“Come on,” he warns as he pushes me out of his reach and forces me to walk on my own. “Let’s get going.”

This is the first time I have been able to see the city of Shin. It’s a place of poverty and filth. While the houses are strong, cruel red markings scathe the once white walls. A cloud of dust seems to layer the main road. With every step I take my ankles are dyed in a thousand brown dots, and my lungs inhale the airy excess of dirt. I see boys of varying ages aversely leaving identical houses and heading toward where the man is leading me. I cough when a puff of smoke enters my mouth, and then I hobble forward. I feel weak. The pain has receded, but I know that with every step, I delay the healing. I only hope that this training won’t be rigorous to an injured boy like myself.

We arrive at a very large field where the grass is trampled to a matted brown and the sky stinks of sweat and mud. I watch as officials admit boys into the walled field. The man with me stops me from waiting in line and pulls me to a short building beside the gate.

“Wait here,” he says. When he comes back outside, he has in his hands a white t-shirt and shorts. “This is the uniform. Change into it.”

At first I assume that he is being deceptive, but when I look at the boys around me, I realize that the only reason their clothes are gray is because of the stains that have permanently discolored them. The man pushes the bundle of clothes at my chest, making me wince, so I swiftly change after making sure that the only people present are males. I then am led into the field, where I can finally see the commotion that had been hidden behind the walls.

Led by an official, a group of boys march past me. Beyond them is another group of boys fighting each other in twos with long, flexible wooden rods. Even further ahead there are boys doing push-ups, throwing knives at planks mottled with holes made by previous weapons, and working stretches and formations with officials commandeering their actions. The man beside me approaches a stocky official who seems to be overseeing the training. The man points at me, and then the official nods for me to come.

“What’s your name?” He asks me.

“Zee,” I say, choosing to use that name while I am in Shin.

“Are you familiar with the Shin regime?”

“No.”

His gaze sharpens. I correct, “No, sir.”

“So you’ve never trained in preparation for combat?”

“No, sir,” I lie.

His voice deepens, and with a menacing tone he says, “I hear you were found in Shin a few days ago. Wounded from being involved in a small fight.”

That must be the story the mom created for me. Whatever the reason, she chose to hide her assumption of my origin. I nod, and he smiles coldly.

“You’ll learn how to fight soon enough.” He points to the group of boys that had been running. “Join them. Now.”

I jog toward the group. My back and legs crack and my knees tremble, but I push myself to stay steady. I heighten my speed and join the group in circling the field. The pace they are going would be comfortable if I hadn’t been recently injured. With this handicap, I lag behind the group. With every step that pounds the grass, my thighs receive a jarring burn, and my heart pumps so quickly that the breath I inhale is tainted with the subtle scent of blood. We run ten times around the field before stopping. The boys in front of me sit down to recuperate, but I crash to the ground in an overwhelmingly dizzy and suffocated state.

The official leading this group of boys stands over me as I lie on the floor. I remain at his feet as he bends down. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

I nod, and then I curl forward and have a short coughing fit. He waits for it to subside, and then he says, “One round. Now.”

I look up. He grins. “I’ll make it two if you don’t stand up.”

Although it hurts, I hop up and start running around the field alone. I feel like I am inside a dream; my surroundings waver in and out of my focus as I move. When I finally make it back to the group, I am thoroughly fatigued. I want to crumble to the ground, but a boy in the group stops me.

“Just stand up,” he whispers to me. “If you go down, he’ll make things worse for you.”

“Everyone ready,” the official says. The boys form a four by five square. The boy beside me helps me to my spot as the official continues, “I’m sure you’re all familiar with the routine. Today we did twelve. Tomorrow, we do thirteen.”

A boy in front of me curses. A bitter taste enters my mouth. I spit it out; it’s blood.

“We’ve got a new friend with us,” he says. The boy beside me pats my back, and then he moves a couple steps away. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

Everybody turns to look at me. I look at the disheveled faces of each boy before I say, “I’m Zee.”

“Welcome, Zee!” The official announces. I lift the bottom of my shirt to wipe the dirt and sweat from my face, but there is already a great amount of filth on it. It’s unfortunate that my white clothes had to be soiled so rapidly. “You’ll have a great time in group four,” he sardonically tells me. “If you listen. You eat when I tell you. You rest when I tell you. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to work, you work. Do you understand?” I clench my jaw and nod. “Good. We’re going to practice with the knives. Come on.” He leads the way to the targets. The previous group who had been using the knives has left and moved on to running around the field. The official orders each of us to grab three knives from the buckets, and then he commands us to stand some distance away from the planks.

“I need four boys,” he says. Four boys step forward. Each one stands in front of each plank and readies his knives. The official watches as, one by one, the boys throw the knives at the planks. “I want one middle and two corners,” he says. A second round of knives is thrown, each one landing in either the top or bottom right corner of the plank. A third is thrown, but this time, all four knives miss the target. “Knives,” he says, and four more boys step up to pull the knives from the planks. They step back and throw. As each boy replaces the other, the amount of skill decreases. When my turn comes, the official has begun to chastise each boy who misses the target by making him run around the field. At this point, there is only me, the official, the boy who helped me earlier, and six other boys watching as I narrow my eyes at the plank. I take a deep breath, raise my head, and throw the knife.

It lands in the middle with a giant thunk. I take the second knife and throw it at the corner, where it lands perfectly. I throw my last knife, and once again it lands right where I predicted it to be.

