This story is not fiction, or maybe it is, it's honestly up, to you to decide what you believe in life, I'm not the thought police.

  I sometimes have problems believing any of it myself so I won't fault you. My name in this case is not too important to the story's progression or to anyone else, so you can call me Green.

  Before we begin I have been advised by my therapist to add a trigger warning, just in general, because of...everything.

  There are no happy endings here, just solace in your loved ones.

  And pain.

  I worked for an international, non-government-affiliated militarized organization that I'll refer to as The Trigram Agency.

  Not worked for, more like "Belonged to" if you want to go into semantics. It's where I, and so many others like me grew up.

  The Agency specializes in the Elimination and imprisonment of people, entities, and objects that threaten the common good of the human race.

  I am telling you this, because I know that, even if you don't believe me, my account of events will at least be found interesting.

  It all started in 2005 when I was 11.

  My mother had taken me to a new elementary school in the city of Hurst Texas, mom wasn't able to work because of her bad legs, so we went where section 8 took us.

  It was a pretty standard school, I started my year by ingratiating myself to my teachers as usual and I had already started making friends.

  All was good for about a week, then the doctors came.

  Around lunchtime, in November, a man in a white suit took me from my class under the pretense that he was my family doctor, telling me that my mom had scheduled an appointment and couldn't pick me up, he even had my home address and a copy of my mom's driver's license as proof.

  He never brought me back.

  What happened next would take up the rest of my life. I was one of five hundred thousand children that the Trigram Agency forcibly kidnapped and signed on to a program they called JAB or Junior Agent Bonding.

  Sounds benign doesn't it?

  You see, The Trigram Agency usually recruited soldiers out of various militaries or independent Mercenary groups when looking for Agents. These didn't last long, either because of death due to ill-preparedness or lack of commitment to the Agency's objective.

  The Agency mainly tracks and eliminates targets that fall under 1 of 3 categories, Cultists, Creatures, and Artifacts, and some people find that too intimidating I guess.

  The JAB program was designed to:

  A. Create loyal Agents that would be desensitized to the otherworldly nature of The Agency's work

  B. Foster deeper, more familial bonds between Agents from a young age, assuring that abandonment would not be an issue.

  C. Create a better soldier, one completely indoctrinated to pursue the mission above all else. That was stronger, faster, smarter, and more stubborn than your average mercenary.

  One of us was meant to equal ten of your standard, run-of-the-mill Mercenaries.

  I assure you that it worked, the disgusting pigs got what they wanted.

  But at such a cost? One has to wonder if it's as effective as Director Manning said it was.

  In the beginning, I along with the rest of the JAB candidates were shipped to the Appalachian mountains to a secure facility where they told us we would, in all likelihood, be spending the rest of our lives.

  Our clothes were taken and we were given green coveralls, some boot socks and lace-up combat boots, after that we had our heads shaved and were covered in delouser.

  I remember hearing the other children screaming and crying, I didn't know why at the time.

  Our orientation started with something that resembled the old fitness pacer tests combined with Presidential Fitness Day back at school. Assessing our physical condition, endurance, strength, and agility while also running us until we physically couldn't anymore.

  I remember only tripping up once after one of the guards pulled out a baton in response to a kid who refused to run. He was ten and I don't believe he had ever been commanded to do anything in his young life. I couldn't look away as the guard proceeded to beat the Child, The first two hits elicited a scream which got everyone's attention, the next few silencing the scream as the entirety of the group looked on in absolute horror.

  The guard just kept beating away a the kid's head, he kept beating until the kid stopped moving, blood coated the man's Face, his baton, spattering the walls and floor. I couldn't believe it, I could only stare, and when one of the guards shouted at me to keep moving, it was all I could do to obey.

  After the fitness test, we were put into groups of 5, each group was taken to their own room in a separate wing of the massive underground facility, that wing would be our world for years to come. Even now, all these years later, I can still hear water rushing through the pipes that lined the ceiling of the main walkway of the residential areas.

