I suppressed my emotions as we arrived next to yet another cavern, it wasn't the right one, but it would need to do. 

Until we parted ways with the other group that is. 

We didn't want to have to split the resources of the mystical cave with another group and therefore potentially alter our chances of passing to the next stage and to enter Witherlore. 

We couldn't trust anyone. Not even our friends.

The other group proposed to take turns with us to secure the perimeter and insure we would be safe during the night. 

We proposed to put one person of our team, and one person of their team to be sure no team would harm the other. 

The air seemed tense as we picked our partners.

I was torn between picking Byhn or picking Jax as it would be easier to be sure he wouldn't hurt anyone if I was surveying him. 

I ended up asking Jax to partner up with me, and he answered with a grin "Sure Ruby, I didn't know you would be so eager to spend some time with me." 

I felt my face redden from anger and embarrassment as I answered, "it's not that I just don't have anyone else to team up with".

I turned around to find out it was indeed true as the others had all partnered up with someone from the other team. Jax looked over my shoulder as if to confirm my claim and a scowled painted his face, i couldn't help from stopping a victorious grin as his expression soured. 

We agreed to take the fifth shift during the night, right after Eisma and Byhn, those two seemed to have decided to supervise themself personally. 

Eisma looked over at me and nodded as if she understood my situation, but she couldn't, right?

She didn't know who or rather what I was. 

I picked up my bottle from my bag and drank a little more of my water while wondering who would become hostile to me if they knew my identity.

How many of them would try to kill me.

How many would put fake pleasing faces.

How many would run away in terror.

I wasn't ashamed of who I was, I just didn't deem it necessary to live fake friendships or to live under constant death threats. 

When I was young, my mother always told me to assume who I was to express my power and expose it to everyone, to make sure they feared me and respected me. 

My dad didn't seem to care when I would come home with the face covered in blood. He never asked whether it was mine or someone else's. 

At first, when the kids refused to be friends with me and wounded me, I cried and tried to fight back.

But after a while, I realized it was futile.

The only thing I could do to prevent them from hurting me was to make sure they would fear me more than their worst fears. 

One day, I decided to release my aura and make them see what a devil really looked like. 

I never forgot the look in their eyes as my eyes turned blood like red and that my hair became black like a crow.

I could feel the fear sweating off them as I laughed at their face.

I could see my aura turning from a dark blue to a red like burgundy, it shifted and danced around my body as if it wanted me to play with it, I could feel it teasing me to let it run free. 

I felt a shiver running through my spine as if a hand was gradually moving up my back, I felt it grab the back of my neck as I heard "let it run free, make them pay". 

The voice seemed to have been spoken aloud but gradually faded until it became a whisper that tickled my ear. 

It resembled a man's voice but had a rocky texture to it that most man hadn't. 

At that moment, I felt my aura snap just like a band that broke, my vision turned red as I heard screaming around me.

I never recalled if I screamed too, or if it was only the other ones that had screamed.

I could smell it, the smell of blood, the blood that I would have to carry for the rest of my existence, honestly I didn't remember anything except the smell and the feeling I had during that time.

It was a terrifying sensation of power that triggered and made me feel invincible. 

My aura traveled through my veins as I could feel it gaining in power as it prepared itself to emerge and destroy those who had hurt my family. 

I remember feeling liberated as I heard the song of their screaming tearing through the silence of ignorance, all those who had ignored our suffering would pay just as much as the ones who perpetrated it. 

As it happened, I felt something sharp entering my neck, before I fell into oblivion, I heard someone with a voice that resembled my mother's voice whisper "you did well, my little red wolf, Vhyo would be proud of you". 

I woke up the next morning in a small cabin in the middle of the woods as I saw my mother, my father, my brother, and my sister talking in a corner and could only heard bribes of their conversation, "its not...", "stay...impossible", "danger...", "start over... village". 

After that, they probably realized I had woken up as their heads turned toward me and my mother and father approached me carefully as to prevent me from being startled. 

They calmly explained to me that we could need to move to another village and that we would change our appearance to prevent people from hurting our family. 

We changed everything that could lead to other people recognizing us, whether it be our eye color, our hair color or even our way of talking and speaking. 

We created another story based on which we were a family that had moved from the north to be able to access Witherlore when we came of age. 

We settled for approximately four or five years in the second village before my sister came of age and was brought to participate in the simulation, one year later, my turn came, and normally my brother's turn would come in two years from now. 

Most kids saw this opportunity as a dream, a chance of becoming of the elite, they awaited their ninetieth birthday with so much enthusiasm. 

Some parents throw small faraway parties for them and hope to see the guards come back with good news. They smiled with tears of joy when seeing them leave, but as soon as they were behind closed doors, they pleaded the gods for their children to either be one of the exceptions or just for them not to be one of those who disappeared with a trace. 

Behind their fear, hid a glimmer of greed leading them to wish for more power, more recognition. Everyone hoped and wished to become one of the great families, those close to the king and his family, those who would rule the kingdom by his side as long as they could keep even a thread of power in their grasp. 

They would appear to be immortals when they appeared to parade in the middle of Estol in their extravagant dresses and their shiny gems that they had merged inside their jewels to prevent anyone from stealing them, or just to express their dominance. 

I remember going to the capital once to watch one of their parades, the thickness of their aura sickened me as I could feel it trying to bring me down to my knees, next to me I could see the others that had came to see the special event tremble and fight to stay up. 

Some had given up and were kneeling on the ground as their faces looked up in admiration and adulation to the ones who had made us live in an unjust world. I

 remember the cheering of the crowd as we could see the Resola guard marching up the street, their boots resonating and scraping the slabs of stone that had been installed for the occasion, we could feel them shaking under our feet as the guards approached us, the princes and princesses were in their wolf forms as the king wanted them to remain anonymous for their simulation. 

Behind them, just like shadows, were the newest recruits of Witherlore, those who had just been accepted to the academy by surviving a year of trials and war simulation. 

They glanced around as if they were trying to find a familiar face in the crowd to show them, they had made it, one of them glanced towards my family and hovered over our faces as if he was trying to recognize us. 

Most of them looked as if they had been starved and trained until they could no longer stand up, which I realize now, was probably what had happened. 

I counted rapidly the number of cadets remaining and felt something drop in my stomach as I realized, they were only thirty, normally every year, almost a hundred candidates participated, whether it be voluntary or not. 

If they refused, their family were tortured before their eyes. 

After all, we couldn't take the chance to miss out on the next king or the next queen. 

Could we?

____________________________________________________

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story up until now!

Don't hesitate to comment if you like the story!

Question time!

Would any of you participate in the simulation if it gave you even the slightest chance at being a queen or a king, even if it would mean that you might give up your life to try?