Sarah once again awoke to the room-shaking horn Instructor Liakos described as their “gentle wakeup call.” She scrambled for a few seconds, her blanket trying to keep her in place. She was barely able to escape and not fall on her face when she checked the digital clock on her desk. It read 05:00. She really needed to set an alarm.

  Her body resisted as she got out of bed and got dressed. She was somehow still paying for the absolute punishment she went through the night before. Her first nighttime exercise was a work of pain and exhaustion.

  Over and over she was forced to run an obstacle course in near pitch black. When she wasn’t tripping and falling face-first into compact dirt or wooden poles she was getting slammed by swinging logs. Of course they weren’t small ones for a fireplace, no, most of them were nearly the size of her torso. If her body didn’t regenerate like goddamn Wolverine her repeatedly fractured ribs would’ve landed her in the hospital and kept her there. But no, magic healing and her beast’s growing aggravation at her inability to complete the exercise kept her up and running.

  She knew the whole point was to be able to push her muscles while keeping internal energy into her eyes so she could see in the dark while exerting herself. Unfortunately, knowing and doing were two very different things. At first she could barely put the energy into her eyes or muscles and keep it there. For some reason wherever she tried to keep it in her eyes it kept leaking out and going into her tongue of all things.

  By the end she was able to keep the barest bit in her eyes while running, turning the near pitch-black to really dark. The fact she also had the palate of a master connoisseur was another matter, which might have been nice if the only flavors she could taste was that of mud and blood. Who knew you could discern the different types of dirt just from taste alone?

  She couldn’t even use the complaint that she was too sore to move because, once again, she woke up in near perfect physical condition. Although stiff she wasn’t nearly sore enough to use such an excuse. Even then, the health advantage was counteracted by the fact that neither she nor her beast were morning people.

  She stumbled around and collected everything she needed. Her mysteriously laundered clothes in her closet, the many tools on her desk, and the sword Dawon gifted her. After dressing she hurriedly descended the stairs and exited the building. Waiting for her were the other cadets lined up with Instructor Liakos facing them.

  “Cadet Jacobs. You are late, again. Is it that difficult for you to set an alarm?”

  She stood at parade rest like the others, minus Wen. “No ma’am. Sorry ma’am.”

  “We’ll cover the cost of your tardiness later.” The intimidating woman said, making Sarah droop her shoulders.

  The imposing woman stared them down. “We will begin with our regular morning exercises before moving to breakfast. I want all of you to give your all. Is that understood?!”

  ““YES MA’AM!””

  “Good. Now get running.”

  Without further instructions the Cadets set out, Sarah a few steps behind. That would be the second time she did the “morning run.” When she thought of a morning run it was at most a jog around a neighborhood or through a park. When the instructor said run she meant RUN. They were required to keep a full out sprint through multiple areas including tall sharp grass, a craggy ravine, and a forest. And if that wasn’t enough, if you fell behind and came in last you were required to run another lap. Needless to say she was the one to do it twice the day before. The worst part was that whenever she thought of taking a break her beast would practically yell at her to keep going.

  Halfway through the course she had long lost sight of the others. At least before her curse she wouldn’t have even been able to complete one of the sections let alone the whole thing. Even moving faster than she had in her life it still took her nearly twenty minutes to complete the whole thing. She was heavily puffing as she returned to the barracks to see the other cadets breathing hard but nowhere near as bad as her.

  “Cadet Jacobs,” Instructor Liakos called.

  “Yes,” pant, “ma’am.”

  “Do it again.”

  She grit her teeth, “yes ma’am.” On the second time running the course she was allowed to pace herself instead of sprinting through.

  By the time she returned she was barely on her feet. The rest were in perfect condition like they hadn’t just run over a mile. She fell to the floor, her lungs screaming at her.

  “Now that our slowest cadet has joined us, you are released for breakfast. I’ll see you in thirty minutes. Prepare for active combat.” The instructor said like an uncaring drill sergeant, which Sarah felt wasn’t far from the truth.

  She wasn’t sure that she would be able to stand before Amy came over and gave her a hand up. They then went back to the barracks to a line of plates, each piled with different foods with name tags next to each one. Each of the cadets, Sarah included, proceeded to scarf down the delicious food.

  She was told that the one who cooked for them was a brownie. She had passing knowledge of the spirit from some of her mother’s books on mythologies. She didn’t remember everything about them but knew Celtic and was involved with homes.

  “Be careful,” Amy said, collecting her plate of an omelet with hashbrowns, “you don’t want to get on our brownie’s bad side. If you voluntarily skip a meal or leave too much of a mess behind you, you’ll be eating nothing but grass bars for a week. Even if you go somewhere else you’ll still only get the bars.”

