The Ring of Rebirth

A chubby girl skipped and swayed her pink backpack as she chatted with her friends. The sunlight portrayed her every feature while her blonde hair shone the colour of gold.

“Tiff!” A boy shouted, “Do you want to come to my house? My mummy made cookies.”

“No, thanks.” The adorable girl beamed, “My mum is waiting for me.”

“Alright. Bye!” He waved.

“Bye! See you tomorrow.” Tiffany waved back.

A black van drove past the school gate at a moderate speed. The door of it opened, and two muscular arms extended out and snatched Tiff into it around her waist. She was pinned down in the backseat of the van and her shrieks were quickly muffled by a man’s smelly hand. She wriggled, kicked, and bit, though to little avail.

Buildings after buildings flashed outside of the window, it then became ponds and farmlands as they drove further and further away from home. Tiff’s curly hair was already messed by her struggles, it stuck and tickled at her face as she started to sweat.

“She’s fierce, huh? I suppose the Organisation would suit her.” The driver spoke roughly.

“F**king b*tch! She bit me!” The man who held Tiff yelled.

“You deserved it.” The driver teased, watching them through the rear-view mirror.

Tiff eventually resigned fighting back. She was stained with her own sweat and the unknown stuff on the backseat. She laid there, exhausted and frustrated, trying to stifle her sobs as tears rolled down her rosy cheeks.

“Hey,” The man released her, “stop crying, don’t waste any more energy. You don’t get all the food you want where we are taking you.”

Tiff didn’t respond nor did she stop crying.

At the front gate of Tiffany’s school, a woman around thirty years of age was pacing up and down frantically, peeking through the gate at a rate of once every two seconds.

A guard came to the woman, “Are you alright, ma’am? May I help you?”

“My girl has not come out yet. She’s always been a good girl. She would never go anywhere else without telling me.” The woman was the only parent left in front of the gate, “Can you find her?”

“Sorry, ma’am, but the whole school is cleared. No one’s inside.”

The woman spun around to face the guard, eyes wide with concern as she grasped the guard’s shoulders, “Then she’s lost! Do whatever you can to get her back!”

“I will alert the staff. The police will be informed if she’s not appeared within 12 hours.”

“No, no, that would be too late. For all these years, my Tiff have never just disappeared like this. If I can’t find her, then she’s truly missing! We need to act immediately!”

“Pardon me, ma’am, but this is how the procedure works. How about you go home and let her school handle this? Wait a few hours and I’m sure your daughter will be found.”

The woman waited and waited, years after years, but her girl never came back.

Tiffany woke up with a start as the van finally slowed, she must have dozed off somewhere along the journey. The driver took out a black square box, which she later knew it as a ‘walkie-talkie’.

A high-pitched voice came from the box, “S7, S7, do you copy?”

“T5, we copy.” The driver bellowed into the box.

“Have you got a kid? Time’s up.” The box said harshly.

“T5, yes, we have. Open the entrance.”

“Copy, S7.”

Soon enough, Tiff saw a big piece of land in front of them sunk underground and a bumpy slope was revealed. The van drove into the blackness down the entrance.

“Welcome to the Organisation, kid.” The guy beside Tiff patted her on the shoulder, his huge hand weighed on her like a mountain. She flinched.

The van drove for another few minutes before it stopped, and Tiff was hauled out roughly. She found herself in a huge underground fort, where the middle was a wide rounded training ground layered with concrete. The top of the fort was jam-packed with enormous and brilliant artificial lights like millions of little suns.

Around twenty kids were already assembled and lined up at the side of the area, all of whom at Tiff’s age with tear tracks on their tiny faces. Someone shoved her in line.

An aggressive-looking woman with short and straight hair came out to face the herd of kids.

“Welcome, children. Congratulations, every one of you is talented enough to be here today. You kids can call me T3, short for Trainer 3. My name is not for you to know. I’m here to introduce the Organisation to yo—” T3’s speech was interrupted by a boy’s wail.

“I…” The boy choked on his own tears, “I, I want my… my mummy.”

He sniffled as his sorrow infected the other kids at an incredible speed. Half the flock of children started to sob, moaning how they want their parents. Tiff was too tired to add to the noise, but she anxiously peeked at the fierce woman whose face was turning gloomier and gloomier.

“Shut up, you lousy kids! Be quiet!” T3 roared, her face distorted from her explosion of fury.

The shocked children all quieted within a second, while a few strained to fight back their snivels.

“See? Now, this is called behaving.” T3’s rage went as fast as it came. “Allow me to continue. The Organisation is a training institution, where kids like you are brought here to be trained to kill, fetch secret documents and all sorts of stuff the rich people hire you to do.”

“You will be given equal food amount every day: three pieces of cheese; three pieces of ham; eight slices of bread; an apple or an orange. Good news though, water is unlimited here. Your portion will be sent to your bedside table every day in the morning.”

“To obtain more food, you’ll have to excel in your subjects. You will receive a test each week, a paper one or a practical one. The top student in each subject will attain a double portion of the normal amount of food the following week; the second will get double on bread and fruit; while the third will get a double on bread the following week until the next test. The rest of you stay with the basic portion. Good news, your rewards are allowed to be added. For example, if you are the top in two subjects, then your portion will be tripled, and so forth.”

