"Why did you wake up so early? Bad dreams?"

Mirela gazed at Clara while the other wore a white T-shirt with a faded print of a green and yellow flag.

"On the contrary." she returned, in a good mood for the first time since she'd woken up days earlier in that Cell.

Mirela only raised her eyebrows and Clara told her about the memory she had had that night. She was excited and tried to hide her smile, but she involuntarily took over her semblance. She was hopeful that gradually her memory would return. That recollection had been only the first step, but although all the euphoria she felt, she noticed Mirela's clouded face.

"What's wrong?" she asked, sitting on the bed and staring at the girl. She tried to figure out what was going on, but Mirela insisted on staring somewhere in the room. Was she avoiding Clara? "I thought you'd be glad to know I'm starting to remember things... I know it's not much. In fact, it's almost nothing, but it's a start." and after a brief pause, she added, barely disguising her relief: "At least Daniel didn't lie about it."

"I see..." Mirela agreed sarcastically.

"How long has he been dating Marisol?" that came out loud unexpected. What would it help to retrieve her memories knowing about Daniel's relationship?

"A few months," Mirela's tone was sharp.

"Why don't you like him? What did he do to you?" Clara held the girl's arm and made Mirela face her. The girl cast a wounded look. "Are you in love with him?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Excuse me?!" exclaimed the blonde girl shaking her head. "This is insane! Of course I'm not!!"

And then Clara understood. She loosened Mirela's arm as she brought her hand to her mouth surprised.

"It's not Daniel..." and frowning, she continued: "You're in love with Marisol..."

Mirela said nothing shifting her eyes to the floor. That revelation had surprised Clara and now she was seated on the bed. Mirela had never hidden she did not like Daniel, but Clara had not considered Marisol was the reason. She imagined that they had gone off on some mission or something, but Clara would never suspect that her behavior was due to a broken heart. Mirela was the type who never show her feelings. Despite the piercings and frowning face, she was very beautiful. She could have anyone she wanted, and her suffering had really taken Clara by surprise.

"Marisol and I dated when Daniel arrived here." she sighed. "We were experiencing hard times by then and we were trying to overcome that. They took part on several missions together, and when I got sick, I couldn't get out of bed for a long time." she rubbed her hands and stared through the window with tears in her eyes. "When I finally got back to fighting, Marisol broke up with me. She said she was in love with Daniel..." now the tears were rolling down her face and Mirela tried to dry them with the back of her hands.

"They started seeing each other when she was with you?" Clara asked, taking the girl's arm to comfort her.

"No, no..." Mirella shook her head. "It was a little later, but anyway, if he hadn't come here, we'd still be together." She concluded in an angry tone, pressing her lips into a thin line.

"But you said your relationship was a kind strained when he got here. Maybe it was only a matter of time to get over even if Daniel hadn't come to the Cell." Mirela stared at her angrily, withdrew her arm and stood up.

"You too, Clara?!"

"Me? What?" Clara also stood up, facing the other girl.

"In love with him?! What the hell does this guy have?" exclaimed Mirela, waving her arms as she left Clara embarrassed.

"You'd better don't be so obvious." said Mirela when she reached the door. "Trust me, you won't want Marisol as an enemy... I know her well, and I know she won't give up on him so easily."

Clara had spent a long time in the room reflecting on everything that had happened in the last few days. After a while, she decided she needed to clear her mind a little, to keep herself busy. She thought about going to the training yard, but she wanted to avoid at any cost meeting with Mirela, Marisol or worst, Daniel. Then there she was, crossing the building's ground floor aisle to an enormous auditorium which did not seem to be used.

The place had a few rows of hinged chairs, high walls lined with a wooden covering, whose boards were broken off at some points revealing the rustic wall behind the panels. Windows at the top filtered the light coming from the beautiful morning where the curtains had since long ceased to exist and in the background, there was a stage where she saw children playing ring-around-the-rosy.

"Hey, miss!!" Maria greeted her when she saw Clara entering.

"Clara." she introduced herself as she walked down the hall to where the group was. "So, you guys stay here when you're not outside, hum?"

