Those Hollow Lies

The Frankenstein Solution

6/16/09 11am-ish?

The last few days had been hell on earth. My muscles screamed at me to stop and my mind was roaring for me to run away from all of this before I ended up dead. The moment Roz had locked my dad in the safe house was the moment everything intensified. My body, mind and heart had been forced to ordeal more training, more bruises and more pain that I ever wished could be inflicted on them.

Roz barely broke a sweat each time she rendered my legs useless.

“You know, I doubt we’re ever going to need to fight with sticks.” I said, blocking her swipe from the large bamboo cane that she swung skilfully in my direction.

“You have to learn to work with anything that is around you. If you run out of bullets, are disarmed by an enemy or anything of the like, you must be able to use whatever is laying nearby in order to defend yourself.” She swept my legs out from underneath me and pinned me to the floor, the burning sensation from her attack shooting through my calves. “And you need to start acting as if I am the enemy.”

“But you’re not. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Believe me, whatever you could do is nothing compared to some of the injuries I’ve sustained in the past.” She helped me up and discarded both weapons to the side. I watched her as she elegantly moved to wrap her knuckles.

“Still doesn’t mean that I want to fight you.” I stood by her side, doing the same as I allowed my body to recover. Her dark eyes flicked over to me and a frightful expression of sorrow flicked through her eyes for just a split second before it was gone again.

“Then I’ll make you.”

6/20/09 night time? Around 9pm.

At first, her words left me puzzled and confused, but over the next few hours she began to put what I could only assume was a plan in motion. Downstairs, when I was returning from my lunch, I had overheard her telling another agent that it would be who would cause Joe’s death if I didn’t buck up my ideas and start fighting like my life was on the line.

The words hurt, almost like a dagger to the chest, but I pushed them away as best as I could. This was a tough time for Roz; tougher than I could ever comprehend and I knew that she wanted me to start putting some real weight behind my punches, some real meaning and dedication in my training, but because I was with her - one of the Quarter’s own - I simply couldn’t. It was aggravating her and annoying her to no end, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to throw a punch at Roz that would render her unconscious or worse.

However, that was only the beginning. Over the next two days, things progressively got worse. Roz humiliated me in front of the whole Quarter, called me incompetent, said that if she died trying to save me because I wouldn’t train correctly, then her death would be on my conscience and everyone here would know about it. Her words began to cut deep. She’d accuse me of thinking that this was just fun and games, that I didn’t care about what happened to Joe, I didn’t care about what would happen to her…

It was horrible and so far from the truth that I didn’t know what to say or do. She was aggressive, yes, but her words were unnecessary. She knew what this meant to me - what [I]she[/I] meant to me! Whenever I tried to talk to her though, she walked away, refusing to acknowledge me until I took this seriously and began to put in the effort. It was starting to annoy me. Each morning she’d drag me into the training room, spar with me for a bit before saying that I was weak and useless to her still and that she’d have a better chance of surviving if she took on the whole government on her own. I didn’t like the fact that every casualty possible was to be blamed on me or that the downfall of the country could happen if I didn’t start pulling my weight. It was unfair and totally unjustified by anything. No one dared argue with Roz though and so each time, she grew more aggressive, her eyes holding nothing but anger in them as she belittled me in front of everyone.