Class E Obstacle Legre test was indeed a very normal occurrence in POE Academy. It seemed that I was the only one who was actually losing sleep over it. Apparently some of our classmate took it last year (most passed, some had to pull out midway because they were unaccustomed to the environment.).

The practice run did help me relax a little; I had no idea why I was still worrying, since I pass through the stimulation with flying colours. Mr. Andrewson even patted me on my shoulder for doing so well.

Clicking on my mail box I saw that I had a new e-mail from an unknown contact. Clicking on it I realized it was from Dan. I frowned, he usually put in a few lines in the e-mails that my parents send me; puzzled, I scrolled down and read.

Dear Gail,

How are you? Grandma had been asking me a lot about you lately, I was going to tell Dad, but I didn’t want him to get mad again. Grandma is coming to visit us next week, Mum and Dad had a really big argument about it; I think she is coming to stay for a while. I wish you are here, then at least she can have girly talks with you and stop bothering me.

When are you coming home? I miss you! Mum and Dad are always rambling off whenever I ask them for help on homework and I never understand a word they say! And we always just eat instant food and they taste disgusting! And Dad is always trying to get me to go to bed at eight when Mum isn’t home from work. EIGHT!

Miss you!

Dan

I smiled, visualizing the image of my family eating instant meal. Neither of my parents are good cook and both are very busy with their work. I used to do the cooking at home; I would have thought Dan was going to take over, apparently not.

Pulling out a leather-bond book from my pocket I run my hands down its cover curiously. Mr. Andrewson had snuck this to me after the practice run; it was a journal about the development of his power, along with other mental powers that he had come across. Despite my protests he insisted that I should have it. It was extremely odd that he would give such a valuable item to me, and at such a weird timing too; whilst he was the headmaster of the school, it was a monumental gesture and I didn’t even know how I could ever thank him for taking me under his wing.

I flipped through the pages of Mr. Andrewson’s notes. It was filled with a scribbly writing; I chuckled, it was hard to imagine Mr. Andrewson’s writing being that unruly. The writings became more elegant as I flipped, with titles and illustration. My breath caught at a particularly detailed drawing of a man meditating with wispy white tentacles extending from his mind. He must have spent hours on this!

“Hey Gail, want to join us for a walk outside? The cherry blossoms are blooming!” Holly poked her head in the room and asked. I could just make out Nate behind her, outside the door and shaking his head furiously. I bite back a laughter, “No, it’s alright.” I said, “I need to reply an e-mail.”

Holly turned back and glared at Nate, who happened to be giving me a thumbs up for my cooperation. His smile froze on his face and he pretended to scratch his hair instead, sporting on an innocent smile.

“Ignore him Gail, I want you to come with us.” Holly said, aiming a kick at Nate’s shin without turning back. Nate narrowly avoided Holly’s pointy shoes and I laughed at his frightened expression.

“No seriously it’s fine. You two lovebirds go and enjoy yourselves!” I said, waving my arm dismissively. Holly did a puppy dog face at him while Nate gave me a wink over her head. I chuckled and said goodbye to the couple.

Typing a quick reply to Dan assuring him that I would go back as soon as I could, and that he should try and learn to cook. He probably would just brush my advice aside, and fervently pray for me to return to London Citybase in the next day.

The rest of the day I was either burying my nose in Mr. Andrewson’s journal or pacing the room trying to figure out what to do during the test. it said that we were not allow to bring anything with us in there apart from what they provide us with – which consist of a small backpack filled with a day’s worth of food and water. Which wasn’t too bad; as for cloths, they were also going to provide us with standardized clothing as well, which was a rule made then years back when someone tried to cheat with specialized armored clothing.

“Hey.” Elise said as she stepped into the room quietly and closed the door. “You excited for the test tomorrow?” She asked, taking her scarf and coat off before sitting down on her bed. She just went out to the forest with a bunch of Elementalists for some last minute practice.

“Nope.” I replied grimly, my stomach felt like a thousand horses were running through them. I threw the notebook down and burying my face in my hands. “What if I fail?”

Elise gave a snort. “You are not going to fail.” She said, coming over and yanking my hands down. “If you do, then half the year would too. Now let’s get some rest!”

I slipped under my covers and squeezed my eyes shut, praying to fall asleep. I twist and turned under my duvet but my brain just won’t stop whirling with thoughts of what could go wrong. By the time I fell asleep, my dreams were filled with Legres running amuck and ended with a building collapsing on top of me.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Gail, stop hyperventilating.” Nate hissed at me, I stopped breathing for a second and looked at him; he gave me a what-the-heck look and I quickly let my breath out. I glared at him and sucked in another big breath. I wasn’t hyperventilating. Okay, I was. So what?

