Eve was staying still as the general screamed, literally screamed the orders. She didn’t like to scream or to be yelled at, but she was in army, she had to endure it. Her black hair was styled in a ponytail, she used to cut it down until last year. “A woman is more beautiful if she has long hair”. She remembered those words. They were engraved in her heart.

“You must obey! When I say go forward, you GO FORWARD!” the general yelled, without looking in the eyes of the masters, captains and soldiers, but he still kept his head up as he ‘talked’.

The general was a man in his second age, with brown hair, here and there were white hairs, his face had a shadow of black beard, again, some hairs were white, his eyes were somehow green, really odd green with traces of yellow, he was wearing a camo cap and he was keeping his hands behind his back, like an old man. He was a big man, massive fella, but Eve wasn’t scared, she felt some kind of respect for her superior, but she was never scared of men, in general.

Eve was keeping her position as straight as she could and she looked in her front. Behind the general, there was her lieutnant, the one who gave the soldiers passes to go when they had enough of a good reason. He was a hard man, and he barely gave passes to anyone. He hated when soldiers came up with excuses like ‘It’s personal, lieutnant’, he never gave passes to those kind of people. Even was scanning him, he was wearing a white shirt and a black neck-tie, and a black coat on top of that, which was decorated with a lot of badges. He looked proud of himself, as Eve was seeing. Suddenly, he felt like someone was looking at him, he was scrutinizing the crowd and his eyes fell on a tall girl, with dark hair, small face, big dark eyes, small nose and full red lips. Her milky like skin was scarred but she mentained her poker face as she listened to the orders. When their eyes met, she looked away, feeling weird.

She decided not to pay any attention to it and focused herself again on the face of the general. But when she came back to reality, orders were already given, and people started going on their positions. She started feeling the panic and she stopped Jisoo from walking back to her post.

“Jisoo-ah, tell me, what did he say again?” Eve asked, while bitting her bottom lip in frustration. Jisoo rolled her eyes and took Eve’s hand and dragged her to a corner.

“Hey! What’s going on with you again? Why are you so unfocused? Get yo’ together, girl!” Eve was glaring at her, and the manly girl looked down. “I’m sorry, captain”, she said. Eve was her superior. “He said that we should have a good rest for today and tomorrow he’d sent someone to gather some infos”, she explained as she was looking right in the eye of her captain.

Eve liked Jisoo, but sometimes she hated when she talked informal to her. She was her superior and if someone heard how she talked to her, they would all start pushing their luck. Eve would hate to deal with that. There weren’t many girls in the army, but she found her friend and she was grateful for that. Jisoo was a tall girl, with brown short hair and a small face, she was a huge woman, she had big s, big arms and long thick legs. She was kinda ty, but Eve didn’t mind, she didn’t care.

Eve nodded and left to the training camp. She was aware of the looks of the boys there, but she wouldn’t entangle with any of them, she didn’t have time and right for feelings. The boys under her command were the ones who used to push their luck with her, but she would just terorize them. Her superiors treated her well. Well, there was someone who obsessed over her, but she was grateful he went for a while back home, as he had to care for his wounds.

Eve sighed as she walked. She neated her white undershirt and checked for her gun, it was in the right place, as well as her dagger. Nobody really knew about her dagger, it was her secret weapon in case of an unhappy emergency. She grinned and kept walking as if there was no war 20 km away from her.

It was that time of the day when it was peaceful. No bombs, no attacks, no gunshots, nothing. Just the calm before the storm. Her troops were waiting for her already. She stopped right in front of them, 2 metres apart and she scanned they faces of her soldiers. The feelings and moods on their faces went from euphoria to fear to fury. She was anxious because of the angry ones. They were the ones who made mistakes. The scared ones could commit treason any minute, but she expected them to, so, there wasn’t any problem with them. The ‘euphoric’ ones, well, they were the ones who happily came here, meaning that they were forced, but they were excited to die for the sake of the country.

“Let’s hope we will meet again at the end of the war!” Eve screamed, she had to if she wanted to be heard. “I know you’re scared, I know that very well, but think of the next generations. They’ll be able to see the North once again, so let’s do this for them! Yes?”

“Yes, ma’am!” they answered in unison.

“Good! Now... 50 push-ups, no breaks, and then... run 5 kilometres, then go to booth and have some beer...” she didn’t get to finish her phrase because cheerful screamings were covering the entire training camp.

“Captain Kim! Captain Kim! Captain Kim!” they screamed happily, looking at each other and putting their fists in the air making Captain Kim chuckle. She straightened her voice, but the screaming didn’t get lower.

“Oh-ho!” she yelled, grabbing the attention of the young men who were sent to an uncertain death. “Make sure you care for your rifles, make sure you have loaded revolvers and make sure you don’t die! Tomorrow night we’re gonna hit” she said in a sinister tone with a grim face.

Her soldiers bowed and went to training as she ordered them too. She kept talking about being synchronized when doing push-ups but everyone had their own rhythm, she didn’t mind. She was whistling a song her mom used to sing to her to fall asleep as she was watching her men. They were on pins and needles at the 4th kilometer, but they went on.

The sun was going down slowly, one by one, her soldiers were finishing the training and were heading to showers. She decided she needed a shower too because she stayed a long time in sunlight. Eve headed to her room, not really ‘her’ room, she shared it with Jisoo. When she arrived she was grateful that the tall one wasn’t there. She guessed she went to ‘hang out’ with someone.

Eve put her gun on the bed, the dagger as well. She took off her white undershirt, her camo pants, her black boots which were dirty with mud, she took off her underwear and went straight into the cold shower, doing the cool thinking. She had to keep her mind focused, she couldn’t let her mind drive so far as she didn’t even hear the orders the general had given that day, morning.

Eve sighed as she let the cold water make her body numb. She wasted another few minutes and she wrapped herself in a clean towel. She went straigth to her case and took out her camo uniform while she was staring at the uniform which she was going to wear when all of the was over. She patted it carefully and then closed the case.

She changed and went out to the booth.