"Most of the time." replied Julia, getting up. "Sometimes Nana reads a book for us and helps the children to wash and eat."

"What are you playing now?" Clara picked up a piece of string she had found on the floor as she tied it around her fingers.

"We've played catch-all, hide-and-seek, and run. Now our choices are over," answered Julia, analyzing Clare moving her fingers, as did the other children who approached. "What are you doing?"

"Cat's cradle," Clara did not understand how she did it and where she had learned it. "Have you played it?" the group shook their head, then she approached Julia. "Here, grab with your fingers as a clamp and run over." the girl did so, and the shape changed to something like a soldier's bed which made the other children utter an 'ohh' almost in unison.

They were amazed at the various shapes that appeared with every movement of hands and fingers and lined up to join in the play. Once they had mastered the game, Clara sat down in one of the dusty old chairs in the first row and watched the group as she smiled. It was so simple to make a child happy...

The children became impatient, waiting for their turn, so Clara got up to look for some other string she could use in the game. She found one near the side of the stage which she gave to the kids. Curious, she went behind the stage where she found various objects and several boxes scattered on the floor. There was even a clothes' rack, where at some point in the past, it had been used to hang the costumes. She found the boxes scattered on the floor covered by dust after centuries without use, but then at the bottom of one box, an object attracted her attention, awakening a memory... Actually, not a memory, but an image, a fragment.

Quickly, she snatched the object from the box and carried it, passing by the children who looked at her confused.

"Where are you going?" Julia asked, with the cat's cradle in her hands.

"I'll be back," Clara answered, walking up the corridor with determined steps.

Mirela bent down at the firing range, picking up empty capsules when she felt something buzzing pass by her, inches from her right ear. Straightening, she cursed and was ready to patronize whoever did that when she saw Clara, a few feet farther than the other sniper's training line; a bow in hand. Slowly, Mirela looked at the target only to see that the arrow had struck exactly in the center, as did the other two that Clara had fired in the a row, a distance of millimeters from the previous ones.

Clara could see the look of astonishment at Mirela, who was looking at her and at the target as she lowered her bow. The other fighters training in the next streaks also looked at her haunted, and farther into the field of fight training, she noticed when Daniel abandoned the fight to face her like the others. Marisol was also close and followed her boyfriend's gaze and narrowed the eyes with an anger she could barely disguise in Clara's direction.

"Where did you learn this?" asked Mirela, approaching, amazed.

"I don't know how to shoot like you do, but I can do a lot of damage with this," Clara showed the bow, feeling relieved that she was not useless and, in a way, restoring her honor by the unsuccessful hours of practicing the day before.

"A gun will always be more effective, but in the forest, without ammunition, it's just another useless object. This one," she showed the bow, "I can build by myself if I need to. Just a few branches for that. It is much easier to reach the enemy silently with an arrow than a bang." she was just repeating what someone had told her long ago, but she did not care who or when. She knew. Period.

"Ok, Robin Hood. You should have been low-profile, shouldn't you? If you don't drag attention, it will be better. So, fewer people will be curious about you." Mirela frowned, and then, noticing that others were watching, said aloud, "Come on, people! The show is over!!"

People returned to their duties while Mirela took the bow from Clara's hands, positioned it on the ground and then handed her a weapon:

"Good shot!" she praised quietly in her ear, patting her shoulder and getting a small smile from Clara. "Fantastic. But the more you mingle with the people, better. And," handing the gun over, "You must try harder."

Clara, even thwarted, spent the whole afternoon training with the guns until her fingers were so sore she could not pull the trigger anymore. Beside her, Mirela was giving several directions in her authoritative tone, talking nonstop until it irritated her. Adding to that, she had to deal with Daniel's presence - and his girlfriend too - for a long time that afternoon. She purposely avoided looking in the direction where she could find those black eyes, which was difficult at all. That task had consumed her much more than Mirela's orders and required her much more focus to stop the involuntary movement of her eyes seeking for him than to hit the target. Every now and then she looked back at the bow on the ground and think how much easier it was to shoot hundreds of arrows than a bullet...