  Sometimes I go back there in my dreams and as I hear that familiar gurgling, a horrid fear grips me, that I never really left and that all of my progress since then was in my head. But then I wake from the dream.

  We were allowed free reign of designated areas such as the residential and training areas, however, we had to be supervised if we wanted to go get food or walk around areas closer to the surface like the classroom sections, or the administrative offices.

  When I inquired about the strange plastic boxes I saw every few miles inside the facility, I was told by a guard that they were sealed weapons lockers, scattered around the facility, and placed in strategic places much like one would do with a fire extinguisher. We were also heavily discouraged from trying to take from these, being that all of them were locked via a biometric system and could only open if a staff member used his or her thumbprint, anyone else who attempted would get electrocuted. I assume this information was shared early due to some of the early JAB candidates trying to rebel, although most of us just fell into line, I was glad for the reminder.

  After orientation, we were all assigned bunk areas, these were large living spaces that were occupied by an un-walled bathroom, a (currently inactive) diagnostic computer set into the wall, and a bunk bed, The researcher that had led us there told us that we would be participating in various training exercises and classes, using as little detail as he could before leaving, slamming the door as he did.

  I looked around the room at my new friends. One of them, JAB--76843, a boy with black hair, glasses, and brown eyes I would later call Agent Edge, was just staring at the wall, the rest of them looked as terrified as I felt.

  Other than him there was JAB--76844, a pretty Blonde girl who would later be called Agent Love, JAB--76845, A young Chinese/Samoan girl who would be called Agent Wolf, and JAB--76846, a taller boy who looked Hispanic who would be called Agent Ripper, we were one of the only eight groups that survived the JAB program.

  76844 was also glancing around and locked eyes with me, tears were streaming from her eyes. Seeing this, I immediately rushed to her!

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  She was one of the only ones who seemed to be showing any emotion other than the numbness that had seeped into the room and my first instinct was to latch on to her, that she might be some font of anything other than dread. I opened my arms and she dived into them, sobbing into my shirt as I held her, "I don't know how...but I promise we're gonna make it out of here..." I said, my voice quivering as we both shook.

  I couldn't think of anything else to say, I didn't know anyone in this room, but we were all prisoners.

  My words seemed to jar 76846 from his reverie, he looked at us, "Don't make promises you can't keep."

  I glared at him, "Promises are all I have!!" I bellowed at him, my voice cracking as my already shaky mask of confidence began go slip, "What do you have!?'

  Without another word, 76846 laid down on his bed and rolled his back to face me, he didn't speak to me again that day.

  76843 looked at me with his eyes wide and tearful behind the lenses of his glasses, "Do...do you mean it?

  I look from him to 76844, to the others, then, against all emotional odds, I crack an optimistic smile, trying like hell to evoke the spirit of my favorite character from a certain Pirate movie I'd been watching since it had come out in 2003, a devil-may-care type of optimism, the most contagious type.

  "Oh yeah."

  Over the next few months, even the veneer of Optimism would be beaten out of me as we were trained in Military and Agency Exercises by veteran Trigram personnel.

  Protocol on Mondays, learning how to handle certain situations and the right equipment to use in each. Things like "What kind of relic or holy symbol is most effective against what subtype of Homo-Sanguisuga" (the Latin name for Vampire) or "How to escape a pocket dimension you've been trapped in" (The answer is Find the Totem).

  Or my personal favorite, "How to tell the difference between a Clown and a Klounh." (both are pronounced the same and the only way you can tell the difference between the words is on paper, hint, one of them is a human in a costume and one is a member of some ancient race of monsters.)

  However, once you meet a Klounh you will most certainly be afraid of clowns for the rest of your life, as the only way to establish observation of a differentiating trait is an up-close encounter. No. Thank. You.

