The World As We Know It

The Chosen Ones (Part 2)

The cafeteria is just as white as the rest of the facility. It's full of tables you'd see in a school cafeteria. There were about 10 fully across the room. There were more men dressed in white behind the counters serving food.
"I just want to get this all over with." I'm thinking in my mind. But my thinking gets disrupted as I'm knocked off my feet. Because we're all standing in a line; I fall forward onto the person in front of me and they do the same to the person they're standing behind and so forth. It was like a line of dominoes.
"What the hell?" I yell looking behind me.
There are two girls bickering with each other on the floor. They stop when they hear my voice and they turn to me.
"Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. Saavi, look what you did!"  The girl with the dreads says.
"ME? You started this!" The other one says, who I assume is Saavi.
"You pushed me and it caused us all to fall!"
"Well you started yelling at me first!" says Saavi.
One of the guys who fell in the line stands up quickly. "What are you guys? In Kindergarten? Grow the hell up."
"Hey!" Saavi stands up pointing her finger at the guy. "Stay out of this man."
The other bickering girl comes over to me and helps me up while Saavi goes and helps the others who had fallen.
"Please forgive us." she says.
"Oh it's fine, really." I respond.
"I'm Rayne. From Michigan."
"Kyra. Indiana"
"And I'm Eden." says a guy putting his arm over Rayne's shoulders.
"Yeah how about no." Says Rayne as she takes his arm off of her shoulder. "This is Eden. From Michigan as well."
I take a good look at him. He's tall with brown sandy hair and brown eyes. He wears glasses with thick black frames.
"Just so happens that me and Rayne actually grew up together and we were both selected. They call us 'the unbeatable duo'." he says.
"Yeah no one actually calls us that. Never say that again." Rayne says to him.
He shrugs his shoulders.
"What's your speciality?" he asks me.
"Taekwondo." I answer. "You?"
"I'm here for the smarts." he winks. "Physics specifically."
"I'm a runner. Not anything too cool." says Rayne.
"Hey. Cardio is actually extremely difficult. As someone who's been doing a sport my whole life, cardio will always be hell to me. So props to you." I say to her.
She smiles.
We hear a voice from behind us in line.
"Let's keep the line moving, yeah?" they say. We all turn to him. It's the buff guy I saw on the field earlier who I swore was a body builder. He was even taller than Eden and had black, long, shaggy, hair with blue eyes. Now that I'm closer to him, he's beautiful.
"Buzz off Mr. Sumo." says Eden.
"Some of us require a ton of protein in our bodies at certain times. I need to eat before I collapse from low blood sugar withdrawal." he snaps back.
Rayne turns back around to us. "Is that even a thing?"
In the cafeteria there were different stations for certain groups of us. For the sports there were stands with carbs, starch, fatty fish and vegetable focused foods. And for the kids with the smarts they ate just about anything they wanted. They strayed us away from sugary foods and dessert's because that could affect our performances.
We all get our food.
I turn and I see different tables filled with different groups of people. It's like the first day of high school all over again. I see Rayne wave me over, so I go and sit with her table. Here was Saavi, Eden, and a few other people I haven't met yet.
"Hey." I say setting down my tray.
"Hi Kyra." says Eden.
"You're Kyra?" asks one of the girls at the end of the table asks excitedly.
I nod my head.
"Oh my gosh. I've heard about your gold medal wins. I've seen you fight. You're so forceful with your kicks it's insane." she says.
"Oh wow. I'm flattered." I say.
"Oh sorry. I'm Raven." she says. Her name suits her looks exactly.
Her hair is as black as a raven bird, and dark eyes to go with it. Her skin is pale which complements her hair to make it look even darker.
"I do karate. So I watch a lot of other similar sports like Jujitsu, Muay Thai, and Taekwondo."
"Oh that's so cool. I do the same to study any possible future components moves." I joke.
"I wish I could swing my legs around." Says Saavi.
"Not quite it ma'am." says Raven.
"What's your talent?" I ask.
"Um. Well, I'm a professional dancer. Surprised you haven't heard of me." Saavi responds.
"Don't get cocky about it. No one would've thought a dancer would be amongst the athletes." says Eden.
"That only proves how good I am." says Saavi.
"Mmhmm." says Rayne.
I laugh.
After dinner the group of us heads out into the halls to wander a little bit around the facility.
"I wonder if finding our way around these halls will be one of the challenges." says Saavi.
"Do you guys think any of this is a little weird?" I ask.
They all turn to me and no one says anything.
"Um. No?" Rayne says and raises her eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" asks Saavi.
"I don't know. When I thought about competing against other athletes..I don't know. I mean most of us are from different sports. How are we supposed to compete against each other when our specialties are different skills?" I ask.
"I mean muscle is muscle." answers Raven.
"For smart people I guess it'll just be who can add the fastest." says Saavi.
"No that's another thing. How are we going to go against them? Kick them in the brain until they can't solve an algebraic equation?" I say.
"She's right." Eden comes in. "There's also something weird about Zen."
"I also feel like as a group of teens who are doing something they enjoy, this place should be pumped up. I feel like everything is eerie."
They all go silent.
"Wow! The first set of doors in miles." says Saavi attempting to open the doors. But the doors are locked. She tries to look through a set of windows but is too short.
"Eden! Boost."
Eden walks over to where Saavi is standing and kneels down. Saavi swings her legs over his shoulders and he stands back up. Saavi is looking through the window then ducks her head. "Down! Down!" she slaps the top of Edens head.
"Ow, damn it. What the hell?" says Eden.
"There's a bunch of men in white sitting around a table with Zen."
"Okay. Let's just leave, we're definitely not supposed to be around here." says Rayne.
"Wait. But aren't you curious what they're talking about?" asks Saavi.
"Probably some competition professional shit." answers Raven.
"I mean I kind of want to listen." says Eden. "I mean we were just saying that something feels off around here right?"
I nod my head.
We all kneel down and put our ears against the door.
"I can't hear anything." says Saavi.
Eden pulls a straw out of his pocket and sticks it through the crack of the door and puts his ear against the other opening of the straw.
"Well?" asks Raven.
Edens eyes go wide.
"We need to leave. Now."