The Showcase

Chapter Eleven

Everything was loud and blurry.

There were headphones over my ears. Two thick straps held me upright in a stiff-cushioned seat. I barely had time to think, but I glimpsed a bit of grey and white fabric before I felt a sharp stab in my arm and I blacked out again.

***

When I came to, the first thing I heard were birds chirping and the gentle sound of leaves rustling. Then came the voices.

"We've been waiting for hours," a voice complained.

"An hour. One," another replied, obviously just as irritated.

“Cut it out, both of you,” a firm one ordered. “One of them is bound to wake up soon. We just have to be patient.”

I opened my eyes and sat up.

I was in the middle of a clearing in a forest. There were tall pine trees all around me, and their sharp scent was flooding my nostrils. I sneezed as I brushed the dirt and twigs out of my hair, looking around for the voices. Three kids, two girls and one boy, sat a little ways up a hill from me. I stood up and walked over towards them, but I tripped over something. I shrieked. It was a body.

“Relax! They’re sleeping,” the guy came over to me. He was tall, with dark brown skin and intimidatingly toned arms. His shirt and pants were lined with purple. He stuck out a hand to me. “Julius Tier. Leadership.”

I smiled and shook it. “Amia Daulton. Compassion.”

The two girls stood up behind him.

“So, you’re the fourth?” the complainer asked me, with a hint of aggression in her voice. She was muscular too, with her hair was cut pixie-style and dyed red, but her clothes were lined with black. She examined me carefully. I nodded.

“Wow. I wasn’t exactly betting on you to come to this early,” she sneered at me.

The other girl stepped in front of her, smiling at me. She was really pretty, with dozens of shiny black curls falling halfway down her back. Her mocha skin glowed in the sunlight, and her eyes were alight with excitement. “I’m Sage. Intelligence. And that’s Emi, Strength.”

“Hi,” I said, shyly, trying to avoid Emi’s haunting orange eyes, which were currently sizing me up.

“We’re just waiting for everyone to wake up,” Julius explained, gesturing to the four kids still sprawled out in the dirt.

“Then what?”

“Then, we plan,” Julius says simply.

***

A boy was the next to wake.

“What the hell?” he muttered, running his hands through his wavy brown hair groggily. “Is this another simulation?”

He stood up to stretch and then noticed us. He was tall and thin, but toned, just like the rest of the boys here.

“And who are you?”

We ran through introductions again, and Julius explained the current plan.

“Cool. Oh, I’m Axiom, by the way, Axiom Morneau. Honesty, as you can see,” he gestured to white lining on his shirt. He glanced at the three stragglers, already impatient. “Isn’t there anything we can do to wake them?”

“I wouldn’t,” Sage warned. “We don’t know what they gave us. It may not be safe to bother them just yet.”

“Whatever you say,” he sighed, rolling his cool grey eyes and flopping back down onto the ground.