Silence the Hunger

It had been a few days since they announced Marcel was dead. It hit Class E particularly hard. Especially Isobelle, Ellena and Dillan.

“Hey why don’t we go do something, go to the arcades or walk round the park. I just want to do something… together.” Isobelle had downcasted eyes as she spoke up.

“I agree, he wouldn't want us to be acting like this.” Ellena tried to cheer everyone up as she raised her voice.

“How about we go to the arcades, then? It’s been awhile.” Dillan propped himself up.

“Alphonse?” Isobelle looked at him, as he seemed to be deep in thought.

“Ahh, yeah, of course, I'm up for anything.” Alphonse shook his head and smiled.

“To the arcade then!” Ellena pumped her fist in the air as the group hurried towards the entertainment district. As they stepped off the elevator, large neon lights greeted their eyes in a vast assortment of colours. The arcade was for civilians and recruits alike. The officers said that it was their treat, but they all knew it was to release stress so that they didn't lose their sanity and do anything stupid.

The sound of pinball machines and tickets being rewarded as they spewed out from the machines. Everyone was laughing and having a good time as they blew through all of their money in record time.

“Let’s ride the go-karts first!” Ellena ran forwards.

”Jeez, Ellena, wait up, you brute!” Isobelle huffed, as a small smile appeared.

“I’m going first!” Dillan sprinted forwards as they all quickly chased after Ellena.

‘Can I really call them friends?’ Alphonse watched as small smiles gradually appeared on their faces once more. It filled him with a weird feeling. One that he wasn’t used to.

Alphonse rushed after them. Thanks to his speed, he quickly took over them as he childishly took the fastest looking one. He knew it was a fact that if it had racing stripes on it, then it had to be faster. Everyone quickly strapped themselves into the go-kart as they began their race. They crashed into each other many times as the sound of their laughter filled the race track.

Ellena was extremely competitive, her face scrunched up as she was hunched forwards. Attempting to gain even the slightest advantage.

Dillan's eyes flashed a cruel light as he suddenly sped up to the corner instead of slowing down. His go-kart smashed into the side of Ellena's vehicle as he started laughing.

"That's it, you damned ape!" Ellena screamed as they waged war on each other.

Alphonse was minding his own business when they collided into his race striped go-kart. "Alright, that's it."

Alphonse stamped his foot onto the pedal as he shot forward, slamming into the back of both Ellena and Dillan. They each spent the entire race as if it was a demolishing derby. It surprised Alphonse he didn't come out of it with whiplash.

Isobelle stayed at a steady pace as her kart meandered through the racecourse, barely avoiding the raging bulls as she silently crept past the finishing line.

“Haha, I can’t believe I won. You guys need to step it up!” Isobelle unhooked her seatbelt as she stuck her nose forwards. Everyone smiled, Dillan couldn't help but release a belly laugh. They let her have her victory.

They went from one arcade game to the next. Ellena’s favourite machine was the punching bag. Each time, every punch was harder and faster than the other, as she kept on trying to break her personal record. Isobelle loved the tower stacking game, pressing the button at the right time to accurately stack the bricks so it didn’t fall over.

Alphonse and Dillan used up the remaining time shooting some hoops. It was good to have a break from their thoughts and forget about everything for a while.

"Alphonse, which one are you interested in?" Dillan stuck his elbow into Alphonse's ribs as a teasing smile lifted from his lips. "No way it's Ellena, right? She's tall, too muscly, she forgets things way too easily. I honestly think she might have a black hole within that thick skull of hers."

Alphonse looked at the tall farm hand. His head shook side to side. "Why, you worried I might chase her? She's quite pretty after all. That tom-boy look has caught glances from the rest of the class, you know." Alphonse took to the teasing as a smile formed on his face.

"I-uh... No, of course not, chase her all you want, I don't care." Dillan's eyes shifted from the basket to taking sneaky glances of Alphonse.

Alphonse broke out into laughter. "Don't worry, I have no interest in either of them."

"Ah, not even Isobelle? She's really pretty." Dillan said. "For you, not for me."