The boys whisper to themselves as the official approaches me. “You’re good with the knife,” he murmurs suspiciously.

“Just something I picked up,” I shrug. I’m a Night, after all. We’re adept at knives. I know I shouldn’t have revealed that one talent of mine, but I couldn’t resist.

“Let’s see what else you’re good at,” he says roughly. The other boys finish throwing their knives, and then we wait for the rest of the group to come back from running. We approach the group who are fighting each other with the rods. Others around them are combating each other with an unfamiliar series of arms and legs. There are more people in this group – about fifty – and each one has the same face of concentration as the other. My group’s official shakes hands with the official of the other group.

“Hey,” the boy from earlier says. “Zee. Right?” I nod, but my eyes are stuck on the officials, who seem to be discussing something sly. “I’m Chen. It’s nice to meet you.”

I nod again, hoping he’ll leave me alone, but he doesn’t.

“Listen … don’t worry about them. If you just stick to the criteria, you’ll be fine.”

I fold my arms. Both of the officials are looking at me.

“All you have to do is stay low, and they won’t bother you. Really.” He scratches his neck. “By the way, are you – “

“I know.”

“Huh?”

I look at him. “I know all of that already, so you don’t have to tell me.”

He stops scratching his neck. “I, uh … there’s lunch,” he points behind me. I glance over his shoulder to see a long table of food in the middle of the field. A few groups have already begun to eat. “We only get fifteen minutes to eat, so we should probably go. Unless you’re not hungry.”

I walk to the table of food. My stomach is hoping for something savory, but when I see that all Shin has to offer is stale bread and soup, my appetite is lost.

“Come on,” Chen urges. He places a small bowl of soup and a chunk of bread in my hands. “You have to eat. We don’t have much time.”

We sit down on the grass with the other boys and eat. Chen tries to make conversation by asking me questions, but I don’t reply to any of them. I finish my food first, and then he hurries to finish, too, so that he can follow me back to our group.

“Where are you from?” He calls after me. “Zee. Whe – “

I spin around and lash, “Can you shut up?”

He gulps. “Uh. Sure.”

He silently walks beside me as we reunite with the group. Our official calls us forward, and with his eyes on me, he says, “We’re getting a bit of a preview from group one today.”

For the first time since training has started, the boys become excited. I whisper to Chen, “What’s going on?”

“Well,” he says with pride, glad that I am taking an interest, “it’s wushu.”

“Wushu?”

“The official of group one is one of the best wushu masters in the whole military. And group one are the best wushu practitioners in Shin.”

“Why’s that so fun?” I ask as I peer at the eager faces of each boy.

“What do you mean, why?” Chen gapes. “Wushu is the pride of Shin. This is one of the main military cities of the Capital. We practically breed wushu gods. You’ve never heard of that?”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I say. I could learn this art of fighting and show it to Han. Maybe I’d even become better at fighting than Han is. “So, how does it work?”

Chen stares at me as if I am a fictional species and replies, “They’ll show it to you.”

“Zee,” my official says. “Come here.” I walk toward the two officials. “This is Zee,” my official says. “He’s good at knives.”

“Really?” the other official smiles. “Knives are a sport played specifically by the Nights. You know that, right?”

My fingers turn cold. I hide them behind my back and shrug.

“You’re not a Night by chance, are you?” He asks, leaning in to unashamedly stare into my eyes. Neither of us breathes. He pulls back and laughs abhorrently. I catch a whiff of his breath, which smells like garlic. “Why don’t you let this kid try wushu, if he thinks he’s so good?”

“I never said that,” I say before I can catch myself. The official just scoffs, and then he calls a boy from his group. “I called you 2A, right?” The boy nods. “Come here. Fight with this kid.”

The boy picks up a rod and starts heading toward me. I step back, unprepared and uninformed. “You want me to fight?”

“Pick up a rod, kid,” my official lazily tells me. My heel hits something. It’s a rod. I lift it, but the thing is heavy and cumbersome in my hands, and I don’t know how to use it. “Come on. Take a swing.”

The boy is near me now. His face is terribly blank, but his stance reeks of the pure intent to destroy me. I lift the rod to defend myself, but he whacks it out of my hands.

“Come on, kid! Are you stupid?”

Irritated at being considered a child, I run forward to tackle the boy on the whims of anger, but he blocks me by batting my side with the rod. I skid against the ground on my left shoulder and rip part of my sleeve. I lean against my hand to sit up, but the boy is upon me again, his rod beared high. I jump up and aim for his legs, but he hits me, this time in my stomach. I crumple to my knees and catch the blood that falls from my mouth like a leaky faucet. Stupefied, I look up and wait for the rod to hit me one last time, but before that wooden monster knocks my skull, a figure appears and blocks me from being hit.

I hear a thick crack, and then a body collapses beside me. It’s Chen. His arm is bent in an unnatural way, and his face is pale and sweating, but he smiles.

“Don’t worry,” he says, using his good arm to pat my leg. “It’s over now. They’re done. They had their fun.” He cradles his arm and grits his teeth. “I’m fine, so don’t worry about me.” He closes his eyes and passes out. My official is now beside me, grinning at me in a sick form of pleasure.

“There’s your preview,” he smirks. He walks away, and two boys come to help Chen and me. I watch the man turn his back, and as he whistles to himself, I promise myself that if there’s one thing I’m going to do in Shin, it’s to teach the officials not to mess with a Night.