“If you are the last at more than three subjects for two tests conducted in a roll, then you will get disposed. By the way, every time a person gets disposed, every one of that person’s classmates gets three day’s double bread.”

“The compulsory subjects are Maths, English, Close Combats, Shooting, Strategic Scheduling, and Communication Code of the Organisation.”

“The subjects available for selecting are Phycological Penetration, Coaching, Trailing, Concealed Weaponry, Intelligence Personnel Training, and Undercover Training.”

“All of you will have a taste of every subject within the first three years, after that, you must find your strength and choose one subject to continue in its learning course until you reach the age of twelve.”

“You will not be allowed to leave the Organisation base before you graduate. When you’ve reached twelve, you will have an overall Graduation Test, also known as GT, on your compulsory subjects and your selected one. It decides if you graduate or not.”

“If you passed, then you will be allocated with different kinds of tasks to complete outside of the base, depending on which learning course you took. The failing of GT means that you will never be able to leave the base, thus your only choice is to be a servant here. Or if you are not even good enough for that, then you will get disposed.”

“Regarding GT, you will receive more details when you are older. Now, any questions?”

The children remained silent, none of which made a sound. Some were perplexed, some frightened, and some were simply gaping at T3. Tiff understood merely half of her words.

“Um, what is ‘disposed’?” A thin girl asked tentatively, her hand half raised.

Now that Tiff thought about it too, she didn’t know the word either.

“Good question. Well, why don’t I show you?” T3 held up a clipboard that was under her armpit and traced a line of names with her stubby finger. “Let’s see… Balint Wolowaltz. Go fetch him.”

She patted a stout guy standing on the side and sent him running to get the boy.

“During this time, let me tell you about Balint.” T3 set the clipboard back under her arm, “He’s seven years old, came here two years before earlier. He has been in the last place in three subjects for a week. The requirement of getting disposed should be two weeks, but I suppose there’s really not that much of a difference.”

“Well, the subjects he sucked at are Shooting, Close Combats, and Undercover Training.” She shrugged, “Hmmm, it seemed he’s not very physical.”

“Since they are not back yet, I will tell you another rule you should know. Guns are not permitted without the supervision of a trainer before you graduate. Combat is encouraged here though, if you want to fight anyone, then you can challenge them on a duel. There are specialized stages for duelling. Under stage fighting is not acceptable, if you were found doing that, then you will be disposed. The Organisation does not want disobeying children. On the stage, you are allowed to fight, torture, and kill your opponent. No one really cares.”

“T3, here’s the boy.” The muscular guy returned.

He was grabbing Balint by his right arm and was practically dragging him here. His fingernails dug deep under the boy’s flesh, making purple dents along his arm.

Balint was a skinny boy, probably half a head taller than Tiff, his face pale from either terror or lack of nutrition.

“No, please, no. Don’t dispose me! I’ll study harder! I will get better in the next test, I swear!” Balint yelled hoarsely as he grappled feebly against the brawny man, his body trembling from dread as he laid eyes upon T3.

Tiff could literally sense his trepidation radiating off him.

“Alright, kids!” T3 overlooked his plea, “This is the disposition in the Organisation.”

She drew a pistol from the black belt around her waist and straightened her right arm to point the gun at the boy. She shut one eye and aligned the other with the top of the pistol.

“No! You said two weeks! I, I’ve only got one!” Balint screamed desperately, “Please, give me another chan—”

The ‘Bang’ of the bullet thundered before he could finish. Tiff was nearly deafened by the gunshot and was soon paralyzed by what she saw next.

In the middle of Balint’s chest appeared a dark hole, a hole spewing out blood everywhere. His expression stiffened, the light in his eyes faltered and went out like a burnt-out candle. He fell into the puddle of blood with a thud.

Kids were screaming, backing away from the scene, fainting, bursting into tears, and some were stunned like Tiff was.

T3 allowed herself a lopsided smile before hollering over the noise, “Quiet! Do you want disposition as well? Come back and line up or I’ll shoot one of you.”

The effect of threatening was even better than before. After the children (except the fainted ones) were in line again, T3 led them to their dormitory (fainted ones carried there by servants). They walked out of the training ground and entered metal tunnels structured like a maze.

Tiff followed the pack in a dazed manner, head fuzzy and unable to process any thoughts or things around her. She trudged and trudged for what seemed like an eternity before they finally halted.

“You have individual beds, but all of you will be sleeping in the same room. Don’t worry, you will be given separate rooms when you are twelve, well, if you graduated. I’ll give you a grave to sleep in if you did not.” T3 chuckled darkly, “Or not even a grave!”

“Anyways, there’s a bedside drawer near each bed that belongs to you. You can put your clothes or whatever you want in it, I don’t give a shit. Now, off you go.” She impatiently crammed them all in before she left.

The room and the beds were metallic too, like basically everything else in the Organisation.

Tiffany went straight to a bed in the corner, chucked her schoolbag in the dusty drawer, and laid down on the thin mattress on top of the icy metal.

That night was made up of shrieks and whimpers of nightmares. Tiff just covered her ears with the weird-smelling blanket on her bed and stared at the blank wall, her heart already numbed.

A long, long night it was.