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Chapter 10
Diana
Breathing heavily, I looked over toward the five assholes staring at me. They're really trying to kill me. Scratch not thinking this was harder than the gym. My whole body ached. This course was crazy, like military-level obstacles.
How often will I have to do this?
The sun was beating down hard, heating my body. Sweat trickled down my face, filling my mouth with its salty flavor. I wish the clouds would move to block it out.
How was it there were so many in the sky, but not one aided in my need for shade? “Again!” Was all Apollo shouted as I groaned and jogged back up to the start of the course.
This shit was intense. I was caked in mud, dripping with sweat, out of breath, and in need of a serious shower. Looking around, there were five identical courses spread out all over the field, including the one I was currently at the start of. The other four had people, one after another, running through them. It was just me on this one, though. Apollo probably planned that so I didn’t slow down any of the other recruits training.
This was boot camp from hell. I tried to catch my breath at the beginning, waiting for the whistle from Apollo signaling my start. He was holding a clipboard and a stopwatch, no doubt making sure he clocked exactly how long it took me to finish each task and my overall time. This will be the fifth time running through the course, and my body was screaming at me.
Dig deep. You have it in you to do this one more time.
I pushed that voice to the back of my mind while I sized up my first obstacle. At the sound of the whistle, I dug in my heels and took off towards the thirty-foot wall.
Grabbing the rope, I simultaneously used my hands to propel myself up while using my feet to basically run up the wall. The amount of upper body strength I had to use to hold myself up was exhausting. I pushed through the ache in my arms and kept my focus on climbing. Holding myself almost perpendicular to the wall with my feet wasn’t crazy hard, but doing it for the fifth time in a row, yeah, that was hard. Once I got to the top, I jumped toward the first platform.
There were six that all spun in opposite directions of one another.
After getting my bearings, I leaped across the platforms, being careful not to stay on one for too long and lose my footing. The first time I did the course, I learned my lesson. Only stay on the
spinning dial long enough to jump to the next. They didn’t spin super fast, but add to their height, and I was swaying so hard I fell to the water below more times than I would have liked. The asshole made me climb back to the first dial every time I fell. The platforms descended along the way, so jumping down to the next wasn’t too difficult. Once I hit the ground there was no time to rest as I ran to the next event.
I got down on my belly and started army crawling. It was challenging to keep my head down low enough, but I’d rather have a mouthful of mud than barbed wire tangled in my hair. Note to self: keep a hair tie on you at all times. The ends of my hair were covered in so much mud it turned my beautiful red into a brown color. Adding to the weight of it, because long hair wasn’t already heavy enough, it was starting to give me a pounding headache.
Crawling out of the barbed wire pit, I took off and lunged over the three-foot wall that came next. Looping around to the right, I spotted my next obstacle. The twelve little platforms caddy corner from each other with just enough room for a foot. It looked like one of the events on that Ninja Warrior show. This one was the easiest. Using all my might, I jumped from one to another, only using one leg each.
Right, left, right, left. I repeated to myself. Jumping across the slanted platforms with speed I didn't even know existed in me.
I took a second to shake out my hands before leaping to the bars next.
This was the hardest one. My upper body strength was seriously lacking. It looked like they just took a straight ladder and hung it up like monkey bars at a kids playground. Reaching out to the next bar with my right hand, I adjusted my grip and let my left hand follow. I did this over all the bars till I reached the end. Swinging my legs back and forth to get some momentum, I released my grip and lunged for the platform at the end of the bars.
Okay, one more pass. You got this. I thought to myself as I turned left toward the last round of obstacles.
The first was tires that were killing my calves as I had to pick up my knees extremely high to get across—only stepping in each tire for a second before I went to the next. There were at least thirty tires I had to run through.
How do people do this on a daily basis?
My calves were on fire.
The first time through, I face-planted so many times, not picking my feet up high enough to clear the tire.
Then was the beam. This thing was a bitch; why did it have to be toward the end when I’m breathing like a damn fool, and my legs are screaming. I jumped up on the six-inch wide post and started to walk. Arms stretched out wide to keep my balance. I carefully placed one foot in front of the other, watching every step I took. Only losing my footing once and slamming my stomach on the beam to catch myself is a win in my book. Not like the first time when I could hardly stay on the damn thing.
Each time I lost my footing I either hit my stomach, expelling all the air from my lungs, or straddled the damn thing. I’d rather hit my stomach than my vagina; it was already on fire from falling a few times.
The last thing was another damn wall. This one was like a rock wall though, not a rope wall like the first one. I used to love climbing the rock wall at the skating rink as a kid. It was always a rush when I rang the buzzer at the top and propelled myself down.
Eyeing up each step, I made it to the top and climbed down the other side. Yup, a double rock wall. No propelling down this one.
I jumped the last few feet, and once I hit the ground, my legs crumbled. I fell on my back and laid face up, staring at the sky while I tried to calm my breathing. I just wanted to lay here for hours. There were parts of my body that hurt that I didn’t even know could hurt.
“Excuse me. You’re blocking my sun asshole,” I said to the jerk that put his hand in front of my face for me to grab, blocking out my view of the sky.
