Year One- Learn How To Breath Again
609 Words
Elana learned very quickly that survival was not the same as living.
The first winter after her “death” was brutal.
The place she was taken to lay far from the city, hidden among mountains where the air was thin and the nights unforgiving. Snow pressed against the windows like a warning, and silence filled the halls with a weight that made breathing feel like effort.
Here, no one called her Elana.
Here, she was simply Number Seven.
Her days began before dawn.
Run.
Fight.
Fall.
Stand again.
Pain became routine.
Her hands blistered, healed, blistered again. Bruises layered over bruises. Sometimes she collapsed onto the cold floor and lay there, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was punishment or preparation.
“Your body remembers fear,” her mentor said one morning as Elana struggled to rise. “We are teaching it defiance.”
Elana clenched her jaw and stood.
Sleep offered no rest.
She dreamed of fire l*****g her skin. Of hands dragging her across concrete. Of her grandmother calling her name from somewhere she could never reach.
Some nights she woke screaming.
Other nights she woke silent, tears soaking into the pillow she refused to replace.
The mentor never comforted her.
She simply said, “Good. It means you’re still human.”
In the city, life continued without pause.
Adrian Blackwood stood at the altar six months later.
Sarah wore white. Cameras flashed. Applause thundered.
Adrian felt nothing.
His vows were recited like contracts. His smile was practiced. His hands were steady only because they had learned how to hide trembling.
When he slid the ring onto Sarah’s finger, he felt something close—not to love, but to burial.
Ryan stood among the guests, expression carefully neutral.
He memorized everything.
By the end of the year, Elana Roland officially no longer existed.
Her mentor handed her a folder one night.
Inside were documents. Passports. Certificates.
“You can’t carry your old name into a war,” the woman said. “It will only get you killed.”
Elana stared at the page.
Name: Mia Voss.
It felt wrong.
And right.
Year One did not teach Elana how to fight.
It taught her how to endure.
How to keep her face still when anger burned her lungs.
How to listen without reacting.
How to disappear in plain sight.
“You want revenge,” her mentor said once. “But rage makes noise. Silence makes ghosts.”
Elana learned to become quiet.
Adrian visited the grave every month.
No matter where he was in the world.
No matter how tight the schedule.
He never brought flowers.
Only silence.
“I’m still here,” he told the stone once. “I don’t know why.”
The stone did not answer.
The scar came during training.
A blade slipped. Blood bloomed across her side.
Elana stared down at it, breathing hard.
Her mentor watched closely. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” the woman said. “Now you’ll remember why you can’t afford mercy.”
Elana wrapped the wound herself.
She did not cry.
On the last night of Year One, Elana stood alone outside, snow falling softly around her.
She looked up at the sky.
“I’m alive,” she said quietly. “I survived.”
No one answered.
But somewhere deep inside her chest, something hardened.
Not hatred.
Not love.
Resolve.
Her mentor approached her from behind.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “you stop training like prey.”
Elana turned slowly.
“And start training like what?” she asked.
The woman smiled—sharp and knowing.
“A hunter.”
- Writer
