Infinite | Chosen Series book one ❄️

9

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This week seven people were eliminated, including the three that I saw. We're down to three hundred and ninety three now.

It's a few minutes to daily announcements, and tomorrow will be the start of the tests. My friends and I are playing a game, and they keep making fun of me when I use big words. I grin and use another, just to annoy them. "Peripatetic, I guess." I answer the question that Melody just asked me.

"Ah, Aria the nomad." Carrie rolls her eyes. "I can totally see that."

"What?" I laugh. "That could be my life!"

"Sure it could." Jen raises her eyebrows and smirks.

"Hmm what fancy word will come from Aria next? She sounds very astute." Nate winks at me.

"Oh! Well..." I flip my hair dramatically. I hope I pronounce this all correctly... "Simply utilizing gargantuan idioms to fabricate my intelligence." I grin. Nailed it.

"Well, that was a mouthful!" Melody chirps.

"Daily announcements!" The alert comes over the speaker. "Three hundred and ninety three of you have made it past the first week. Congratulations! Now, the hard part begins. Of course you'll still be eliminated for most fighting during this time as well. Becoming a holder of the abilities will come in stages. The first is physical. You need to be strong to carry such power. You need to be able to take it. Your bodies will be pushed to the maximum, until you can't push back. The second stage is mental. But, we will explain that later. Before either of those is started though, we will have one week to make sure you're all quick enough thinkers to survive here. "

"Isn't that mental? Shouldn't that be in the second stage?" Some kid asks aloud, as if the man could hear us.

"Not the kind of mental that stage two will cover." Everyone jumps when the voice responds to the boy. He can hear us. "Now, can I explain the tests for this week?"

"Y-yes sir." The boy answers after a moment.

"You'll be trained to notice differences faster, find things expertly hidden, store your memories better. Basically, we'll be working your brains until they either give up trying, or adapt and grow. Does this make sense?"

"Yes." The crowd of people says as one voice.

"Excellent. Those who cannot improve will be eliminated. Then we will start physical training."

One week to change the way my brain works? Mission accepted.

*****

They wake me up at six in the morning. I feel like a corpse walking down the hallway behind everyone. I had nightmares all night, and barely slept at all. I'm not sure how well my mind is going to hold up in these tests, but I'm hoping for a miracle.

The pack of teenagers I'm walking with are led by a few guards. They're fairly quiet, only stopping to talk when speaking in hushed tones to each other. We walk all the way to the opposite side of the building, then through a tunnel into a building I've never been through before. The tunnel is basically the same as all the other hallways, just underground and strangely a bit darker. There's really no reason for it to be darker, there is the same amount of lights as outside of the tunnel. Nonetheless, it is darker.

The 'new' building is a bit smaller than most of the others. It has two rooms, both filled with glass tubes big enough for two people to stand inside.

"Twelves, Thirteens, Fourtens, and Fifteens please enter the room to the left." One of the guards commands. "Sixteens, Seventeens, Eighteens, and Nineteens to the right."

The crowd splits into two, following after whichever guards are going to their designated room. I look around more now that I'm inside. The glass tubes are all only a few feet apart, just enough for you to weave between them.

"You'll be spending a lot for time here in Phase Two. This week you'll get to learn how the chambers work," a woman says with a smile, stepping towards us from somewhere in the maze of tubes. "You can go ahead and pick the one you want. It'll be yours for as long as you stay here."

"They're all the same, how are we supposed to pick one?" I whisper comically to no one in particular. The girl beside me snorts. I look around to see where my friends went when picking theirs, but the only one I catch sight of is Carrie. I quickly chase after her with a slight skip to my step as I go. She picks one closer to the front of the room, but not close enough that you could see it from the doorway. I choose the chamber beside hers.

"You can all go inside now if you'd like."

I reach for the small handle, and as soon as my fingertips make contact with it the bottom and top ring of the chamber turn blue. I assume that's because I'm a Sixteen, since Carrie's has turned yellow. The door opens quite effortlessly, triggering the system to light up the inside of the chamber.

Step inside. The glass shows the command in blinking letters.

I do as it says and walk in. The curved glass door shuts automatically behind me. Instinctively I turn around to see it, but my attention is quickly drawn away from the door and more to the whole chamber as the glass fades to black. The lights turn off at the same moment, leaving me emerged in darkness.

I wait for a minute, but when I'm tired of that I decide to press my palm against the side, hoping it will trigger something. It does.

The blackens glass lights up all around me, showing off computer codes, coordinates, and a million other things. The most prominent thing it shows though is three words in huge silver letters.

Are You Ready?  

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Yay, yay, yay another chapter! This one is a little shorter than the others as I'm sure you've noticed, but whatever. XD 

Alright guys, pay attention here. Something very special has happened. druidrose has officially reached 16k on her story "Two Thousand Years" which is literary genius so I demand you all go read it. Go now. Hurry. 

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