In Another World

CHAPTER 3

Province 7 ; Austrium

Earth, Solar System #19

The facility isn't at all how I expected it to be. I expected it at least have some parts of it showing above ground, but when the taxi driver drops us off, the only thing on the land are a bunch of trees. Artificial trees. The artificial trees expand over a wide area, a man-made forest, not leaving much room for the ground to reveal itself underneath. But you can tell it's been around forever. The road that we're on seems out of place, the odd one out.

There is one standalone door at the opposite end of the road from where we got dropped off. Two guards are on the sides of the door. It is also an artificial door, made out of steel with wooden brass corners. It looks very out of place as well. I can see why the Unknown totally forgot about this place when they came and invaded us. It looks like someone's abandoned, large backyard. Nothing too unusual for them.

We move towards the door. The guards remained stone-faced and emotionless as we approach.

They don't speak at all until we are right in front of them.

"Paperwork," Guard 1 says, his hand extending toward my mother.

My mom laughs nervously, feeling a bit unsettled by the seriousness. "Of course. Here we are," she replies, taking out a stack of papers held together by a single paperclip.

The guard almost snatches the stack from my mom. He scans each one quickly and stealthily as the other guard eyes my mom cautiously and turns his head back to the front. She lets out a quick laugh after a few moments when Guard 1 stops at one form.

"Are we missing something, sir?" I question. He opens his mouth, then hesitates. Something passes through his emotionless eyes- a hint of sympathy?

Without answering, he hands the papers back to my mom with the one he was investigating on the top.

It's my dad's approval paper.

"I'm sorry for your loss," the guard says hastily as he opens the door to an elevator.

<<<>>>

We turn in the heavy stack at the front of the main office to a young girl just before she hands us a slip of paper with a number on it through the little hole in the glass separating us from her. There is no way possible we could touch her through this full body glass except through that little hole.

257

"Our room number?" Theo asks. The girl nods her head solemnly. She reaches out from under her desk, thumbing through files until she finds the section with the last names starting with the letter S, and pulls out another long, yellow instruction sheet, blandly reading off the schedule of each day, who to see, when to see, where to see...

I'm about to zone out completely, hoping my mom or Theo caught onto all that, but then she pushes the yellow sheet out through the hole, almost about to drop it. Who is she to care if the recipients listened or not- she's just sitting here, going day after day repeatedly, doing her job.

I take the sheet and my mom and Theo once more grab the bags. We move through a hallway branching out of the main office, trying to find the room 257, trying to act indifferent even though we take the most significant tests of our lives soon.

<<<>>>

The next morning, we're woken up by a loud alarm on the PA. Not that I even slept, anyway. Too many emotions to even concentrate on the one thing I need most: sleep.

Theo rubs his eyes groggily next to me, while Mom quickly jumps out of her bed not too far from us. She grabs the yellow paper off the nightstand and reads off the first instruction of the day. Breakfast.