  “Grass bars?” Sarah asked while thinking of the blue bar she ate on the plane.

  “Yes,” said a condescending voice behind her. She turned to find Bishara literally looking down on her. She wasn’t what she’d call short but somehow that man’s stare made her feel like a mouse before a cat. She was only intimidated for a split second before her beast rose and gave her some courage.

  He seemed not to notice as he continued with the same tone and grabbed his plate. “They’re rations for field agents. Only those with weak stomachs have problems with them.”

  Sarah had to force herself to be the bigger woman and not tell off the ass. Thankfully, that was the last thing anyone said as they all scarfed down their food. It was surreal seeing an angel, demon, a pharaoh and an undead-ish sharing a table a silent meal. There was a bad joke there somewhere she just couldn’t find it.

  After the half hour they were given, the cadets were called to the building Logan had taken her to for the curse exercises. The last time she was there she was focused on fighting with her beast so she didn’t take the time to really look around her. When she did she was amazed by all of the interconnected spell circles carved into the walls and ceiling. She couldn’t even begin to try and understand the latticework of glowing magic that surrounded her.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  When she stopped being hypnotized by her surroundings, Wen was already standing near where Sarah thought was the focal point of all the enchantments with the rest of the cadets collecting weapons from the massive wall of options. She joined them by walking down and scanning the shelves of weapons.

  It was a little weird looking at them since they looked like they were all made of the same material. Every metal had the same silvery sheen while all the wood looked unnaturally similar. The last thing that brought them all together was one of those blue crystals somewhere on them.

  She only had a passing interest in the display until she came across something familiar. It wasn’t an exact duplicate of the sword she was gifted and was currently on her hip but was shaped close enough. While taking down the weapon she heard what she initially mistook as a rock slide. After turning, it took her a few seconds to understand what she was seeing. Standing in front of Wen was a ten foot tall headless giant made of solid stone.

  “What the hell?” she asked herself.

  “That,” Amy said next to her while strapping a set of gauntlets to her arms, “is a golem. I’m pretty sure those are common in human media.”

  “Yeah,” Sarah said, “but where did it come from?” She suspected it was related to the steel cage she was trapped in before but the scale was incomparable.

  Amy pointed to the computer the instructor was working at. “It’s a mana construct. A facsimile created through enchantments.” She said as if it was ordinary to create life out of…whatever mana was.

  “But, how?” her analytical brain started up. She knew Amy was talking about the myriad of spell circles but still couldn’t put it together.

  She looked on in slack jawed amazement as the already glowing circle pulsed until she was distracted by the golem trying to turn Wen into a bloody paste. It’s massive arm came down faster than something of that size should have. Wen easily dodged the attack before launching herself at the construct, dirty nails turned claws leading. She latched onto its chest and began ravaging the stone.

  Amy sighed, “she’s doing it again.”

  “Doing what?” Sarah asked, not taking her eyes off the fight.

  “Going feral,” the angel Frederic said, walking up to them spear in hand. “Her biggest problem is that once combat starts she loses track of her surroundings and only focuses on her target. She’s gotten better but still has a problem in the opening moments.”

  Sarah nodded and watched as the golem slammed one of its fists into its chest trying to crush the being. Wen pushed off just before the crash of stone on stone, the golem barely damaged itself with only a small crack and a few chips falling off. Sarah did notice that after falling a few feet the chips dissipated.

  Wen tried ravaging it a few more times before stopping her headlong assault. While the golem tried another overhead strike she slipped between its legs and climbed onto its back. The walking boulder tried to get her off but before it could do more than struggle a few times she attacked. Her first claw strike didn’t do much but after a few more swipes the golem started to… glitch? Its limbs weren’t moving right and it twitched before stopping entirely. It then stumbled and fell, Wen riding it down.

  As Wen hopped off the slowly dissolving construct, instructor Liakos barked. “Cadet Wen,” she said, making Wen wince. “You lost yourself again. Have you been doing the meditation exercises I ordered?”

  Wen hesitated before nodding.

  She glared down at her. “For lying to your instructor you’ll be joining cadet Jacobs in her afternoon punishment. Now leave the array.” With a lowered head she slunk over to them. Even though Sarah was starting to get used to Wen’s frankly disturbing visage, it still made her shiver whenever the wendigo got close.

  Instructor Liakos scanned the cadets before picking the other beast-cursed. “Cadet Bishara, take position.”

  That started a series of battles pitting the cadets against different constructs, all probably designed to poke at their weaknesses. Sarah was the last to be called up. Her heartbeat was sky high by the time she stopped at the same spot the others began the exercise. It wasn’t in the exact center as she had stood when the cage was formed around her but a few dozen feet to the side. She clenched her borrowed sword tightly.

