late."

We were in a closed area and his voice echoed as the surroundings were empty. Despite what he said, I was silent. "I have to punish you." I hurriedly raised my head, which I bowed to the ground, and looked at his face. What kind of punishment was that? "Rules, soldier. You'll follow them. Lie on the ground and do 50 push-ups. You have 15 minutes." When he said, I looked at him with my eyes wide. "I've never done push-ups before, I don't know how to do it, sir." I said embarrassingly. The reason I stayed calm was because, I tried to make him feel sorry for me, but so far this has rendered my efforts futile.

"No objections, soldier. Go ahead." I kept looking at his face when he said.

"What are you looking at? Come on!"