I held my breath as the nervous boy hesitated at every obstacle, fear making him cautious, but he completed the course without falling. The reed’s retort was swift and merciless.
Then it was my turn.
I was already exhausted from the morning. My body ached in places I never knew existed. My hands were raw, and my legs trembled.
But I ran.
The first wall was higher than I was tall. I jumped, caught the top, pulled myself up. My shoulders screamed in protest where the reed had struck, but I swung my leg over and dropped down the other side, landing hard, a spear of pain shooting through my already abused knees.
The rope came next. I grabbed it, kicked off, and immediately knew I had misjudged the distance, falling short to land in the mud below with a wetsplat.
Behind me, I heard it. Not quite a laugh. Just a sharp exhalation from one of the boys. The tall one, probably. I crawled out of the mud and continued.
My feet slipped on the log twice, and I had to windmill my arms to stay upright.
I barely made the leap over the ditch, my foot catching on the far edge.
The mud crawl threatened to suck me deep below the earth, making the second wall feel like climbing a very slippery mountain.
By the time I reached the end, I could barely stand. My legs were jelly, my vision swam, and mud covered me from head to foot, caking in my hair, under my nails, in my mouth.
I gulped in air, hoping for a ladle of water, but the master’s voice barked, “Again.”
And so we ran the course again.
And again.
And again.
The sun crept across the sky, shadows lengthened, and the afternoon heat gave way to blessed evening coolness. I lost count of how many times we ran the course. My body moved on autopilot, muscles responding even as my mind grew foggy. I fell more times than I could remember, more times than I could ever remember. Into the mud. Off the balance log. Missing the rope swing again and again.
The other boys fell, too.
Even the delicate one stumbled on his fifth or sixth run, landing hard in the mud pit. For a moment, his serene mask cracked, and I saw frustration flood his eyes before he smoothed it away.
The tall boy’s glares turned to expressions of grim determination.
The stocky boy’s enthusiasm faded to dogged persistence.
The nervous boy simpered silently, tears streaming down his face as he ran, but he did not stop.
No one dared stop. By the end, none could stand.
The sun had slipped below the horizon, trailed by hues of orange and milky blue. We lay in the dirt at the end of thecourse, gasping, unable to move, each covered in mud and sweat and blood from scrapes and cuts we had not noticed acquiring. The master hovered over us, his expression unchanged from the moment he’d first arrived that morning. He looked down at our broken bodies and nodded once, as if satisfied.
“Up,” he said.
I thought I had misheard. Surely he did not mean—
“Up,” he repeated. “You will clean yourselves before evening meditation.”
Somehow, we rose. Or rather, we crawled in unison, then stumbled, then finally stood on shaking legs.
The master led us to a courtyard with a stone basin filled with water so cold it made my teeth chatter when I splashed it on my face. We were given rough cloth and instructed to scrub away the mud and blood. The cloth abraded my welts, making them burn anew. The cold water felt like knives against my raw skin.
But we cleaned ourselves.
Because we had to.