Even after giving her best, he saw in Mirela's face it was not enough. There was still much to improve. She was seated on the lawn looking dismayed at the target in the distance when Mirela reappeared with a few knives. She pulled Clara by the hand to take her closer to the target.

"Since it wasn't working with the guns, I thought it would be better to change a little bit. Maybe you'll be..." Mirela was saying, when Clara, a little angry, took one blade from her hand and perfectly hit the bulls-eye, just as she had done with the arrows. "Better," said the other girl, bewildered by the precision. "Why can't you be like most people? Either you're too bad or you're great so you draw attention, anyway..."

"Look, I'm done with your criticism and your orders, Mirela. Now I can understand why you have no friends." Clara threw another blade perfectly. "You can be unbearably bossy!"

And then, Clara retreated, taking the bow and arrows with her and leaving Mirela speechless behind her.

Clara went to her dormitory to leave the bow and get a new change of clothes before heading to the locker room. When she arrived there, it was full, so she took a quick shower because she knew those girls were coming back from the field, which meant that Mirela would be too. She was not exactly angry with the girl, but she felt a burden to her. Clara knew Mirela had lied about her arrival to the Cell because of Nana's request, but she felt uncomfortable for failing to "mingle" with others, as the girl repeated. She was right when she said Clara was drawing attention by being great at something and terrible at others... She hated taking a weapon... she felt it was not natural. But how could she know what was natural or not? Again, unanswered questions...

Involuntarily her thoughts turned to Daniel. She had believed he could help her remember the past by telling what had happened the night he met her. In the end it had no 'click'.

At that moment, Clara had gone to the cafeteria like the others for a pronouncement by Gaspar. As usual, she stood in a corner, near the wall, scanning the waiting crowd, talking and laughing noisily. She saw when Nana came in with the children and, soon after, Mirela also arrived accompanied by two other people she knew only by sight. Clara shrank back a little further into her corner, trying to go unnoticed. She was not in the mood for small talk.

Clara also saw when Gaspar and his team came in close to where she was, all frowning and rushing to the pulpit tables on the other side, opening space quickly between people. Daniel was among the members of Gaspar's team, equally serious, and cast a quick worried glance toward Clara as he accompanied the rest of the group. They always seemed tense, but at that moment she could see the grief on their faces. What would have changed their mood so much?

Perhaps the same question had occurred to the crowd. Just as Gaspar stepped into the pulpit, an utter silence hovered over the room. The leader looked a few seconds ahead, seeming to focus, then cleared his throat and spoke.

 "Unfortunately, we got a message on the radio stating that Government troops massively and by surprise attacked Cell 2 yesterday. Somehow, they figured out how to pass through the walls and guards. It was a manslaughter," he paused, trying to keep himself steady with his hands on the back, and walking in circles. "Just a few saved themselves and were to Cell 1 to give us this tragic news. We're trying to figure out what happened. We know that the troops have become especially lethal in the last two years, mainly after General Monteiro returned to lead the troops personally but had never crossed the walls of some Cell," new break. No one dared making a single noise in the hall. "We, the leaders, discussed over the radio our next steps, but we are sure the troops wouldn't have been as successful as..." he sighed. "We believe they had information from someone inside the Cell or someone who knows our routines." at that moment there was a muffled 'ohhh' emanating from the crowd. "We are planning a new strike, and, in a few days, you will be filled in, but meanwhile, no one enters or leaves the Cell. We won't even receive groceries from the village." Gaspar cast a glance at the kitchen staff who understood that they would have to get by with they already had in the pantries. "Today is a sad day for us, but we have to work so that the death of our friends was not in vain. I plead for each one to train to exhaustion, so you'll be in the best shape when the moment comes. This will be over soon."

Then, Gaspar came down and walked back the same way he had come in, followed by his team, including Daniel who again just gave a brief, worried glance toward Clara. But it was not that look that bothered her. There was another that she had felt all the time while Gaspar had spoken. She searched into the crowd until finally found those brown killing eyes. Marisol's eyes. Instinctively, a chill ran all over Clara's spine forcing her to leave the room.