We don’t totally suck at this (Natalie)

When I wake up in the morning, Ash must have come into my room and just joined me during the night because he’s lying on his back with his arm around me, while my head rest against his chest, my body curled up against his body. He must feel my body tense because when I go to move he says

“Good morning Nat is your body sore from yesterday?”

“I don’t know Ash, because you won’t let me move.” Slowly he lifts his arm and lets me escape but as soon as I move my legs I cry out in pain, oh the agony. It shots up through my legs and down my spine, my arms are also sore. And my knuckles are bloody from the punching bag. I’m in agony; I collapse to the group and lay there in a ball until the pain starts to pass. Then as I go to move and get myself a paracetamol Ash appears at my side with it and a glass of water. Through the rest of the morning I slowly walk around getting ready, for another horrible day of exercise.

When we get to Riley, he says we will be doing knife throwing. We follow him into a little room where we stand facing human targets; beside us is a tray of knives all the same size and colour with a razor sharp point.

Riley is in between Ash and myself, he explains how to use them and hold them, he then throws it at the target and hits it were the heart would be. Then he just stands back and watches us. My first throw doesn’t even hit the target it hits the ground two meters away from it, and bounces to a stop against the wall. I hear Riley grunt with annoyance,

Ash has a bit more luck with it because it hits the target but he hits it with the handle so it just bounces off. My second knife decides to copy Ash’s first and again I hear Riley’s unhappy grunt. Ash’s second knife hits the target but it only lands on its foot were it stays embedded which means that he is the first one to land it. My third hits its left hand and stays put, just wobbling a little bit. My forth knife leaves my hand and flies smoothly through the air and smashes into the targets stomach. Ash releases his forth knife and it flies a bit wobbly until it hits the target in the stomach with the handle of the knife. My fifth knife leaves my hand with a flourish and flies straight into the heart of the dummy. I quickly glance at Ash to watch him throw his fifth knife. It flies through the air even move wobbly then the last one, but it still hits the target in the head and stays embedded. Riley starts to clap; I run over to Ash and give him a massive hug. We hold each other until Riley starts threatening us about not getting any dinner unless we release each other and get throwing again.

Riley makes us do this for the rest of the day before he lets us go. For dinner we get roast pork with vegetables and then its bedtime. For the next two days we work on running, we do lap after lap on the inside track. We practice sprinting for long periods of time and short periods of time. On the forth night I can’t sleep, I feel like I have too much energy which is wrong because I’ve at least ran 50 kilometres in the last two days.

Ash must hear me moving around because he gets up and comes over to me, he climbs onto the bed and says

“If you don’t go to sleep, you are going to be dead tomorrow and tomorrow we get to use the bow and arrow.” That makes my freeze; all I have wanted to do was learn how to use a bow and arrow.

“Do we really get to use the bow and arrow tomorrow?”

“That’s what Riley said to me yesterday.”

“Yeah, okay I will go to sleep.” I snuggle up against him while he puts his arm around me

“Tomorrow is going to be fun.” he says “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Ash.”

As the beautiful sunlight started streaming through the window the next morning, I was awake and ready to go.

Learning how to use a bow is really hard! The string is so tight I have to use all my muscle to pull it back. When Riley first showed us how to do it, it seemed so easy, but I was wrong, again.

After 5 shots my arm is dead but I have to keep going. Riley has us shooting at dummies from 5 to 50 metres away, there’s a dummy every 5 meters. So we have ten arrows, our goal is to hit all ten in the heart. So far out of the first five I have hit the first dummy in the head, the second dummy in the shoulder, the third dummy in the arm, the forth dummy in the stomach and the fifth dummy in the leg. I officially suck. As I get ready to shot the sixth one Riley comes up behind me and takes hold of my elbow and lifts it higher. Then he grabs my hips and makes me spread my legs further apart. Then he grabs my out stretched arm and lifts it a millimetre higher. Finally he’s satisfied with my stance and steps away. I release the string and the arrow goes flying towards the dummy and lands were the heart would be. I jump up and down squealing then I turn around and hug Riley. I don’t hug him for long but when I step back I can feel Ash’s eyes on me.

At the end of the day I got 5/10 and Ash got 4/10 because I squealed and he lost focus. By the time night comes I’m exhausted. I crawl into bed straight away; Ash comes over to me and says

“Don’t get to attached to Riley, because he’s going to die before you.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask with a bit of anger.

“I saw you throw yourself at him when you hit the dummy.”

“I didn’t throw myself at Riley plus I don’t like Riley his 22, way too old for me.” After that statement I roll over and stare at the wall. Slowly Ash goes away muttering to himself.

The next two days fly past; we learn how to fight with swords and to protect ourselves with shields. Then on the last day we go over everything we have learnt. Were both good at different things, Ash is good at hand-to-hand combat and sword fighting. He can also run well but I can keep up with him so we called it even. I’m good at throwing knives and shooting with the bow. This is good because we have a variety of things we can use for protection. While ‘saying goodbye Riley comes out with some gifts

“You guys have been the best learners we have ever had here. We all decided that you deserved these rewards because you have also been the only ones to make it through the seven days.” He hands us a gigantic bag to each of use “Don’t open it till you get home.” he says. When we’re in the car, Ash talks to me for the first time since the conversation two nights before.

“I think Riley had a crush on you.”

“Well at least someone does, well... did.” I say aggressively

“Sorry” he says “I just felt this weird stinging feeling every time he touched you. I think the connection doesn’t like it.”

“Okay, you are forgiven but would it hurt just to say you were jealous.” We continue the rest of the trip in silence until we pull up in Ash’s driveway.