"Not even Isobelle, this isn't exactly a place that births romances, is it?" Alphonse said as his hands lobbed the basketball into the hoop, the ball hit the side of the basket as rolled back towards him.

"Any place is a place for romance, Alphonse. You've just got to have experience." Dilan said.

"You have a lot of experience, then?" Alphonse said. His eyes turned to Dillan.

"Uh, well, not yet. I'm working on it!" Dillan said.

"With Ellena?" Alphonse said, as a cheeky smirk appeared.

"Uhkk..." Diillan almost choked on his saliva as his head bobbed around in all directions.

"What are you boys doing? C'mon, we're hungry." Ellena appeared with Isobelle in tow.

Dillan's eyes leered at Alphonse, sweat formed on his forehead. Please don't open your damned mouth. Dillan thought.

"Sure, let's go." Alphonse smiled as he patted Dillan on the shoulder.

They spent the rest of their weekly allowance at the burger mart, as they all sat down. Exhausted, keeping up with Ellena all day. They dug into their burgers. Alphonse had to force himself to eat very little. He didn’t want to go into debt after all.

“Ellena, what did you do back home?” Isobelle wiped her mouth with a napkin as she asked the question,

Everyone opened their eyes in surprise, Dillan opened his mouth to speak, still half filled with food. “I can’t believe we’ve never talked about that before.”

“We’ve never had the chance to be fair. Our life has been constant training and sleep. I was an amateur MMA fighter.” Ellena answered.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Dillan laughed and continued. “My family owned a large farm, but because we were poor, I ended up having to do most of the manual labour as my parents aged. We couldn’t afford to hire anyone.”

“Ah, sorry, that must have been tough.” Isobelle sympathised with him. She couldn’t imagine the stress he was under.

“No, it’s alright, it wasn’t so bad. Rather, I felt it was quite rewarding. Growing crops from nothing to feed and provide for the entire family.” Dillan reminisced as he wondered how his family was doing. It was a common sentiment throughout all the classes that had a life before this.

“Well, my life wasn’t as hard as being a farmer. I was studying hard to get into law school.” Isobelle said.

"My pops always wanted me to go into law, but-" Ellena said. Before she could continue, Dillan's loud voice interrupted her.

"But you weren't smart enou-ow!" Dillan smirked before receiving a swift kick to the shins underneath the table.

"No, Dillan," Ellena said as her eyes glared towards him. "My family couldn't afford it. Then I found out that I had a talent for fighting, so I dropped out of school to earn some money. By that time, I lost any motivation to study."

"My bad." Dillan said. A stupid smile was plastered on his face as Isobelle glared at him.

Then, everyone turned to Alphonse, as he was the last one to say anything.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, Alphonse.” The others noticed he was struggling, but he just smiled and gently shook his head.

“No, it’s alright, it’s just that it’s not that interesting, that’s all. I left high school at an early age. I bounced around from job to job to make ends meet.” They could tell that he had a complicated story, as he was hesitant to talk in further detail, so they quickly left it at that.

“Have any of you heard about any of the Class A recruits? I heard many of them have gained special abilities. There's even rumours a few of them have gained classes.” Isobelle remembered. Her eyes lit up as she continued. “Apparently, there’s someone capable of powerful ice magic!”

“I’ve heard a few things, but Class A are like damned golden roosters. All they do is stay on their gilded floor.” Ellena spat. She didn’t believe she was any less ill than anyone from class A.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I heard there’s someone as strong as a mountain already from Class A.” Dillan said, as he couldn’t help but marvel.

“Well, no matter how strong they are. We will surely catch up.” Alphonse encouraged everyone. He himself believed it. No matter how strong the gifts they had received, he swore to catch up and exceed them.

“Well, I suppose it’s about time we headed back. I'm absolutely skint.” The others agreed they had absolutely no money left. The small reprieve from their exhausting and tormenting training was worth every penny. They headed back and soon prepared for bed as the lights slowly disappeared. However, no one could sleep. Their thoughts were of home, and now… their daunting future.