chapter one
Kyle was dreadfully bored. This was not all that uncommon, due mostly to the fact that there was nothing in life that could quench his insatiable need to exercise. And not only his muscles at that, Kyle needed to exercise his mind. He required a constant test of his problem solving abilities, his imagination, and his concentrated will. Unfortunately for Kyle, the only thing school tested was his sanity. He would often engage in short lived attempts to make his classes more interesting. In Latin, he would sometimes speculate as to what the people who came up with the language were thinking as they invented new words. This postulation was quickly dismissed by his teachers as entirely irrelevant and unimportant. If he persisted in his so called irrelevant questions, he would be told to sit down and do his work under the threat of spending an hour or more after school with Mrs. Grey, the dean of students. The thought of this possibility terrified Kyle. Mrs. Grey had no sense of humor, no love of any form of self expression, and no imagination whatsoever. Kyle suspected that he could have a more animated conversion with a potato, than with Mrs. Grey.
And so, whenever his teachers threatened this, Kyle would go quietly back to his work, not shutting off his constantly active mind, but rather postponing the release of its creative energy. Sometimes however, Kyle could not hope to contain his imagination, and more than one instance in history class did he persist in 'irrelevant questioning'.
"So class, because the Portuguese government was overthrown in 1398, the age of exploration didn't begin until much later." Mr. Martin said, in his droning monotone voice that made many students wonder if they had developed narcolepsy.
"Yes Kyle?"
"Were there any hidden agendas that the revolutionaries had?"
"No Kyle, they wanted power."
"But what if one of them had found a radical new idea and the government was censoring it, so they needed to overthrow them to get free speech?"
"No Kyle, it was just a normal revolution."
"But why didn't the government's armies fight against the revolutionaries? Maybe it was a huge conspiracy, and the government had already been overthrown, but the revolutionaries didn't want the people to panic, so they didn't tell anybody until they had inspired a sense of revolution in the people."
"No Kyle, sit down."
"Yes sir." Kyle said reluctantly as he sat down to study the same map of Portugal they had been studying for weeks. He knew that if he continued he would be writing "I will not make up crazy stories", over and over again after school on several blackboards, with Mrs. Grey criticizing his handwriting. Regardless he interrupted Mr. Martin again at least four times that class, and ended up being kept after school to do just that.
Distressed, Kyle collapsed onto his bed, letting out an exasperated sigh with just the slightest hint of happiness in it, as if in approval of the fact that the day was over. He stared at the ceiling and ran his fingers through his dirty blond hair, reminding himself that even after junior year was finished, he would still have another year of high school to bear. Quietly, he said to himself, "I wish life would get more interesting," and fell asleep.
When Kyle opened his eyes, he knew he was asleep. Trees with large ovular leaves and vines hanging about them surrounded him. He was lying on a damp grassy moss, and as he sat up, thought to himself that this was one of the most vivid and beautiful dreams he had ever had. Kyle got up and began to survey his surroundings. About 75 feet in front of him, Kyle could see a tall wooden gate, adjoined by walls, put together with what looked like tree trunks. The tops of these trunks were carved to a point, so that they resembled pencils, stood up on their erasers. Behind this wall was a rainforest looking jungle. Kyle scolded himself for thinking about school in the midst of a good dream, and decided that he was inside the confines of some sort of fort. Turning around, he realized he had been right, and ambled over to the village he saw. As he moved closer, Kyle noted that all of the buildings were made entirely out of sun dried mud. There were about a hundred huts, a tall tower like structure made of what looked like bamboo and one large square building in the center. To act as a door, an animal skin was draped over the entrance to each hut. Wondering where everyone was, Kyle began opening the doors of the huts. Inside he found mats made of plant leather and hammocks for sleeping on, and neatly stacked piles of cloths, but no people. The entire town seemed devoid of life of any kind. Finally he decided to check to building in the center. As he approached it, he began to hear faint voices, and at first thought he was imagining them, but they grew louder the closer he got. When he arrived at the door, he could hear the chatter of what sounded like a lot of people, and curiously opened the large wooden door.
Inside was an enormous room, filled with about sixty people. The room resembled one of those rooms you could reserve in a hotel, to have a meeting for some sort of organization. The crowd was looking expectantly at the platform of clay in front of them that rose about two feet up, as if they were expecting someone to come out and start a meeting. They were chattering excitedly, which evidently was the sound of the voices he had heard. Kyle started to walk up to a person in the crowd to ask what was going on, when he tripped and fell, landing hard on the palms of his hands. Kyle stared in awe at the abrasions and scrapes on his palms, and realized as his hands throbbed, that he was not dreaming. Before he had the time to wonder how he got to wherever he was, a man walked out onto the platform. The crowd became silent. On his face were recent cuts and scratches, but also deep scars, which eerily resembled tiger claw marks. His face seemed like a rock, chiseled neatly into the shape of a face, and one got the feeling that he was able to endure quite a bit of physical pain and punishment. His hands were calloused and rough, and his clothing seemed to be woven out of jungle plant fiber, giving him an odd camouflaged look, as if he was some kind of soldier. His lips formed ever so slightly into a smile as he surveyed the crowd.
He began to speak, in a loud gravelly voice.
"Don't ask me why you're here, or how you got here, because I don't know. All I know is that for some reason or another, each and every one of you crazy bastards wants to be here. Not a single person has ever come to this place and asked to go back to where they came from.
He paused a moment and let his words sink in.
"I can however, explain where you are. You are currently in a place that we call 'village', simply because no one seems to know who founded it, so it never got a name and no one cares enough to give it one. Outside of the walls that surround village is the jungle. The jungle is the most dangerous place imaginable, let your guard down for a second and the jungle will swallow you up faster than you can blink an eye."
Everyone was listening intently now, all of them craving excitement, and all of them hanging on his every word.
"People who inhabit village are required to spend at least a period of three weeks in the jungle for every thirty days they go on living here. Most of you will happily oblige, because if you didn't love the excitement that comes with being here, you wouldn't be here at all. However, if you do decide to cut your time in the jungle short, you will notice a nasty surprise when you get back. The food, which normally appears three times a day out of thin air, will crumble to dust whenever you touch it. The last person who stayed in village over an hour longer than he was supposed to starved to death. Now, with that said, your chances of survival in the jungle are not much better. Ten percent of you will die because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, thirty percent of you will die because you were not quick enough, and finally, fifty percent of you will die from sheer stupidity."
"What about the last ten percent?" a boy of about nineteen asked. The man smiled, "those are the veterans. They survive because they are fast, lucky, and most of all adaptable. Me, and several other veterans will do our best over the next thirty days to teach you how to survive in the jungle, but the rest is up to you. Any questions?"
Another boy spoke up and asked, "What should we call you?"
"Gramm," he responded.
Kyle spoke up, asking, "When does the fun start?"
Grinning, Gramm responded, "tomorrow at six AM, be up and ready for your first training session. Oh and by the way, the huts are for you; they're all the same, just pick one and go to sleep, you will find everything you need inside."
And with this he walked off the stage, and went back into the room behind the stage, from where he had emerged earlier.
Kyle did find everything he needed. He found several sets of cloths made from the same sort of material Gramm was wearing. He also found a hammock, and a knife, carved from some kind of tusk or bone, which he assumed was for shaving and cutting hair. As he drifted off into sleep, he remarked to himself that he was incredibly lucky to have been spirited away to this training camp of sorts, and pondered why the prospect of death did not frighten him. Just before he closed his eyes and fell asleep, he decided that it was because he would rather die, than life his entire life in boredom, devoid of stimulation.
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