«Hey, lost girl,» he sneered, his voice carefully projected to resonate across the entire hall. «This isn’t a soup kitchen. Are you certain you’re not supposed to be in the back washing dishes?»
His entourage of followers erupted into laughter. Olivia paused, her fork suspended mid-air, and met his gaze with her steady, unwavering brown eyes. «I’m eating,» she said, her tone devoid of any emotion.
Derek leaned in closer, a smirk playing on his lips. «Yeah, well, eat quicker. You’re occupying a space that real soldiers need.»
Without any warning, he flicked the edge of her tray, sending a dollop of mashed potatoes splattering across the front of her shirt. The room roared with laughter. Cell phones emerged from pockets, their cameras activated to capture the moment of humiliation for social media posterity.
But Olivia simply reached for a napkin, methodically wiped away the mess with slow, deliberate motions, and took another bite of her food as if Derek had ceased to exist. The sheer, unruffled calm of her reaction seemed to enrage him far more than any verbal retort ever could have.
Physical training the following morning was an unforgiving test of endurance, engineered to separate the promising from the weak. There were push-ups until arms trembled uncontrollably, sprints that left lungs burning, and an endless series of burpees in the dirt under the relentless glare of the sun. Olivia maintained a steady pace, her breathing even and controlled, but her shoelaces repeatedly came undone.
They were old and frayed, barely managing to hold her worn-out boots together. During one of the sprints, Lance Morrison jogged alongside her. Lance was the golden boy of the group, broad-shouldered with a confident grin that suggested he had never experienced defeat and had no intention of starting now.
«Hey, Goodwill,» he called out, his voice loud enough for the entire formation to hear. «Are your shoes about to fall apart, or is that just you?»
A ripple of laughter spread through the group like a contagion. Olivia offered no reply. She simply knelt, retied the laces with deft, precise fingers, and rose to her feet.
But as she did, Lance deliberately bumped her shoulder with enough force to send her stumbling. Her hands landed in the mud, and her knees sank into the damp earth. The group howled with triumphant delight.
«What’s the matter, Mitchell?» Lance taunted, his voice dripping with feigned concern. «Are you training to mop the floors, or did you just volunteer to be our personal punching bag?»
Olivia pushed herself up, wiped her muddy palms on her pants, and resumed running without uttering a single word. The sound of their laughter pursued her for the remainder of the morning, but if it had any effect on her, she gave no indication.
During a brief rest period, she sat on a wooden bench, retrieving a granola bar from her bag. Madison, flanked by two other female cadets, sauntered over, her arms crossed and her voice laced with a syrupy, insincere concern.
«Olivia, is it? So, like, where did you even come from? Did you win some kind of lottery to get into this program?»
Her friends giggled, one of them covering her mouth as if the entire situation was too amusing to bear. Olivia took a bite of her granola bar, chewed it slowly, and looked up. «I applied.»
Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact, as if she were commenting on the weather. Madison’s smile tightened at the edges. «Okay, but why?» she pressed, leaning in closer. «You don’t exactly give off an ‘elite soldier’ vibe. I mean, just look at… all of this.» She gestured dismissively at Olivia’s mud-stained t-shirt and plain brown hair.
Olivia carefully placed her granola bar on the bench and leaned forward just enough to make Madison flinch. «I’m here to train,» she stated quietly. «Not to make you feel more secure about yourself.»
Madison froze, a flush of red creeping up her cheeks. «Whatever,» she muttered, turning away abruptly. «Weirdo.»
The land navigation drill that afternoon was engineered to be a unique form of torment. The cadets were required to traverse a densely forested ridge, armed only with a map and compass, under a stringent time limit—a true military-style survival of the fittest. Olivia moved silently through the trees, her compass held steady, her footsteps nearly soundless on the carpet of pine needles.
A group of four cadets, led by Kyle Martinez, discovered her checking her map beneath a towering oak tree. Kyle was lean and fiercely ambitious, the kind of person who had been competing for Lance’s alpha-male status since day one and viewed Olivia as an easy target to impress his peers.
«Hey, Dora the Explorer,» he shouted, his voice shattering the tranquility of the forest. «Are you lost already, or are you just out here gathering flowers?»
His companions laughed, closing in around her like a pack of wolves sensing vulnerability. Olivia methodically folded her map and continued walking, but Kyle was not yet finished with his performance. He jogged ahead and snatched the map from her grasp.
«Let’s see how you manage without this,» he sneered, tearing it in half and tossing the pieces into the air with a theatrical flourish. The others cheered him on. Olivia stopped, her eyes tracking the scraps of paper as they fluttered away on the gentle breeze.
She looked directly at Kyle, her expression a complete blank, and said, «I hope you know your way back.» Then she turned and resumed her course, her pace unaltered, as if losing her map were merely a minor inconvenience. Kyle’s laughter faltered for a moment, but his group continued to jeer, their taunts echoing through the trees.
Later that afternoon, the rifle disassembly drill was introduced—an exercise designed to be the great equalizer. Each cadet was given precisely two minutes to completely break down an M4 carbine, clean it meticulously, and reassemble it according to military specifications. Most of them struggled, their fingers fumbling with the small pins, muttering curses under their breath as components slipped from their nervous hands.
