Chapter 11 - chapter 11

Chapter 11
I woke with a start on a long black couch and forced myself into a sitting position. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair and forced it back into a ponytail, wrapping a hair-tie around the mess. I stood up and walked to the door of the office I had slept in last night, stretching and yawning. I reached for the gray door knob, but before I could touch it, it flung open to reveal Ted standing there, arms folded.
I gave another little jump and yelp, and clutched at my heart.
“Lesson number two:” Ted said glaring at me, “expect the unexpected. Now hurry up, kid.”
Kid? Kid?! Did he seriously just call me kid?! I was the girl that was going to save his freaking world and he dared to disrespect me like that?!
I took a few deep breaths, trying to control my temper as we walked down the boring gray carpeted hallways. It wouldn’t do to lose my temper. I had to keep calm.
Ted opened a door and motioned me to enter.
“What I am going to teach you on this level is short but very important. You are the icon for millions of the dead. The entire future of Heaven, Earth, and Hell relies completely on your shoulders. If you show one sign of weakness, they will get scared and stop believing in you. Your performance on that first night you were here scared the people on the first level of Heaven. Mark managed to cover for you, saying that all of that was just to test whether the people believed in you. I am here to teach you that no matter what happens you can not show any signs of weakness. People are going to die again in this war. You have to expect that and not let your reluctance to risk people’s lives get in your way of making decisions. You have to be strong and be able to make decisions quickly.”
I stared at him. He looked back at me, apparently awaiting an answer. I swallowed.
“Ok.” I said weakly.
“Now,” he said, opening the door to the hallway in which I had first entered the building with Mark. “I’m going to put you through a series of tests. After you take them I will go over all of your mistakes and you will correct them. Ring the bell.”
I glared at him for a second, took a deep breath, turned to the little silver bell, reached out a shaking hand and rung it. I breathed deeply again as the scenery changed again. I was standing on a stage, facing several thousand frightened looking people. They stretched from the black stage to out of the tall wooden doors that stood open. Some of the people were so close I could pick out each individual detail on their face. A mole here, a long beard there...Others were so far away that they sort of blurred into the back-round. I looked at the ones I could see more closely and found with a shock that I recognized some of them from history class.
Ok...why wasn’t George Washington or Joan of Arc leading this army or talking to the people?!
They were all looking at me. Some lowly freshman girl from California. Andrew Jackson was looking at me. Expectantly. Waiting.
That’s when I realized that I was expected to make a speech. Again. Great. Wonderful. Awesome. Can’t wait. Oh no.
I breathed again.
“People of, uh, Heaven:” I began awkwardly, my voice amplified to the very back of the crowd. “We are about to, um, fight the people of Hell to protect, um, ourselves, and, uh, the people of ,um, Earth...I have been chosen to, uh, lead you and I, um, and I, uh...I, well, I have been going through training to, um, lead this army, which is huge by the way...well I suppose you all already know that being part of it...so umm...I guess that I am saying that I believe in all of you people. I know we can win this war sooo...yeah. That’s it.”
A groan of disgust resounded through out the hall and I was transported back to the gray hallway with the bell.
“That was awful.” Ted groaned again. “Well, actually it wasn’t all terrible. You had some good points. It was all just really scrambled up and not confident enough. You also said ‘uh and um’ a lot.” he continued, mocking my voice which last time I checked, wasn’t that high or quite that annoying.
I gritted my teeth.
“What should I have done?” I asked him looking him squarely in his green eyes.
“Well, you should have been more confident, articulate, and don’t say ‘uh’ or ‘um’. Try again.”
************************************************************

You are not authorized to comment here. Your must be registered and logged in to comment