  As she watched the mana move, a construct’s outline appeared and started to fill. Unlike the golem for Wen or a scythe-handed undead for Amy, it looked like an artist's mannequin. A blank face and body with rudimentary hands and feet. She didn’t know whether to be thankful or insulted by its empty hands. While she was glad she wasn’t fighting something crazy, she was at least hoping she would face something more than that. Did they think she was such a novice that even armed with a sword, she could fail against an unarmed mannequin? Okay, maybe she would but it was insulting nonetheless.

  She instinctively dropped to a stance she didn’t recognize. Something just felt right about it, like some long lost muscle memory took over and said “this is where you start.” She felt a smirk come from her core, probably Dawon being smug. Only a second after she prepared herself the mannequin lunged forward and tried to punch her in the jaw. She was hoping she would get further hints from Dawon on what to do next…nope.

  She stumbled back at the rush and swiped her sword. The mannequin easily dodged the sloppy strike. It did a quick step back before trying again. Instead of going for her jaw the new attack landed deep into her stomach. She instantly collapsed to her knees in a gasp and struggled to keep down her breakfast, not the best sight. Was she that pathetic? Putting aside that a rejected art supply dropped her, she had seen the others take multiple hits and get back up. She tried to get up but dropped back to her knees.

  “That was just sad,” Instructor Liakos said in clear derision. “One of the easiest opponents we have in our system took you down with a single punch.”

  Sarah looked up to see the mannequin returned to its original stance. She wanted to answer but knew if she said anything it would be more than some words coming out.

  “We aren’t even starting from zero. You have no experience in martial arts or any kind of self defense, do you?”

  “No ma’am” she croaked.

  The woman groaned. “I guess that’s my fault for expecting even a minimum of competency. If you are going to use the Shastar Vidya style we’ll need you to work on your flexibility, acrobatics, and mental stability.” She paused. “I’ll see if I can get you a tutor. Now get off the floor, we’re going again.”

  Thus started further examples of how far she was behind. They did another round of identical projections. Every one of them without exception did better, whether that was finishing their opponents off faster or getting through with fewer hits.

  Sarah watched as the others fought the creatures and got actual constructive critiques. She was skipped in the following rounds as well and resorted to sitting against a wall and watching. She felt like she was back in high school when her asthma acted up. If it was her from back then there would have been no way she could have survived the morning run let alone complete it. Her lungs could’ve suffocated her after the first mile and without her inhaler, no more Sarah. Yet another thing her curse fixed. A lifetime of struggling with more than basic cardio? Gone. The pain of a punch strong enough to drop her? Like it never happened. It was like she wasn’t even living in her own body anymore.

  She felt that her skin wasn’t hers. She shouldn’t be wearing it. She started scratching her hand. She needed to get it off. Get it off. Get the tiger off. Is that blood? That means the skin is finally coming off. The tiger is coming off. She must scratch harder to get it off, to get free. Her arm, she should also get it off her arm.

  She was going to start on her arm but was stopped by something. She needed to keep scratching. She needed to be free. Be free. Be free. Be free. She wanted her body back. Get it off. Get it off! GET IT OFF!

  Her face was rocked sideways by a force. Her face hurt. Someone was saying something. It was loud and authoritative yet worried. Her hand hurt. Why did her hand hurt so much? Her head was held by two callused hands and held still.

  Her eyes cleared and her breathing started to steady. “What…what happened?”

  A tall tanned woman looked into her eyes. “Everything is okay. You’re safe. You just had an episode.”

  “An…episode?” she asked.

  The Instructor clenched her jaw as she saw self recrimination in her eyes. “This is my fault. I should have predicted this.” She let go and knelt.

  Sarah then saw that her arms were being held by Amy on her right and Frederic on her left. They let go after Instructor Liakos told them it was safe.

  “Most cursed beings go through this. Your human mind still hasn’t accepted its new state. Usually you are given a lot more time and therapy to adapt before being put into any kind of training. You are the first newly cursed I’ve ever had to train in this program. I’m sorry.”

  She stood and looked at the other cadets. “That’s it for now. We’ll continue at 13:00. Dismissed.”

  The other cadets saluted before exiting the room leaving Sarah and Instructor Liakos behind.

  “Come on,” Instructor Liakos said softly, “let's get you to Dr. Rigas. She can help you.”

  Sarah nodded shakily as she was helped to her feet. She was then put in a car and was slowly driven to the big temple thing. Even with the time it took to get there she was still shaking and felt unnatural, she at least no longer had the urge to peel her skin off.

  After arriving she was gently guided through the halls and to the siren's office. Maybe the therapy was more important than she thought.