Emphemeria

I stayed two days in the academy infirmary. I tried to get out of bed, but I could not. I had a bit of a headache, I was in a place quite far away from the rest of the cadets.

I looked out the window and saw all the new cadets doing a series of physical training. They were almost five hundred meters away from where I was. This was part of the academy routine, everyone must be prepared for unexpected events against enemies that could attack them.

They put a bandage on my hand, I took it off and noticed that I had lost two fingers on my hand and the others were bandaged. I felt that maybe it happened when I ran, maybe a shard from the bomb fell on me. I had no choice but to calm down a little and not cry.

From one moment to the next I saw the door to the room open it was the nurse and the same second level cadet. She had a bandage on her arm. She didn't hesitate to speak to me.

"Cadet Nick, the academy congratulates you on your bravery, but due to your health condition you are asked to withdraw from the institution. It takes all your fingers to pilot a ship, and being whole is a requirement to get in here."

I laughed internally, and he responded in the best way.

"I won't, my father won't leave me even if I lose a leg."

"You can get a prosthetic and come back next year, and you can pilot a ship, it takes both fingers. The process for a prosthesis is complicated, and the institution won't cover that."

I felt a lot of coldness from the people who ran this place. I had prevented a tragedy, but instead of thanking me, they threw me out. However, I knew my father was not going to leave me alone and out of curiosity I spoke to the nurse.

"Nurse, did someone send me something?"

"Yes, it was a while ago, it's a package."

As I listened to her I knew that my father in the few days found a way to help me and had what I needed delivered.

She went over to the gurney and handed me the package. I opened it, and it was a glove with a guy stuffed in it. I took it out, it was a type of glove that had the two fingers I was missing. They were both metal, and made with technology. I knew my father had sent them to me. He had a close friend working here.

The two girls looked at each other in surprise and didn't know what to say to me. The nurse left the room quickly to talk to the lieutenants, and the second level cadet stayed there. I didn't know how to treat them, I hardly talked to girls at the place I was for so many years, I just preferred to treat like anyone else.

"How did you get that so fast?" the nurse asked.

"I'm the nephew of one of the homeland heroes. He's obsessed with me being a pilot like him."

I felt a little weird after I said that. My father had warned me not to talk about this with anyone, but I stupidly started telling this cadet. She answered me in a formal way. How senior cadets do it.

"Mmm, I see. I will give the information to the lieutenants, but under your conditions you will have a hard time adjusting to this week. Remember that fifty cadets will be leaving and five months. You are last on the list, no one cares what you did" Replied the cadet.

"I saved you and dozens of lieutenants."

"You behaved improperly, you needed to find a lieutenant and explain the situation. That's not the way someone acts here. It was as if you wanted to be the center of attention. There are protocols here, nobody knew what you were doing and they were afraid. When they warned about the bomb, everyone thought you had planted it. They say you put one in your bag." 

It was too many protocols for an academy, but it was obvious that because it was an academy they had their rules and I had to abide by them.

"I see, don't worry. I know my place."

"It's okay. Well, my name is Lucia. I am the second best second level cadet. If you need anything, you can look for me in the girls' quarters."

I decided to ask her about the people responsible for this and what had happened after the bomb went off.

"Do you know who planted the bomb, what did the bystanders do when they saw the explosions?"

"For now the only suspect is you, and it is believed that someone ordered one of the robots to do it. Who it was is still being investigated. For now no outsiders can enter this academy, while we investigate what happened. Except for people from the government and known pilots. Ah... All bystanders are fine. They left after it was verified that no one was killed. Good night, cadet."

She left right after that, and I was quite upset. It was all new to me. And now I had to learn to live without my fingers. I don't know how my classmates would treat me after this, but it was logical that they would try to bully me because I was already the center of everyone's attention.

I just hoped that my father would not interfere and try to interfere in this somehow. I managed to get them to drop me off at the academy, and I didn't have to do anything weird. I was kind of afraid he would try something against Jhon and Lucia because of what happened the day I saved everyone in the explosion.

[...]

At night, a lieutenant took me to the place where my room was. It was not in good shape. It looked kind of worn and rusty. I was sorry to see a place like that. I didn't understand how this could be the place where I would sleep.

The door was opened by one of the men and I saw what would be a very nice room. There were nine new cadets like me.

They were all quite surprised to see me. Apparently they thought I was leaving here. The lieutenant did not hesitate to introduce me.

"Good evening, after a meeting, it was determined that Nick should remain at the academy. Obviously, he is going to be just another cadet. However, I see that he is similar to you. Children of poor people and defective people. To avoid fights with other students, he will stay with you. Nick, come into your room."

I didn't hesitate to take two steps and felt that the whole structure was poorly built. It looked like it had been like this for years. I just put the two four uniforms I was given on my bed. However, one of my roommates wanted to bother me.

