Lucid nightmares save souls

Ch. 31

It was time. Today was the day of their practical exam. And they were scared as fuck. What could they possibly expect to do? It already started out strange when they arrived at the main hall and directly they were taken outside and put into boats. Apparently their exam didn't take place at school but in the middle of the lake, fantastic. Even better was the fact that it was already kinda late so they knew by the time they had to go back it would be pitch-black. And it was raining.

They arrived at their location, a very small island in the middle of the lake with only a single building all the way on the edge of a cliff. They wondered why out of all places they put it right there, it looked like it already should have fallen of the edge years ago.

The building was a tower, and they stopped right in the front of the big front door. Ana stood in front of it, ready to give another speech. There were not many people, besides them four there were another three dudes and a girl. The dudes looked a little older than them, around eighteen, nineteen or something and the girl looked around their age, maybe a little older.

'Welcome everyone. Soon your practical exams will take place in the building behind me and you will play a game, le jeu des quatre. The exam might not be what you expected it to be so be aware. The game will test your skills in intelligence, creativity, confidence and bravery. The idea is really simple, you need to reach the finish within one and a half hour. You play the game in teams of four so that shouldn't be a problem. You have fifteen minutes to prepare before the first group goes inside. Youngest first.'

She opened the door and walked inside leaving the eight of them standing in the rain.

'And may the odds be ever in your favor.'

'Amen.'

They were all looking at the door as if it would magically open again or something.

'So what are we going to do now?'

They were now split up in two groups of four talking to each other. It was kinda awkward.

'Don't they look a bit old to you?'

'Them? Well the girl not but the dudes indeed look old.'

'I thought we were on a school with people between fourteen and eighteen.'

'I thought so too. Oh my god they are looking at us.'

'I swear to god if they are gonna talk to us I really don't want-, fuck they are coming towards us-, ah shit here we go.'

The three dudes and the girl were walking towards them and stopped right next to them. One of the dudes spoke up.

'Hi, so you're doing the exam as well?'

'Uh no we're only here for the view.'

'Ah you're funny, I see. Anyways aren't you a little young for the game already?'

'What do you mean young? Aren't you a little old?'

'lmao well technically you're not wrong, we're nineteen-'

He pointed to himself.

'also nineteen-'

He pointed to the dude on his left.

'and eighteen.'

He pointed to the dude on his right.

'But it's okay because we're transfer students and also senior students so we're legal. Now I answered your question, so now you, aren't you a bit young to be here?'

'Well we didn't know there was a normal age for this, we just got kidnapped, went to school for about a year and now we do our exams so we can leave again.'

Lisa, Nora and Eva nodded in agreement while Sadie explained.

The other four looked at them with a little confusion.

'Do you even know what you're doing here?'

'Uh yes. To do our practical exam obviously.'

'This is your practical exam? After just a year of school?'

'Yes that's what I just said, why are you being so weird about it?'

'Alright, let me try to explain this as easy possible, you clearly have no idea. The whole school needs to do practical exams to finish their year right?'

'Yea I guess so.'

'Do you see any of them here?'

'..no.'

'Exactly, it's just us and you. Everybody is in school right now taking their practical exams and doing weird shit and making large fires and making fish fly or whatever. I myself have done four practical exams in my life, each of them being different but with each it was just straight forward and you needed to make or do something physically. The game right here is another level of exam, this is not only physically, no this is more mentally. I've trained five and a half years for this, we all have. Except her but she's an exception, she's just really smart. But as I was saying, most students do school for a few years to learn all the skills they need and graduate. This exam we are going to do now is for a different diploma, a rare one. We had to transfer her all the way for this because you can only take the exam on a few places on earth and most of the time only senior students do it, with again Hannah as exception, and you too apparently.'

'Well that's great. So now we're here in the middle of a lake, in the rain, in the almost dark, going to make an exam we again didn't sign up for. They need to stop making us do shit we didn't ask for.'

'For real tho.'

'Well now we're here anyways we should just make the best of it.'

'Huh? Eva are you okay? Do you feel sick or something? Nausea?'

'No? Why?'

'You are being optimistic. It's weird. Don't scare us like that again.'

'Oh ok. Anygays I'm Eva, nice to meet y'all.'

'Oh yea right, introduction, I'm Sadie.'

'I'm Nora. Peace out.'

'And I'm Lisa.'

'Oohh you are them.'

'You know us?'

'No, only story's.'

'They talking about us?'

'Of course they are, we're very fucking interesting you know?'

'Doesn't matter, I'm Jisung, nice to meet you too.'

'I'm Hannah, as you may have heard.'

'I'm Chan.'

'And I'm Jake.'

'So tell me, is this school better or your old one?'

'Well this one is nice, I can't deny that, but you should've seen our old one, that one is another level, really.'

'yea he's right. We have a lot of high towers and in the winter you can ski from your window down. And with halloween everyone dresses up, most of them vampires but even the teachers join, it's really great.'

Thats's how they spent their fifteen minutes in the rain, talking with Jisung, Hannah, Chan and Jake. In the first minute it was mostly Eva, Nora, Jisung and Chan talking but after a while everyone joined in and now it was a chaos with eight people talking through each other, each in their own conversation. And then the door opened. Ana's voice echoed through the rain.

'Nora, Lisa, Sadie and Eva, please, come inside to start your exam.'

'Ah shit.'

'Good luck.'

'Thanks man, you too later.'

They waved each other goodbye and stepped into the dry. The doors closed behind them.

'Here we go bitches, you ready?'