House of Cards

Tour Part I

The institute had already scheduled a tour every year since its establishment and we are scheduled to go deep in the mountains in a place where a forest reserve with close ties to the institute and spend a few nights there. Ever since the news of the tour reach our ears, most of us are super excited that we can no longer focus on the sessions normally as our minds wonder what kind of things are we going to see and look forward to.

And the day of the tour arrived, everyone was busy packing their stuff the day before and we could not get a wink of sleep because we are so excited to go to such a place, especially Chris and I, who grew up in a foster home. We particularly are the only students who came from a foster home or have been separated from our family in the entire institute and that is no secret from everyone since we did introduce ourselves to them.“I can’t believe we get to have a tour in an animal reserve, this is so exciting!” Chris exclaim as he sat on a couch with Robert, Jake and our other male classmates. I can see the excitement burning in Chris’ eyes and started to move around the room while waiting for the bus to pick us up.“Hey, Chris. I know you are excited but I think you should save your energy. Trip like this tend to be really exhausting you know.” Robert saidas he told Chris to settle down. “Damn, I really envy Chris. He got a dayoff a month ago and now he is coming to the tour as well. You get to have a few days off you cheater.” One of our male classmates poke Chris with his shoulders.

“Hehehe, the prize was a day off from that mini tournament and I can’t really let that pass. And how dare you call me a cheater, you guys used your special abilities. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” Chris saidwith a smirk in his face, they all started to bicker with each other while I wonder what things I will be seeing at our tour. “Oh come on! My special ability is just a bad match up with that tournament, how the heck am I going to use my spikes while swimming? Should I use it to poke the others’butts?” our male classmate defended himself.

“I know right? It was a hundred meter swim, my special ability was incredibly useless that I almost drown that time.” Robert inserted. “Man,your case was really different, who on earth uses hardening while swimming?You ought to be drown if you do.” Another one of our classmates pointed out. “Hey, you see how a heavy object pass through a fluid if it was moving fast enough?” Robert defended. “Yes, I did. You did run fast to get momentum but you just ended up sinking at the bottom just a few seconds after jumping in the water.” Our classmate said with a smile, Robert was really embarrassed about what happened that his face immediately turned red as everyone laughed after recalling Robert’s face. “That was really hilarious Robert, please don’t do those kind of things again.” One of our classmates said as he pat Robert’s back while holding off his laughter.“It may be really surprising that I almost drown but what is even more surprising is that Chris was able to swim a hundred meters straight without even having to breathe air, I saw him at the bottom. Hey, Chris. Tell me the truth, is your special ability swimming?” Robert said as he spark the other’s curiosity of his special ability. “Hey come on tell us.” The others started to chant in unison and started pestering him when one of ourclassmates noticed that I have been really quiet for quite a while. ‘Hey,Rain had been awfully quiet for a while.’ One of them whispered to theother then they stop pestering Chris and instead turned to me.

“Cut that guy some slack, he is even more excited than me.” Chris stop them before they were able to interrupt my imagination. “I can’t believe that guy took down Robert eight months ago, it was really an unbelievable sight.Robert’s body just fell like bam!” one of our classmates who was present in their match try to explain what he saw with the actions of his hands. “When we first met, he was a really ordinary kid, he doesn’t even know how to fight properly but will always get involved in fights but he learned with every fight that he loses. With us living in a foster home, he had all the time he need to train himself. At first he started to watch videos how to defend himself which drastically improved his skills in fighting that he can even take on an adult when we were fifteen years old. But now that he has a special ability that really helps him improve his skills, I can’t really tell what level of skill he has right now.” Chris said without any interruption from the others. They all look at him with anticipation,waiting for him to tell them about Rain’s special ability when the bus arrived to fetch us as his story ended there.

We traveled a few kilometers out from the city to a rural place then made aturn where the sign says of the place that we are supposed to go, just as Robert said, the travel exhausted both Chris and I for some reason. We are so spent that we both spend most of our time sitting down and watch the others do their own thing and unload our belongings and the bus left the instant we brought out everything and will return after a few days.*SHHHHH!*

A blew from a wind strangely made us feel better after breathing in the fresh air that we did not get to breathe in the city. After we somehow recovered our strength, we helped the others with anything that we could do to help as the girls had their hands on the food that we are going to eat tonight, though we are not really expecting anything edible since they quite suck at cooking, even the other boys were having the same reactions and thoughts.

“Hey, man. Are we really going to let the girls handle our food? You all saw how bad they did on our cooking sessions.” One of us said as he stop building the tent. “Don’t jinx it, they are girls so there should be somekind of talent- somehow right?” Robert defended the girls but his ironic expression is selling him out.

