Chapter 13: Training
<<Xeleria's POV>>
“Feel the arrow as if it were a part of your hands.” Zylle instructs as I aim its pointed edge at the small little circle he marked on the trunk of the tree. Its distance was almost impossible for me to hit that I can’t even clearly see it with my poor eyesight.
I take my thousandth deep breath before shooting for we’ve been just doing this initial step over and over again. It annoys me!
I’m about to release the lethal weapon until—
“Stop. Do it again.”
See what I mean? I’ve been doing this for the millionth time now and he’s been stopping me for the billionth time now. I haven’t even had a chance to shoot once!
With composure and clenching of my teeth, I relax my body as I balance with my other lucky foot stepped forward and thinking of the arrow as part of me. Along with the complete focus of my eyes, I aim the bow to the target with the painful treacherous internal bleeding fingers of my hand.
“Do it again.” He once again, rages me and pushes me out of my freaking long patience!
I disarm myself from the weapon and point a finger on his chest. I take a deep breath full of sarcasm with all the annoyance I kept in. “Why do you keep stopping me for the trillionth time already?! Do you wanna die huh?!” I didn’t expect those words come out of my mouth but nonetheless, I’m too exhausted.
“’Coz you won’t hit the target and the arrow would be wasted.” His stance was tall that I can’t outmatch him.
That’s all?! I could buy zillions of arrows you know! Argh! “Then why do you need to freaking make me learn how to use a bow and those arrows when there’s an easier weapon like a gun! I had a license recently for I turned eighteen and I know how to fire!”
He smirks with the usual intimidating aura he gives off almost as if he’s so confident with himself every single millisecond.
“What’s with that smile?” I annoyingly ask to keep up with our mental fight.
He takes a black familiar weapon from his pocket which I wanted for its durability. It was a Glock 42.380 pistol that fits like a small toy with the tight relaxed grip of his hands as he aims the lined tin cans even farther than the trunk of the tree I was shooting awhile ago which I couldn’t almost see. What more if it was that far. “I’ll let you forget about the arrows if you shoot more than me. You have a chance to shoot ten times consecutively.”
Finally! I get a glimpse of hope as he hands me the gun. I’m quite confident with my shooting skills for my mom trained me how to shoot when I was younger before I even got a license. “Game.”
I take a tight grip on it as my finger dwells on its trigger and aim it at the first target within the range. Finally, I pull the trigger which produces the lovely sound of ten consecutive gunshots as it escapes from the barrel. The first shot was tight that made my hand pull backwards, a warning before I take the other shots. I focus more than ever as the rest are fired. “Game over.” My thrilled system excitedly checks upon how many cans I’ve got.
“I got five.” It was quite a great amount already depending on the distance that I aimed from.
I lined the cans again for his turn. He seems still confident which confuses me even more with my high self esteem.
He takes a rather weird grip of the gun as he suddenly presses the trigger without having a sign that he’s ready to shoot. The consecutive sound of gunshots and tin cans falling can be heard with the fast speed he used. He’s even faster than me.
“I got nine. I intend to miss the last one for you.” goes this cocky humanoid as he keeps the gun that was my only hope of changing training weapons.
My jaw drops as I verify the number of cans that fell and hit directly in the middle.
“Now get your weapon.”
I stubbornly arm myself with the old weapon and repeat what I did for about a gazillion times already, aiming the arrow until I’m already ready to release it. With that he stops me again.
“What again?!” I scream with more rage than what I did at first. Who’d say that losing at the gun shooting game would make my pride hurt?
He turns around and starts to jog up the tracks. “There’s no use shooting for now. You need to develop you body’s balance. Now, jog.” says the superior.
It became about more than an hour that we’ve been jogging in this fast pace along with the zigzagged tracks.
"Wait!" I still manage to retaliate despite Zylle who still pushes forward, leaving about twenty-meter distance between us.
"Hey you! Wait for me you erratic humanoid!" Still, he doesn’t look back but just keeps running.
I guess I’ve just strained my voice with the endless calling of his name. Every step my feet takes on the rock-strewn soil appears to make him farther and farther from me.
My vision starts to get blurry, caused by the endless running or what Zylle called jogging. In anytime if ever I could catch up, I might have kicked his legs to be impaired for a moment. Different prisms of tinted light add to my dizziness as the sun emits carroty waves in the crack of dawn.
“Hey Zy—” Without warning, my foot slips off the dicey shingles and gets caught up in a sturdy tree root looped around the grounds making me hanging upside down along the towering steep precipice.
In my surprise, Zylle was already standing above me with a smirk on his face. How could he already be there in a blink of an eye if he was about twenty meters far off from me?
“Can you just pull me up before I even fall dead here?” I say as I have the nauseated feeling as I look down at where I’m going to be falling if my foot slips off.
“No.” He utters with that blank expression.
“What?” I ask in stupor as my left foot naturally kicks up, making my leg slowly unknot itself from the only supporting branch keeping me intact.
“You get up your own. Part of training.” He voices out with a twitch on his lips along with that crossing of his arms indicating superiority.
“What?” My jaw drops as clumps of soil gives in, a sign that it couldn’t handle my weight anymore. “Hey! Would you let me die here?”
“Any Azorian blooded people can survive that.” Along with those lines, he takes flight leaving me behind hanging with one hand just to prevent myself from falling down the cliff.
I look down trying to see the faraway end of it and wonder just how the freaking hell can someone survive from falling down this height?
As I try to pull myself up, a sudden waft of zephyr blows, making the erosion of my only hope crumble faster than what I expected to.
My bruised hands from gripping the coarse branch feel like slipping away. “Zylle! There’s no joke! I’m really gonna—”
In a split second, I could feel my body almost like turning into feather as it falls down with the speed of sound. “Zylle!” My only last cry of help could be heard with the high pitched voice of mine.
I close my eyes, neglecting reality as the wind blows with the pressure of my falling body. Any Azorian blooded person could survive this huh? I’m a human trained with their so called weak system okay?!
Just as I was about to shout my anger and confusion instead of fear, I feel my back slumping against something soft yet hardly built. With my eyes open, I notice that I was flying further up instead of falling down. My brain which was in a recent stupor tries to see who owns the strong built arms that is holding me.
I’m so glad that he saved me that I almost believed that he’d just let me die with his instructions awhile back. “Zylle?” I voice out with a voice between being a whisper or just silence with the voice inside my head.
Little did I know, it wasn’t the name of the person I called out. It wasn’t Zylle, but someone else.
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Dedicated to my friend that I kind of haven't gotten in contact for a long time and kinda miss somehow. He's good and I hope he continues writing! :)
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