The Sector

Chapter Five

The next morning, Seth was awake again by dawn. Usually he would happily get up and watch the sun rise through the branches of the tree outside his window but today he was in a different place. There was no tree and no sunrise to be seen. The huge cement buildings blocked the horizon from view and all there was to see were the Officers switching shifts.

Seth tried to pick his book back up but he finished it quickly and found himself staring out his window at nothing. He was still conflicted about what he thought of this place. Frasier seemed nice enough but there were also times when something seemed off about him.

He wondered what Patrik thought about all of this. He hadn't seen or heard anything from him since the Officers had collected him the previous day for his mental examination. Seth assumed they must have brought him back to his room again afterwards but he wished the Officers didn't insist on keeping the two of them separated. It's not like they could give each other hints about the Tests when they were going through them at the same time.

Eventually, the sun peeked out over the tops of the buildings and Seth heard a soft shuffling from down the hall.

Patrik, he thought, and rushed to press his ear against the door.

"Good morning, Patrik," and Officer was saying.

"Good morning..." Patrik answered. Something about it didn't sound right. There was a tremor in his voice; Seth didn't like it.

"If you'd be so kind as to follow us, we'll take you in for your emotional examination."

"Okay," Patrik murmured. Seth could barely hear his voice.

Neither Patrik nor the Officers uttered another word, and within moments Seth could scarcely even hear the sound of their footfalls.

He retreated back to the window and watched the men march Patrik across the courtyard and out of sight. He wondered what the emotional examination would be like.

He sat by the window and watched the Officers in the courtyard for a long while, studying them, trying to figure out if there was something more going on behind closed doors. Eventually he gave up. Nothing they were doing seemed odd to him, but they weren't doing much of anything at all, really.

He thought to himself that maybe it was all just in his head.

He'd seen Gianna every single day for his whole life and she'd never seemed the slightest bit strange to him. Darbee at the front desk had seemed more than polite, and Frasier had responded almost like a proud father when Seth had done well in his mental examination.

Surely he was just overanalyzing everything because he was in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar people. He'd always liked structure and organization in his life and that had been thrown out the window when he'd arrived here. That was all it was—just stress from being ripped from his usual routine and tossed into a completely different world.

Eventually he supposed he would get used to it and things would go back to normal. He would develop a new routine and this place—or wherever else they sent him after he completed his Testing—would become his new home.

He sat and thought for another short while, pondering this and that as he waited for the Officers to return and collect him.

Perhaps a half hour later, they did.

When Seth answered the door, he was greeted by two new faces. It seemed that Frasier and Darbee were the only people he was ever going see more than once in this place.

His brow furrowed as he tried to remember whether or not he'd heard them bring Patrik back. He could've sworn there'd been nothing but silence since they'd come for him that morning.