We all stare at him with blank expression knowing that he has a crush on one of the girls otherwise he would not try to betray us and his experience. “You- you know that your expression is saying otherwise right?”Jake said with an awkward smile then suddenly the others started to make fun of him. ‘Ugh, just thinking about the outcome of their cooking makes me shiver. Last time they cooked food, it looked like it came straight from hell itself. And the flavor it taste like- wait- I don’t even know how to describe it. That was not something that a human should put in their mouth.’ I thought as I hope that it will turn out okay this time.

“I don’t know about you guys but- last time they made food- it turned outlike a disaster, it felt like they put everything they want into the food without even the slightest doubt. I think they have trespassed the boundary that men should never have treaded in the first place.” One of the guys said with a hesitant tone. All of us felt the terrified expression behind his voice without even taking a look at his face, we all felt the same but we still cling to the false hope that the girls have improved in their cooking skills and so we finished putting up the tents in no time and try to go to where the girls are cooking so that we can rest assured that this time is not going to end up like the previous one.After not seeing the hideous food that we once saw from their previous cooking, we all sigh in relief and flashed a smile to each other after the smell of the delicious aroma teased our noses, so just like hungry kids, we sat on our table waiting eagerly to try the food that seemed really delicious and a few moments later, the girls came out of the kitchen bringing with them the food that they cooked that somehow covered the entire dining room with its mouth-watering aroma. After saying grace, we immediately dug in on the food like hungry wolves. ‘This should be delicious!’ we boys thought in our heads as we look at the beautiful and perfect broth and shove it in our mouth.

That was a big mistake, the instant our tongue tasted the broth, one of us literally had saliva flowing out of his mouth as the sourness of the broth completely took over our tongue and that’s not the last of it, it was spicy as hell and not to mention the bitterness from I don’t know what the heck that they put in there, the only difference from their previous product was the appearance but the taste did not really change at all. Disappointed that our hope stabbed us in the back, we at the very least did not throw up the food in front of them so that their feelings wouldn’t get hurt. And just a single sip, we said that we were already full but Robert somehow forced himself to finish the bowl of food that he got to try and impress the girls. “Woooo- that was re-ally go-od.” He said with a broken tone.

‘This guy- look at him acting all tough when we can literally see his legs shaking.’ One of the guys whispered as he stare at Robert with a disappointed look in his face. “Wow really? Thank you very much, we did put our all in that dish after all so it is understandable that it is good.”Unexpectedly, the girls took seriously what Robert said and asked him to try another bowl, which he politely declined saying that he is already full.Unsatisfied about our dinner, we asked the staff if we could cook food again for dinner and they allowed us since the stock of food is quite a lot this time so we get to cooking immediately with our stomach crying in hunger. ‘Hang in there just a little more little fellow, you can have a rest later so just wait okay?’ Chris whispered to his belly as he caress it, it was a really strange sight but when I saw the others doing it aswell, the strange part flew out from my mind.

A few moments in, with Jake’s fire ability, we cooked the food faster using everyone’s ability. Pleased of what our product is, we had a little taste-it was perfect. “This should have been the food that had been served! Our savior!” one of us cried after tasting an edible dinner. After cooking adelicious food that humans are able to eat, we formed a circle and hang our arms to the shoulders of everyone beside us and vowed: “We should not let the girls take a single step inside this kitchen ever again without proper knowledge of cooking, so we need to teach them first, ‘The way of the food’before they can step inside the kitchen again.”

We then brought the food to the dining room and the girls were surprised that we are able to cook food faster than they did and they also enjoyed the food that we cooked, some of them even said that it was better than what they made. ‘We’ll that was obvious since it almost tasted like doomsday for me- kuek!’ one of the guys whispered when he felt a sharp pain in his side when one of us jabbed him.

After eating and cleaning, the staff suggested that we should have a bonfire to celebrate the first night of our stay in the animal reserve. And so we did, we talked about a lot of things while roasting marshmallows. The others asked me about how I became so strong and told them that I trained non-stop till I sweat blood, some of them were suspicious, “How can a human sweat blood, is that even possible?” but I defended myself quite well and showed them the scars of his training and they all gasp in awe after seeing the scars almost covering my entire body that even the girls covered their eye in fear.“No wonder, Robert drop dead in an instant.” One of the girls said after taking a closer look at my body. “Please don’t remind me of my dark past.”Robert said as he shakes his head. “Student’s its already late, you can have bonfire again tomorrow night so for today, have a rest because the tour will officially start.” Our teacher said as he puts out the fire, we then walk back to our tents and sleep immediately due to exhaustion.