75 Life On The Road

It had already been a month. A month which couldn't have been more monotonous if they had tried. Sleep was a chore. Walking was a chore. Eating was a chore. Relieving themselves was a chore. Running was a chore. Learning was a chore.

Everything that they had done so far was constantly requiring their utmost focus in order to absorb the discrete lessons where were being inadvertently force fed to them.

Within the past 30 days, the twins had picked up a plethora of skills, while many habits had almost become a second nature. Fire making, eating while moving, energy conservation, setting up a camp, treating wounds, dealing with pests, placing traps and alerting devices, remaining alert while sleeping.

Unknowingly, they had settled into a routine of silence which revolved around keeping their senses honed on at least one of the instructors at all times. Those who were found to be lacking in stamina or were slow to pick up on this key point had long been since left behind during their dreams.

Their fatigue during the days of constant travel had also lessened to the point that, although they were constantly aching, they were currently in a much better condition than they had been towards the end of the first few days.

It wasn't long before a set of unspoken rules were understood by those that remained standing after the most difficult phase of adapting to the challenge.

1. Do not sleep heavily. At bare minimum, be aware of the movement of those around you.

2. Do not eat heavily. Taking bites throughout the day would keep sustain their energy without causing them to feel sick due to the frequent changes in pace.

3. Whether it be relieving yourself, foraging food or treating an injury, make sure to squeeze these activities into the time when the forerunners were walking.

4. Copy the movements and habits of the instructors as closely as possible.

5. Where possible, make sure to meditate in order to increase strength and boost recovery instead of sleeping.

Sliver light shone through the leaves of a dense forest as the moon broke through the cloud covered sky. For a moment, the silver rays allowed an eerie view of over 150 cloaked figures postured in a variety of positions across the forest floor. Either laying, sitting or hunched over, the figures didn't make a sound, causing even the nocturnal animals to dance around them without their usual alertness.

As the clouds wrestled the moon back under their blanket once again, the light disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived, plunging the space back into darkness.

In their usual position, the twins were sat cross legged while propping their backs up against each other. Rather than giving in to their exhaustion as they had towards the beginning of the trial, they were currently in a semi-conscious state while drawing in the motes of light which surrounded them. The animals which were going about their nightly activities casually suddenly froze before slowly backing away from the cloaked figures as though they had only just noticed their existence.

In the middle of their retreat, four silhouettes began to shift one after the other, silently rising to their feet before casually jogging into the darkness ahead of them.

Sparked by these movements, the figures on the ground picked themselves up without so much as a grunt before breaking into a similarly paced jog. While moving in the same direction, the crowd moved at a pace that allowed them to keep sight of their leaders without expending too much or too little energy.

Due to the sudden series of movements, a small brown fox was startled by the 'appearance' of the figures, prompting it to turn on its heels in fright. Struggling to dig into the soft dirt with its paws, it fell to the ground, staining its flossy fur before finally pushing itself forward with all the strength it's quaking limbs could muster. Unfortunately, before it had time to bound away, a large gauntlet clasped firmly around it's head. The fox's cry didn't even have time to escape it's throat before the poor creature's head was crushed into a ball of bone and flesh.

As though everything was a dream, the body disappeared from the spot before it even had a chance to turn cold. Rykar then stood up while dragging his stained gauntlets across the dirt. Having just got to his feet, Loki noticed the movement along with the traces of blood left on the ground, causing him to look his brother up and down in uncertainty.

Noticing the look, Rykar just shrugged it off, indicating that he wasn't injured, or at the very least that it wasn't anything serious, before he took off in the direction of the others.

Unaware of the scene he had just missed, Loki continued onwards through the darkness with a numb feeling. The novelty of the adventure had worn off which caused this trip to become a mind-numbing experience. Rather than saying they were learning survival skills, most of the participants were simply trying to pick up any tips and tricks which would make the march more bearable.

The most recent habit which Loki had been trying to get a hold of was the method which the invigilators ran. Truth be told, looking at a glance, there was absolutely nothing which stood out as glamourous or vital about it. However, during the last week, he noticed that at some point they didn't actually make any sound when they took a step. The only reason that people were able to keep track of them was because their cloaks moved in the wind... without this, there was nothing even when their boots came into contact with the ground.

Hell bent on committing this to his admittedly lacking arsenal of skills, he begun to review the differences between the way that they moved closer towards the begging of the excursion as opposed to now. When searching his memories, there was no evidence of a gradual transition into these silent steps. As though this was planned in advance, on the 23rd day since they had been on the road, the four of them simply started moving with a smooth feeling. The bounds that they made across the grass became measured and rhythmic while the force behind each step appeared to lessen.

Despite his intriguing observation, along with his recent obsession with precision, the almost all he had to show for it were bruises across his feet and multiple cramps in his calves. Admittedly, he felt that he was onto something. He was actually able to dampen the sound of his steps slightly but was only able to keep this up for a few minutes if he was running. This didn't even feel like an achievement when considering the way that the guild leader, along with the three invigilators, had kept this up for nearly ten days now.

Another issue was the nature of the rest of the participants. He was far from the most observant person within the group and he could feel this all too well. After having scoured though his memories for the moment that the instructors had begun to apply their silent steps, he was enlightened to the fact that over 70 of the remaining participants had begin to mimic these movements, albeit tragically, before he had even caught on to the fact they were being used.

The progress of Loki and his brother could not be understated though. Many of the other participants could be seen to have much more developed physiques than the twins did despite, the cloaks which obscured the majority of their features. Contrary to the the poor performance they had put in earlier, the twins were now able to hold pace with the bulk of the group instead of just barely clinging onto the tail end of the procession.

In this way, a month had passed.

And then another.

And yet another.

Snow was yet make an appearance, yet frost covered the ground as the morning dew begun to relent under the declining temperatures.

Three months had passed in the blink of an eye as each and every one of the cloaked figures stopped counting the days since long ago.

The crunching sounds, which would usually accompany anyone walking through such an environment, had no place here. The first month seemed to be the watershed between those that had a chance to complete this test and those that were only cut out to fail.

With their travelers packs which were almost devoid of their initial contents, 176 figures silently walked through the frost while leaving nothing behind other than shallow prints in the crisp ground.