A Perfect Love

Chapter One

The pic above is Bridget

I rushed down the hall after my acquaintance Harold who had been sent to get me. My mind wandered—a dangerous thing, but I caught myself doing it more and more after I met Bridget.

It had been five years since Bridget arrived and even I had to admit that she was amazing. She had a good base to go off of with her hacking and escaping skills. I knew from her file that her father worked with computers—it didn't go into detail—leading me to believe she learned that from him, but her ability to escape from any trap was a mystery. I didn't know how she learned it or where anyway and I wasn't about to ask. That was the past, this was her future and we were not allowed to ask about each other's pasts.

I broke into a bit of a jog as I rushed down the hall searching for Bridget. We had grown quite fawned of each other over the past five years. I might have even gone so far as to consider her a friend. James had finally been chosen and taken away four years ago so I had begun to appreciate Bridget a bit more. I had lots of acquaintances, but only James and Bridget were ever my friends. Fredrick and Harold were some of my closer acquaintances, but not friends.

At last Bridget came into view she rushed towards me and gave the appropriate nod of acknowledgement. "Where have you been?"

I had been on my way to the Testing room, but Bridget was apparently concerned because I wasn't there ten minutes early. "I was on my way, there was no need to send Harold for me." I complained.

"Well it's your big day, now I expected you to be here early." Bridget complained back.

"I'm more of a right on time kinda guy. Not early or late. Right on time." I say.
Before anything else is said the doors to the graduation test room open. I said no more to Bridget and walked in. A few others followed but some stayed behind like Bridget. She would walk in at the exact same time next year. Some liked to stand outside of the door hoping to catch a glimpse of what was inside, but it was an elevator. After we all piled in the doors shut and I caught one last glimpse of Bridget nodding to me.

I looked around in the empty elevator. There wasn't much to it. It had the same grey metal walls as the rest of this place.

After a moment the elevator lunged downward catching a few of the students off guard. I dodged one girl as she caught her balance—Vallery was her name—and remained unphased. I could tell the elevator was moving quite quickly and it didn't stop for several minutes. Finally we hit bottom and the elevator stopped. I knew we were deep underground, but my mind hadn't been able to keep up with where exactly we were under the training grounds. This was the first time I was unaware of where I was in many years.

Most of the graduates and all of the professors and trainers stood lined up against the hallway walls when I stepped out of the elevator. I briskly walked passed them all down the hall. Eventually I came to an opened door that I stepped through. There were rows of seats labeled with numbers from one to three hundred. They were our rankings. I knew I was first so I sat in the first seat. There were only one hundred and seven-teen in my age group however which was very small. Bridget's age group had two hundred and seventy-two.

We all sat and waited in silence. The room was empty and I faced a wall in the large room full of nothing but hard chairs. I was trained well enough to sit here still waiting for instructions for days. Of course, there was a time limit to how long I could survive without water so that cut the time short.

After I had settled into my seat I looked to my right where Ellery sat. Her face was like stone and she didn't even bother to look back at me. I didn't have time to do anything else before the doors on the opposite side of the room from where we came in burst open. I looked up only to see the High Female and Male Officials Athena and Hector.