I Am The Weapon

They are training me to be their greatest weapon.

Or at least that’s what they say. Day after day after day. Always the same routine and the same phrases. Try harder, do better, fight like your life depends on it. Well I mean the last one makes sense, because here it really does.

They are training us, lots of us. I suppose they need to train many because only the greatest make it through. Only the best of the best. The ones who can beat their friends to a pulp and not think twice, the ones who can kill without feeling remorse. The ones who can look at you and pick out five weaknesses in the blink of an eye.

Nobody really knows why they need us. Or who “they” really are. We have our trainers, who have been through, what we all call, the process. Our trainers, or teachers I guess, if teachers were harsh and deadly, give us assignments and then watch our every move.

We were all taught basic combat skills since we could walk. Boys and girls were separated. Then eventually knives came around the age of 10, guns closer to 13. We got to play around with all kinds of fun things at the age of 15. Then at the age of 16 we all chose a favourite weapon to specialize in. They split us into smaller groups then, each group rewarded with a new teacher.

We spent two whole years learning our weapon of choice. How to wield it, how to use it to your personal advantages, how to find your opponents disadvantages, how the slightest grip change could mean life or death, we learned anything there was to our weapons. ‘They’ wanted us to be perfect together. Warrior and blade, made into one. Our weapons made into an extra limb. ‘They’ wanted us to be crippled without it. So that’s exactly what happened. Every single one of us had an advantage. Every single one of us invincible.

Then in our 18th year they put us all together again. This is when the, “Fight like your life depends on it!” phrases started to come out. They put us into small arenas at first with an opponent of the same weapon.

Eventually came the first fight, it started the same as it had for the past two years. Ended the same as usual. Someone would be lying on the floor having given up, they were both all bloody and breathing heavy, ready to be done. We would go to help the person off the floor, and then be stopped. Our teachers would say no. Which was confusing. We had done the same thing over and over for months and months, yet the teacher was saying we weren’t finished.

We all backed off as told, expecting some sort of lecture about how one of the girls wasn’t holding her arm high enough. Expecting to be told about some crucial change that could have changed the entire outcome. That would have been a blessing, but what we all received was a curse.

Our teacher that day, a young blonde woman probably in her twenties, had a face that was forever burned into my mind. She was the face that changed my life into a reality. We all knew we were being trained to kill, to slaughter, but this is the first time we had seen it.

The young blonde woman placed her hands behind her black leather jacket. Within two seconds she had shot both of the 18 year old girls, in the arena, right between the eyes. Within five seconds the gun was hidden and she had started her lecture like nothing had happened.

Most of us didn’t move a muscle. We were too afraid of what would happen if we showed weakness. If we showed disobedience.

All I can remember is a single sentence she said.

“Next time,” she took a breath and smiled, a kind pearly white smile, “we should listen when I give an order.”

I can remember yelling in unison with every other girl, “Yes ma’am!” After that, well after that my day was a blur.

We continued on fighting, this time killing our close friends, some being killed themselves. We continued on being good little soldiers. Doing exactly as we were told nothing more and nothing less.

They eventually stopped the fighting. But only when there were only two people left in each weapons category and stuck us in an arena.

We were probably there for months. Having to find shelter, food, water, warmth. That was the easy part. We had been taught how to do that again, and again, when we were just small children. The hard part was intentionally seeking out the people you had grown up with for your entire life and fighting until one of you was begging for mercy. When there was only one person in your weapons category left you were allowed to leave.

That brings us to our 19th year. Only about 20 girls left, all angry and deadly. Me being one of those. Me being one of the girls having practically killed my entire class. Some of the girls I saw as family. All dead. Except for 19 of them. I knew some of them, and hated others. Most of them were friends. After the first fight when I saw those two girls murdered for having not understood an order, I tried not to make friends. After having to kill almost all the girls I spent two years of my life with, I forced myself to not make friends.

Now that we are 19 we get to go through something our trainers have named, ‘The Partner Trials’ None of us know what to expect or what is going to happen. Asking questions here is seen as weak, so we just wait until our briefing.