"You're not sleeping in any bed. Because of you, all the new cadets were punished for damaging the planes. You'd better sleep on the floor."

"You want to fight?"

"You're stupid. You're only one against nine."

"You know what's funny, if they hit me, Tomorrow I get them to check me and realize there was a fight. We all got punished."

He got a little nervous, he knew it was true what I was telling him. So he just stayed silent and I lay back on my bed. I knew the night was going to be the worst in this place. All my companions ignored me and avoided looking at the place where I was sleeping.

From one moment to the next, the lights went out and everything went dark. Maybe they were doing it so that all the cadets would fall asleep. I felt it was the perfect time to hit me or give me a surprise attack. I had already been in a juvenile detention center for stealing objects, and I experienced something similar there, but I decided to leave because the atmosphere in this room was too tense. They were in the worst place to sleep.

All those people were discriminated against because they were considered defective, probably had a health problem or something like that. I saw that the other rooms were better. 

It was probably for all of them to leave the academy, they didn't want any of them to pass. Without them noticing, I left the room and walked through the corridors looking for a place to sleep. At a certain place I noticed that there was light. So I went to the infirmary area. There was a room that had not yet been used, and it was my chance to rest.

[...]

I arrived at the infirmary shortly after, here too the power was going out. It was hard to walk in that darkness, but when I was about to open the door, the lights started to turn on, a few meters away I saw two cadets having sex in the corridors, everything was very dark in that place and I recognized them. It was Lucia and Jhon, a second level cadet with whom I had had problems some time ago. I tried to ignore them and go into the infirmary, but when I almost went in there, he walked quickly to where I was and grabbed my shirt.

"If you say anything, I'll take off the other three fingers you have left."

He was very angry, probably because relations between cadets was forbidden and both could be punished. I tried to make things clear to him, I was not interested in his life, but John was very nervous, and he did not give me time to talk. He hit me in the face and I fell to the floor.

Lucia stopped him.

"Don't hit him anymore!"

"Shut up! We're done, you're a fucking nuisance, you're the worst thing that ever happened to me!"

He left very angry and nervous, while I was writhing in pain on the floor. 

The girl silently helped me to get up and enter the infirmary to recover from the pain I was feeling.

It was a very strange moment for me, I just let her help me, and when I felt better, the girl spoke to me.

"What you saw now, please do not tell anyone.... It's bad they could throw me and John out."

"Ah.... I didn't know" I said with some hesitation, I didn't know what to tell her, it was very uncomfortable that situation for me.

"That's why Jhon hit you"

"I see, my you worry I'm not going to say anything, but you guys can do those things somewhere else"

"He broke up with me, so there won't be another time."

I felt guilty at that moment, because of me the two of them had broken up, but I wasn't able to say anything to him, I wasn't used to this kind of situation. 

I just responded with a simple word.

"Don't worry, I won't say anything."

She calmed down a little. I didn't understand them both they were too reckless, it was obvious that something like this could happen to them at any moment. I just leaned back on the pillow, I was very sleepy and had to get up early for the start of training.

[...]

The time passed quickly. I was awakened by the sound of the ships and the footsteps of several lieutenants in the corridors. I got up and went to the place where I was supposed to sleep. 

I got out of bed somewhat tired, but I had to keep walking and maintain that routine until I had no more problems with my roommates. However, someone opened the door and the lights were still completely off.

I took advantage of those minutes that were still quite a while away to get to that place before the lieutenant in charge of my platoon got there.

My back was still hurting, I was also affected by the shrapnel. In the middle of the darkness. I felt that someone was walking over there. I felt a little tired, the medicines and the whole recovery process were difficult, that's why I was sent to the group to the rejects. I just wanted to be calm, but it was impossible because of the situation I had with those people.

I didn't let tiredness get the better of me and I gave me the time I thought I was already in my room. The lights were on. However, I could see that my bed had water on it and my things were on the floor. I didn't tell them anything, since it was obvious that they knew I had left in the night from there.

I just checked my uniform if it didn't have holes in it and smelled bad. It was the only way they would all know about the situation I was living in this place. I noticed they were clean and had nothing on them, but one of my companions didn't hesitate to speak up.

"You left in the middle of the night, we'll tell the lieutenant."

"Tell him, and I'll tell him you pissed in my bed."

"That's a lie!"

"My bed is wet, why is that?"

Again he was left wondering what to tell me. It was something outrageous, but if I fought I would be kicked out and maybe my father would take me to another academy, but before that he would punish me. I preferred not to do it, I felt it was dangerous. At this age, my father's punishments were harsher.

I decided to ignore them, I had enough problems without getting into a fight now. I had just started my life in that academy, and I couldn't abandon everything so quickly.