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| - Isaac lay awake that night. Curled in the dark beneath a thin, scratchy blanket on a meager cot, his eyes remained wide open while dozens of other children snored softly all around him, arranged in cots of their own in two rows that lined the barracks walls. He kept absolutely still, afraid the slightest noise from his bedding might wake them if he moved, and fought to keep down the lump in his throat. He couldn't tell if it was his aching body or restless mind keeping him up, but either way he begged it silently to let him sleep. He'd been awake like this, staying painfully still for hours since they'd been dismissed, finally freed of the instructors' oppression only to be denied sleep by his own self. Voiceless pleas for mercy went refused, and he was left in cold, exhausted consciousness instead. Yesterday had been their first experience enduring Chief Mendez's torturous exercises. Torn from their beds in the early morning by men with stun batons and forced to push against the ground so long, Isaac had never thought he could have felt so tired just by fighting gravity. He'd barely been able to stay awake when the trainers marched them into Déjà's classroom, and even after the thing Mendez had lied about being a playground, now he couldn't sleep? At least he wasn't starving, too, he thought. The three that'd been last hadn't gotten any of the hearty dinner that had been made for the rest, and Isaac thanked the fact that he hadn't been one of them. What worried him, though, was the unspoken sense no one had dared to talk about at dinner that this was far from the last day they'd be at Mendez's lack of mercy. Tomorrow, it could be him that wound up hungry, and knowing that only made him despair further. All of it was going to start again in just a few hours, he needed sleep if he didn't want to come in last. Squeezing his eyes shut helplessly, Isaac tried to think of something that would get his mind off of how tired he was, but the only thing he could imagine was how he'd gotten to be this tired, and how much worse it could be tomorrow. A desperate sob was stopped halfway, the first noise he'd made in a long time, and rolled over unhappily to look for sympathy from his fellow trainees. There was none to be found. Everyone else had no trouble falling to sleep after the day's exercises, and nothing but the rhythms of their breathing answered his choked cry for help. Even the three that'd been last hadn't had so much trouble, after coming in late with mud still crusting their hair and fatigues and whimpering softly to themselves before drifting off. One of them, Sam, might've been the largest kid our of the whole group. He was just a couple bunks down from Isaac, and his bigger shadow was visible over the kids that lay between them with his chest rising and falling every time he took a breath. Kelly, on the other hand, was probably the smallest. Lying in a cot between Sam and another big trainee, Jorge, she looked even tinier than she was, thin with her ribs even visible through her fatigues, and she took quick, shallow breaths. John . . . well, he didn’t look like anything special. The three coming in late weren't the only things Isaac had seen these past two nights. A boy in one of the cots neighboring Isaac's, who'd said his name was Fhajad, had murmured a short prayer to himself each night before going to bed, and another kid had waited until he though everyone was asleep before crawling under his bunk for the night. Then there was Vinh. She'd been on Isaac's team in the playground, along with Grace. Vinh hadn't smiled back when he'd introduced himself, but she was the one Isaac had to thank for not coming in last. He'd gotten his leg caught in the ropes of a climbing net, but instead of leaving him behind, Vinh had come back to pull him free in time to reach the bell ahead of Sam and Kelly. She was still cross with him, but she was the reason he wasn't tired and starving, and he couldn't help thinking she wasn't too bad for a girl because of that. There were others he'd met. Josh and Fred had tried explaining why football was so cool while they were running, but Isaac hadn't really gotten it. One of the girls liked to challenge other kids to see who could hit a target first by throwing rocks, and Sheila had gone on and on at dinner about how good the food was she helped to cook at home. She’d stopped herself pretty soon after she mentioned how much she missed it. With the first time he'd gotten to really think all day, Isaac started wondering about his own home. His parents, and his little brother. He wondered if they missed him as much as he missed them right now. Not too mention his own bed . . . His thoughts came back to the other children here. Every one of them must've had some kind of home they missed, just like him. And he thought about how Vinh had helped him, or how Will made a joke to try and cheer Sheila up. They all understood the days ahead of them would be hard, but they were in it together. Them against the trainers. If they looked out for each other, he knew they'd make it. They would be like another family, and that was something Isaac was sure he wanted to be a part of. Finally feeling like there was something he could take real comfort in, people he could count on, he tugged the thin blanket closer and let the warmth and darkness of sleep overcome the restlessness, sinking into his own dreams.
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