The Academy--Chapter Eight, Last Section

WOOT. WOOT. WOOT. WOOT.

Now that I'm alive, The Academy will be coming again. It might not come quickly, but it'll come.

Again, VITAL, VITAL PART OF THE STORY. READ. DIGEST.

“No way!” I exclaimed loudly, slipping off of the bed and backing towards the wall. “No, no! They can’t do this. This–-this doesn’t even make any sense.” I added in a disbelieving whisper, “It can’t be true. You’re . . . ly–ing.” I felt hot and cold simultaneously as I leaned against the wall. I shrunk down to sit on the floor. Fearing hyperventilation, I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing in and out.
“Poppy.” Sawyer’s hand touched my shoulder gently. I jerked away from it.
In and out.
“Sawyer, this wasn’t right,” came Briala’s voice through the mist of my mind. “You shouldn’t have said anything.”
In and out.
“No,” Sawyer countered. I felt her arm come across me protectively. “I know she can handle it.”
In.
And out.
“I’m okay,” I lied. Then, quickly, “Never mind, I’m not. This is unbelievable. This is . . .unbelievable.”
“I know it is.”
Unwilling to completely stop the conversation, I urged Sawyer to go on. I needed more. I hated it, and my brain felt as though it were about to burst from the incomprehensible information, but I needed to know this. A portion of the truth about the Academy was lost from me. With all of the fiber in my body, I wanted it.
But with the same amount of fervor, I didn’t want it.
Wanting outweighed the opposite.
“I can’t,” Sawyer said, turning away.
“You have to. You’ve already let on too much.” I sat up straighter to show that I could handle it. My vision blurred and I felt a bit dizzy still, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. “Go on.”
Sawyer proceeded to relate to me Dr. Strom’s true purpose in training us at the Academy was so that he could enlist all of us in his army–-his teenage army. He was keeping the city of Lawrence carefully isolated and creating an empire all around it. These teenagers fought and killed men, women, and children in all of the towns and villages about us; they conquered for Strom. Each year, a new group of expertly trained sixteen-year-olds would come and join the ranks, fighting–-most not knowing of the secret that was hidden behind Dr. Strom’s austere face. Those who did, however, find out, were faced with a horrible fate.
“A horrible fate?” I echoed Sawyer’s last words. She nodded, swallowing and seemingly unwilling to go on. “What? Going home? Getting kicked out of the . . .army?” The whole concept still seemed too fantastic to be real.
Sawyer put her head in her hands, and sat that way for some time before raising her face to glance at Briala and then at me.
“You know how, sometimes, the older kids get sent home because they don’t ‘pass the end-of-the-year exam’?” She quoted her last words with her fingers. I nodded, my brows crinkling. I braced myself for a new truth and clenched the carpet in fear of what was coming. I closed my eyes but burst out, “Just say it.”
“Those kids did pass the exam. Every single one of them did. They just . . .found out about everything. And then the counselors found out that they knew everything.” Sawyer paused. “They don’t send those sixteen-year-olds home.” Her voice became soft. She coaxed my emotions to calm themselves with her tone, even though her voice shook as she spoke again.
“They kill them.”