Two days later, the carriage pulls up to the menacing gates of the Star City where the council lives. The fear hits me in a sudden crash and despite my strong façade I feel the sudden need to turn back the way I came—back into the arms of Sungjong and back into the warmth of my family’s embrace. I find myself crying again—this time I cry myself to sleep and then I am shaken awake by the stodgy carriage driver.

“Miss, this is your stop.” He softly announces.

“Yes, I apologize. May I have the package?” I ask.

“There is no package, miss. Mister Lee simply asked me to drop you off here.”

“Did he now?”

“Yes Miss.”

“I understand, thank you.” I say as I step down from the carriage—the man hands me my bags and I knock on the door of the stone cottage. An elderly lady opens the door and her crinkly old face splits into a smile upon seeing me.

“Welcome,” she croaks, “may I help you?”

“Yes, my friend Sungjong sent me here?” I explain.

“Ah, Sungjong. Mind telling me why you are up here?” She asks as she ushers me into the front room.

I take a seat and utter, “I’m playing at the Arena next month.”

“Oh! Oh my, you poor thing.” She sympathizes, she shows me to a small room. When I look at her with a question in my eyes she responds, “Sungjong is my great-nephew; I told him if he ever needed anything send me a telegraph but it seems he sent a little more, didn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I reply instantly, I am in shock; I thought Sungjong didn’t have any family? So why was this lady saying she was his great-aunt—I guess I don’t know him as well as I thought.

The next morning, I take a trip into the town square—it’s quite a nice place, merchants everywhere, and children running around, it’s a really busy place. A notice is tacked on to the wall—it’s calling for all of the contestants to start mandatory training tomorrow at eight o’clock in the morning sharp; it also says we will be living in the their living quarters which means there isn’t much free time for me left. I decide to make the best of my first and last free day before I die; I buy many trinkets and play with all of the children. I head back to the grandma’s house and push the door open—she is in the kitchen making a delicious smelling dinner. She hears me and comes to greet me.

“Wonjoo! Where have you been? Are you hungry? I’m making some stew; why don’t you wash up and come for dinner?” She says; urging me into my room. She closes the door behind me and I sigh; I decide to change and pack my current clothes—I leave a set of clothes for the next day and I pack my belongings. Grandma calls asking why I am taking so long—I hurry and close my bags before I launch myself out of the door.

“I’m sorry; I was just organizing some things.” I say; I will tell her about the notice over dinner. She sits me down and we enjoy our modest meal; I speak up about the notice before we finish and a look of gloom passes over her face before she stands and pulls me in for an embrace.

“You stay safe; you hear?” She murmurs into my ear—comforting me.

“I will, grandma. Thank you for everything and tell Sungjong I said goodbye if you have the chance.” I say; never forgetting about Sungjong.

I haul my bags out of the cottage, wave once over my shoulder, and head off. An hour of walking later and I am at the Council House’s gates—the guard on post asks me what I need and I tell him I am a contestant for the Dream Arena races. He lets me in. Another guard escorts me to the training grounds and I am in awe; the Council House has the best technology in the whole land. Colorful lights protrude from the pure silver door creating an image which says ‘Verification’ the guard sticks his eye to the lens and a red laser light comes out scanning his eye. I stand in awe, in the country-side the closest thing to technology was currency. We each have cards that we scan into the local store’s scanner and it pays for what we bought; the technology in the Star City is so different, so surreal.

When the door slides open, the guard walks out with my bags and the door closes behind him. I look around and see nine other people—there are five boys and four girls. I see three girls huddled together and I assume that they knew each other from before or are similar in character—the other girl is by herself kicking a punching bag, the boys all play fight with one another and I sigh. I decide to try my luck with the lone girl—the girl doesn’t falter on what she’s doing instead she asks in a fatigued voice, “You need something?”

“Um, I’m Wonjoo—I just got here and I just wanted to introduce myself.” I say; fidgeting—a habit of mine inherited from Momma. I miss Momma; I wonder how she is. I am snapped back to reality when the girl replies.

“I’m Hana; why did you come to me?” She asks.

“Well you looked the least intimidating.” I explain; half-lying she was very intimidating but I wasn’t comfortable with big groups of people—she was more in my comfort zone but I wasn’t about to tell her that.

“Did I now? Well I guess I can take a rest.” She mutters in an undertone, “so how long have you been here?”

“I just got here a few days ago,” I explain. “I’m from the country-side so my notice got to me later than the rest, I assume.”

“I see; those are our opponents over there.” Hana explains.

“I deduced that,” I reply giving Hana a light shove. She smirks in response and shoves me back, instead of training we dilly-dally and fool around like old friends. We are interrupted with a clear of a throat; we both look up and are met with the three girls form earlier.

“Are you contestants as well?” The one in the middle asks with her arms crossed. Something in the way she asks puts me on the edge and I can tell I’m not the only one.

“How incredibly smart of you, really, for you to be able to figure out that we, too, are contestants. Bravo!” Hana says, I sense a bit of sarcasm and she’s said this loud enough for the other five boys to look over at us in curiosity. I lower my head and nudge Hana before I reply.

“Yes, we are. Is there something you need?” I ask; the leader is giving Hana dirty looks before she replies.

“No, we just wanted to scope out our competition. I guess there isn’t really anything to worry about.” She says, shrugging.

“Yeah keep telling yourself that. You girls are stupid following her. Who knows? She may just kill you herself. After all, it is survival of the fittest, isn’t it?” Hana shoots back, I feel like I am watching a town fight. Except they never got that bad before. I pull Hana back in a flurry, bow to the girls and drag her to a corner.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask, as nice as possible.

“Those girls are stupid. You need to set them straight; that’s what you do to people like that set them straight.” Hana replies.

“Who are they anyway? Who are the other contestants?” I ask, maybe the girl is right—maybe we need to learn some things about our opponents if there is any guarantee that we’ll survive.

“The girls are Sunmi, Eunjoo, and Moonhwa. The boys are Dongwoo, Myungsoo, Howon, Sungyeol, and Woohyun.” Hana explains, “Sungyeol and Howon are second cousins, twice removed, they’re from the same town. Myungsoo and Woohyun lived in neighboring towns and Dongwoo lived somewhere on the west side of the kingdom.”

“The west side? Isn’t that where all of those fighting masters are from? I heard there’s a colony of masters specializing in the fighting arts.” I pipe, in my spare time back home I visited the town library as often as possible. The west people are no joke, I need to watch out. I rake my eyes over the one named Woohyun and almost sigh. He’s very handsome with a sharp chin, jawline and sharp eyes. He has a full bottom lip and he’s quite thin. I wonder what competition he is; now that I think of it all of the boys were fairly good-looking. Myungsoo had small but sharp eyes that resembled a feline’s and an incredibly handsome face, almost like they were sculpted. Sungyeol was a tall, lanky boy with chubby cheeks, a sharp nose, and incredibly black eyes—he looked a bit like a baby in some ways. Howon on the other hand was an average heighted, big guy; he had huge muscles and very fiery looking eyes—not someone you would want to mess with. Same for Dongwoo, he was shorter by far with a skinnier build but his muscles were no joke either and being from the west side of the kingdom meant you were trained since young. For the first time I feel genuinely scared; it’s the first time I truly acknowledge that I am going to die. Even Hana had a better chance that I did, so did Sunmi with her two friends; I was stuck alone. I wasn’t going to survive—I know it.

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Updated: O92912

Word Count: 1,649

Next expected update: O93O12