  Combat was on Tuesdays, we started with basic techniques, and weapons training with some big Russian woman who worked us like we were grown-ups, of course at this point most of us were too numb and disillusioned to even be called children anymore. Alena was a cruel taskmaster, making sure that blood was drawn in each training match even when nobody had purposefully hurt anyone else, throwing uncooperative JABs to the floor or into walls when they talked back to her.

  Though she would much later take an unhealthy interest in me, tutoring me personally on the proper use of a sword, it wouldn't change how scared I was of her.

  Finally, after enough of the squads became somewhat adept at weapons and combat in general, mine included, they held these "culling" matches.

  During Culling, groups were pitted against each other for what we assumed was the sport of our captors, but it was to put us on a combat ratings chart to assess what they called "Combat effectiveness" which would dictate to them how ready we were for the next stage of the program. We would not be able to leave the room unless the other team was killed or incapacitated.

  Much to our horror, the incapacitated JABs would be put down anyway, once we learned this, we stopped trying to spare them. This continued until the number of JABs had been reduced from 499,000 to 600

  Culling always brought a heavy emotional toll on all of us, whoever won, we all lost in some way.

  Kids would cry for their mothers, shit themselves, beg, plead.

  The only solace any of us could take was that we were still alive, that our friends were still alive.

  On Wednesdays we had what was essentially our one restful day before we began again on Thursday, it was also known as Hygene day, every bunk room would have to be cleaned, every head re-shaved every germ scrubbed from your flesh, and there was only one shower room to spare amongst what could have been, at some points, hundreds of JAB candidates.

  There was more bloodshed in that hallway than there ever was in the arena, because if you were caught without having cleaned yourself that day, they sprayed you with dry powdered soap and de-lousing powder, scrubbed you down with steel wool, and washed you off with a hose.

  I'm not saying my group won every fight for that shower, but we were all S class on the Culling fight charts, we were up at the top of the food chain in those halls.

  Every hostile engagement with the other JABS, even outside of Culling, galvanized our squad's connection to one another, we were slowly becoming what we would be for the rest of our lives.

  A team.

  I specifically remember the instance when my squad became more than just a cluster of children.

  It had been a rough day, the culling floor had exacted its usual heavy toll, I was on my back in bed, mourning the loss of a few ribs, listening as 76843 sobbed about his broken wrist while 76844 tried to comfort him.

  "It's gonna be ok, they set it, didn't they?" She cooed, only for 43 to sob more, "It's still broken! How am I going to fight now??"

  Before long, I felt a weight on the bed beside me.

  Looking up, I could see 76846 and 76845 sitting there, 46 looked upset, and 45 looked like she wanted something.

  "Can I help you?" I look up at them both, still sore at 46 for his dismissal of my placations at the start, even if it had been a solid 4 months since then.

  There was a moment of silence before 45 elbowed 46 in the stomach, making him cough before speaking, "I'm...sorry for the way I behaved before, you just wanted to help, and I should have taken that in the spirit it was meant."

  45 smirked, "Good."

  46 then reached over and patted my shoulder, "You were right, we're going to get out of here somehow, it's just a matter of when."

  45 beckoned to 43 and 44, the pair coming to my bedside as she stared at them, "Okay...so it's all agreed, we'll be escaping together, yea?"

  44 and 43 looked at her and 46, then at me before sitting down and shrugging, "It doesn't seem...doable." said 43, to which 45 huffed, "it doesn't matter if it's doable now, if we're going to survive, we need to be together on this!"

  43 and 44 looked at one another, 43 still cradling his broken arm, his glasses sitting low on his nose, 44 looking giddily at all of us as if she had finally gotten what was going on.

  after a long pause, they both nodded, "deal." Said 43, 44 just giggled and nodded.

  Once more 45 smirked, that triumphant look would be such a rare treat in the coming years, remembering it gives me chills, "perfect."

  Breaking off THIS depressing subject, let us move on to the next, one, shall we? I was talking earlier about the next phase of the project. This was the part where the "Soldier" part of the program came into play.