One

Her cot feels cold in the night air, his stare, nervous, questioning. The sounds of teenage recruits laughing and fooling around are recorded as simple white noise. A candle rests on the locker beside her to hold the dark at bay. Her hand brushes itself through her long, dark-brown hair, and rests on the pillow.

            "Stare any harder and ill bruise." she rolled to her side to get a better look at the black-haired boy unable to pry his eyes from her.

"Sorry, I wasn't… I mean, just… sorry." He smiled awkwardly and looked away.

Blinking, she teased, "It's really not hurting anything I guess; just try to be a little more subtle."

The boy brushed his hand over his red face, blushing. "So, hey, I heard we were getting a psycho in, you hear about it?"

"No, but I just got here. Who is it?" she asked back, "and why do you say they're psycho?"

"Some fire guy, they say he melted his classroom or something. Fuckin nuts, eh?"

Her eyes narrowed, "It's 'PYRO', I am not a psycho, and you're just too deaf or stupid to get it right." She shot back. "I'm also not a guy, so fuck you."

Surprised, he stammered out "a... ah, damn, I didn't mean to say you were, like..."

"Leave me alone." she cut him off rolling to her right as her eyes streamed sadness across her face. Yet again, the fire is all anybody cares about, she thinks, and closed her eyes as a memory floods back to her.

"Give it back" Amber shouted.

A boy two years older had ripped a truck from her hands. She looked for the day-sitter, Margaret. The chair was empty; no doubt Will had come by again. Two or three times a week her boyfriend "Will" would stop by and the two would disappear for quite a while leaving all the kids to govern themselves. Amber wasn't stupid; she was old enough to know what a boyfriend was, and why they disappeared. Not that she knew any details explaining how boyfriends required a disappearing act.

"Why don't you make me?" the boy shoved her, "trucks are for boys, find a dolly to play with."

She squealed as he turned his back to her. She ran at him driving his face into the wall, blood erupted from his nose, but she didn't stop there. She couldn't stop, he had infuriated her every day for weeks, and she would not let him bully her.

Blow after blow struck his face as she clenched the collar of his shirt in her left hand. Another scream filled the air and she struck with fire. His eyebrows burned away, and then his hair scorched while the bleeding from his face was cauterized and the skin blistered.

By the time Margaret had gotten down the stairs to see what the screaming was about, amber had stopped. She dropped the boy's collar allowing him to slump onto the floor. Shame struck her.

Her hands shook furiously, and saline poured down her cheeks as she panicked. Her breath escaped from her lungs and she hyperventilated as her chest clawed desperately, hungrily to recover it. The room spun and blurred while the young man and woman ran into the room. Amber heard a scream, her knees gave out, and the darkness carried her to the floor.

            The sun rose over the torn hillside and crept through barred windows sparsely lining the Barracks they nicknamed 'The Trench' she pulled a clean shirt over her bra and laced her boots. Transfers weigh heavy on every soldier, but THEY don't get three each year. Why bother unpacking? Why own anything worth keeping?

"Clean your gear, make and stow your bed, clean up, eat, routine, routine…" she thought to herself as she made her way through the double doors toward the cafeteria building.

The mess hall was crowded with hungry teens, trying to step over each other in line. The floor was a yellowing-white and chipped-black tile. Round picnic tables had been placed in a grid, allowing foot traffic between them. As she joined the lines, she tried to ignore the mustard-yellow walls. The place may have been nice at one time, but it was in a shocking state of disrepair. Once, just once it would be nice to show what she had learned. Strategize, be team leader, anything other than an "it" that nobody trusted.

Breakfast slop today was egg whites, toast, and a corned "beef" hash. A tray was loaded up and handed to her before she made her way to an isolated table by the doors. There was more chatter here than her last base, but everything seemed so colorless. The uniforms were a gray green instead of the bright blue of her last outfit. The buildings had to have been from world war 2, and the grounds had large mud patches where grass refused to grow.

Captain Andrew Carter called. "Supervisory Squad Commander Ramirez have your troop prepped by Oh-nine-Hundred! Graduation is right around the corner, and I expect none of you to disappoint!"

"Time to stuff-and-run" she thought while loading her mouth with egg-whites, and toast. Grabbing her coat, she rushed through the crowds of recruits hurrying to their fifteen-minute breakfast, and recruits racing from it. Eat now, or forever hold your peace… on the plus side, the food was always nutritious, and you didn't have time to taste it.

She swallowed the dry lump of toast just outside of the mess hall, and power walked south toward the hillside overlooking the river. There were already a few kids there chattering like the ones in the cafeteria. As two more groups of kids joined them a tall Hispanic man took the head of the group. He had salt and pepper hair, a small but noticeable scar on his cleanly shaved chin, and a steel look in his eye that seemed to get him taken seriously but didn't make you fear him.