Combat Training Sucks (Natalie)

Walking into the little cafeteria, lunch smells amazing and my grumbling tummy agrees.

Ash and I both get servings of salad, potato bake, pasta salad and some meat, which include chicken, sausages and ham. I eat lunch at a leisurely pace not wanting the time to end, but it does and we are moving quickly back to the training compound. Riley said we would be doing more of the basic hand-to-hand combat but he never said we would be using boxing bags. My knuckles are going to be raw after today. He demonstrates how to punch the bag because it movies when you hit it.

Finally we are allowed to hit the bags, and they are heavier than they look. While Riley is talking to Ash I try to kick it but I completely miss I steal a glance at them to see if they notice but I don’t think they did. When Riley starts to watch me I see a sense of approval in his facial expressions. I must be doing something right, so I decide to test my luck and try to kick it again but my foot doesn’t want to kick the bag it wants to make me feel like an idiot because it decides to miss. My face flushes bright red and I look at the floor debating about hitting the bag again but I can’t decide because I don’t want to embarrass myself again. Suddenly I feel someone’s hands on my waist holding me still.

Riley whispers in my ear

“Hold your hips still when you’re kicking your target because it will stop you from losing your balance. Kick it now.” I lift my leg and kick the punching bag so hard it falls off the hook and smashes to the floor; I let out a squeal of delight and then freeze because Riley’s hands are still on my waist. My heart stops beating, no one has done this to me before but I quickly remember that nothing will happen between me and this twenty two year old. I quickly jump out of his grasp and run over and hug Ash saying

“I did it.” continuously. He must find extremely annoying because he keeps saying “I know, I know, I saw the whole thing.” But I just won’t shut up. Eventually I head back over and start punching it again and practising my kicking as well.

After two hours of punching and kicking a bag, Riley decides that we are good enough to fight one another. So he puts us in a boxing ring. Riley does the countdown and the match begins, from the very start of it’s obvious that we don’t want to hit each other. Riley huffs in annoyance.

“If no one is bleeding in 10 minutes, you’re both going back to the punching bags.” Ash understands that if one of us isn’t injured we will be stuck here all night so he pulls back his fist to punch me, I think to myself I don’t want to be punched so I lift my right leg and kick him in the stomach, he goes flying into the ropes on the other side. He goes down but I know he’s faking, seeing if Riley will let us go if he doesn’t get up.

“Finish him off.” Riley says with no sadness in his voice. I walk over to Ash and look for a possible fast way to make him bleed. Without too much injury, I decide to go for his nose when he suddenly lashes out and grabs my leg and he pulls me down. Then he climbs on top, like wrestlers do for the final countdown. But we both know that’s not going to happen. He whispers into my ear,

“Punch me in the nose hard but not hard enough to brake it.”

“Okay.” I whisper back sadly.

Ash suddenly shifts his body and for only a second it touches mine, at that instant my body feels like it catches fire and Ash feels it as well because he quickly roles off me, I go to chase but my body won’t move. It turns out that I had to wait for the fire to stop because my whole body was confused. Finally it passes and I’m back on my feet, Ash doesn’t see it coming and I punch him in the nose, which begins to bleed immediately. We both hug each other while I say

“I’m sorry.” Over and over again and he says

“It had to be done, I was never going to hit you.” Riley allows us to leave, smiling while he shacks my hand.

While we are walking Ash decides he wants to have a conversation “Do you think this is a good idea?”

“Yes, it’s going to help us bring down the monsters, especially when we start using swords and the bow and arrow.”

“When do you think that will start?”
“Hopefully soon’
“Yeah by the way that punch was amazing.” That

makes me blush, so I duck my face and look at the ground “Thanks, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
‘It’s okay, but if it bruises you can kiss it better.’

Oh my, Ash is flirting with me.
“Sure as long as you kiss mine.” Ash stops walking

abruptly so I stop, he says
“When I knocked you down and was on top of you, did you feel like fire was consuming your whole body?”
“Yes, it was scary, I couldn’t move until it subsided.”

The look he throws my way is a bit scary as well. Full of an emotion that I have only felt once before, ‘need.’ I don’t know what he need’s but I better be careful. I don’t want to fall for this boy completely before this war is over because if he dies I will be alone forever and I don’t want that.

Slowly I reach out a hand and grasp his
“Come on, let’s go have dinner and have a sleep it’s been a long day.” he nods. Dinner is delicious and the sleep is even better.