Examination

Chapter Eight - The Beginning of the End

   What in the world had happened? At first, there were just four, youthful kids going to their Examination, and now one of them is gone, two are spending the night together against the rules, and the last one decided to join an organization that planned to assassinate the innocent headmaster that Friday. Was the headmaster even guilty of any severe crimes if all she did was follow Light? What would happen after she was murdered? All of these questions seemed to linger in the air that day as the students waited patiently for their tests to begin.

   "You can't fail," Kyle reminded his followers while they sat quietly, separated from the rest of the crowd. Ryan nodded obediently, but Beck and Dylan grimaced at his voice. Just a bit after Beck's confrontation with Kyle, he explained what had happened to Dylan, who immediately forgave him for the agonizing lesson Beck attempted to give. The tension in the air was as thick as fog.

   "Do you understand? No failing," Kyle repeated after getting no response.

   "Yes," Beck sighed. The others did the same. Kyle glared at his so-called followers. Would their hatred for him be the downfall of their plan?

   Meanwhile, Ava, Seth, and Belle, three old friends from the manufacturing district, were weeping while flipping through their extremely disorganized notes.

   "How are we ever going to pass this stupid test if we suck at studying?" Ava cried. Seth looked up at Ava and shook his head.

   "It's not my fault I slept in yesterday! Now I have none of those notes, but we went over everything then, and you guys can't do anything right!" Seth screeched in anger. Ava and Belle groaned in reply.

   "Ya know what, Seth?" Belle sneered at Seth. "I can go study with someone else." She jumped up out of her seat and ran to the friendliest looking people she could find and sat down next to them. "Hi, I'm Belle. Any way you could quiz me on balancing chemical equations?"

   "Yea, sure. We were just going over that ourselves. I'm Aria." Aria smiled at Belle as Ava dashed over to them and joined them. Felix chuckled as he noticed their growing table. Back at their old table, Seth sat alone, staring at his neat notebook. It was missing a page, and it was the most important page, but since he yelled at Belle and Ava, he had no one else to go to for help with studying. He laid his head in his hands as he realized he was going to fail.

   Jessie, Aria's room mate, leaned against the cold, white wall and stared at the others all sitting and chatting at tables together. She had lost everything: her brother, her dignity, and her sanity. Will was her best friend and the only person who could stand her constant blabbering, but now he was gone. She sank to the ground as she realized she had no reason to pass this test.

   "If I pass, then at least I'll avenge Will, but if I fail, then I won't have to deal with all this stress and loneliness," she thought. Since when did the world get so cruel as to make students rather fail than go through the stress of trying to pass? "Yes, I could easily fail on purpose. It's not like my entire life would be over. Surely, they just send you off to the camps around the world. I'll just request to be sent to where my brother is. Yes, I will do that." Jessie smiled, content with her plan.

   "Welcome, students of the Examination. This week's test is the chemistry test. Ten people per testing room, blah blah blah... Oh, the number of students who passed from last week's test is: 31 from agricultural, 72 from technological, 43 from industrial, and 49 from political, for a total of 205 students here today." Just like last time, the crowd of kids gasped. The number of people from the agricultural district shot down like always, but not as much as the political district's number did.