Never Harm A Human

Chapter 8: The Simulation

After three months of training Hannah, avoiding Derek, and icy formalities from Principal Rossi, me and Hannah were ready to sign up for the Elemental Postal Service.

Hannah did some research she found out there's only two parts. The first part is simply filling out personal and health information sheets, about you and your family's records. For some reason they have information about every inhabitant in Mentalia, so they do a quick background check, and if you pass the send you on into a delivery simulation. The course changes from year to year, but you always have the basic objective of delivering a minimum of one package through obstacles safely. The more you take and deliver successfully, the better your chances are of becoming a glorified crime fighting mail man.

So, today on Friday November 9, 2012, on the last day if trials, when the clock struck three, Hannah and I were the first two people out if Evans.

We our bags at school and hoped on our skateboards and I pushed us all the way there. "Left!" Hannah called to me and I made the winds push us left. "Right!" And we went right. We coasted for a while checking the buildings around us for 16003B Hucklebee street.

"Hucklebee!" Hannah yelled point ahead of us to the metal sign. I swerved us in that direction and slowed down, so we can see the numbers on the buildings. So far it looked like they didn't even have numbers, but as we got off our boards and started walking we saw a long line of people leading to a squat gray building. It seemed out of place standing next skyscrapers, like the black sheep of a concrete family.

After standing in line for a few minutes I got bored and started people watching, my favorite pass time. There was no end to the variety of people here. Most of us were pretty young an average of 25 maybe, the oldest person here was gray haired and wrinkly, but seemed pretty nimble.

Every Elemental demographic was represented, and they all were showing off their powers trying to intimidate the competition. There was an earth Elemental that looked like the Thing from fantastic four, he was lifting random cars parked on the street and crushing them in seconds. There was a transparent water Elemental that was walking up to random people in the crowd and transforming into them in front of their eyes. Copying everything from their clothes, to their stances. It was so creepy. There was even a fiery elemental whose height was flickering between as small as rat and as tall as the buildings around us, she was even changing the size of the people around her without burning them.

All these people have great skills for situations I never even considered. That rock guy could probably take like fifteen to twenty Mercy thugs at a time, I could only handle seven at the most. That water girl could just change into a local civilian and evade whoever she was running from, and the fire woman could just change the sizes of the packages and walk around with out worries. I'd have to lug around a huge and obvious bag, or run to safety in either of those situations.

And all I can do is move air and kick good. I need something else, something that will make me stand out, something that will get me in for sure. Because I will get this job with Hannah, it's the last thing we'll do together before I leave. Hannah will definitely make it, after all the training we did, she better. If she got in any of those situations she could just dig a quick tunnel and travel underground, or catch her chasers in the.

Someone bumped into me and I turned to see Hannah, her eyes bright with excitement.

"'Kay so, I asked around and this is the right place. Bad news is with all these applicants, we might be here a while. Good news is, they won't just give up go home and not interview everyone who came to apply. So that's good-oh the line moving!" Hannah squealed in my ear.

She was right. In the time I'd spent comparing myself to the other people, we stopped being at the end of the line and we now in the middle...kinda.