“Take a deep breath and let it go.” Natalie whispered on the other side of me. The airplane rattled slightly just after she spoke and I gave out a shaky breath, both hands grabbing the handles either side of me for support. Everyone sitting around me laughed but I was too wrecked by my nerves to respond.

“Seriously, relax woman.” Fred Bowen said on the other side of Natalie. Natalie punched his arm lightly and I rolled my eyes at them. It was still gross seeing the two of them acting all couple like; I could see everyone else shuddering slightly at their display of affection as well.

“Gail, it’s just the plane ride there!” Holly exclaimed on the other side of Nate, “What are you going to do when we land?”

Ignoring her last comment I gripped the handles tighter, my knuckles turning white in the process. My stomach churned uneasily as the plane jolted again and I regretted stuffing my second chocolate croissant.  The four a.m. wake up call hadn’t helped either.

I smiled weakly at my friends. It wasn’t so much that I was only afraid of the plane rides; I was still worked up about the test, but I couldn’t really confess to them without becoming the laughing stock of the school. Rather let them think I was scared of height then the test.

They academy was flying us to a secret destination for our test to avoid cheating. The flight was said to last three hours in the latest airplane model, which meant we could be anywhere in the world.

“So what is this test system about?” I asked, in an attempt to divert everyone’s attention away from me. “How are they supposed to grade us?”

Fred rolled his eyes at my question and I pretended that I didn’t see it. He is an obnoxious prick that’s full of himself, I muttered to myself inside my head; ignore him for Natalie’s sake. I turned my body towards my right away from him and heard him snorted.

The others choked back their laughter at our little exchange. It took a few moments for everyone to collect themselves and I rolled my eyes, trust them to find this funny; even Natalie was having a hard time suppressing a smile.

“They have surveillance camera all over the place.” Casey said opposite me, “And each of us will be wearing an identity watch so they can track our every move; not to mention the mini cameras installed on them.”

The first thought that popped into my head was how much would that have cost. Then immediately I thought of better things that the money could be spend on. It kind of sickens me how differently you get treated, but I guessed the Originals earned it for us by saving the world.

We landed an hour, thirty three minutes and fifty two seconds later in a deserted field. Everyone was craning their necks to look outside the windows for a glimpse of where we were. However there wasn’t much we could see apart from miles and miles of grass outside a rusty fence before we were all herded off the plane and into a building through a connecting tunnel.

“Welcome.” A man dressed in impeccable army uniform boomed at us as soon as we set our foot on the carpeted floor. “My name is Sargent Warden, I will be in charge of you all for the duration of the test. Those of you who had taken the test last year will know what I am about to say, but I still require your utmost attention.”

“The test will take place at Ruin number 18387 three miles from here.” The Sargent said, pacing through the length of our group. I heard a few people muttered the number to themselves, wondering if they knew where we were. My stomach clutched uneasily and I whipped my hands on my jeans to get the sweats off.

“You have all signed the paper beforehand stating that you understand the risks in the test.” Sargent Warden continued, pausing in the middle to give us a meaningful glare. “But in my twenty years of service I had never had a death in this test before; so unless you are particularly stupid or useless, you will get out of here alive.”

Motioning to the soldiers behind him who had been standing neatly in a line, they picked up the tray in front of them and marched towards us, handing us a watch each.

I muttered a thanks as I received mine and turned the thing over in my hand curiously. It resembled the bracelet we used for stimulation room, but much more complicated. There were four main buttons on the diamond-shaped display and a big red one in the middle engraved with an X. The watch was made of a dark silver metal alloy of sorts smoothed to perfection; it was also very lightweight.

“This is your identity watch; note the number on the back because this would be your identity number for the test.” I rolled my watch to the back and my thumb ran over the number marked to the back. 925198. I repeated the number in my head and smiled; it had a good ring to it.

“The big red button in the middle is the emergency button, which means if you run into life-threatening trouble you press it and we will send someone in to rescue you.” Sargent Warden barked, pacing up and down again. “Once you press the button you are out of the test for good. However do not hesitate to press the button if you are in danger, because you can always retake the test, but fatal or disabling injuries are forever.”

“The rest of the buttons you are not to be worried about.” The Sargent said, the soldiers had finished giving out the watched and returned in a line behind him. “Put your watch on now, you would not be able to take it off until you exit the test. You will all be taken downstairs in groups and transport to the Ruin. You will be blindfolded to prevent you from seeing the Ruin. You will be deposited randomly in the central portion of the Ruin accordingly, do not remove your blindfold until you were told to. You are not allowed to communicated with anyone else or help anyone unless they are in mortal dangers.  Understand?”

My ears rang as Sargent Warden barked out his last command and a chorus of yes sir resonated from my fellow students. Sargent Warden nodded and the soldiers behind him re-emerged with a basket of blindfold each and before we knew what was going all we were all being herded off down separate flies of stairs.

“Get in the car and put it on!” the soldier commanded, shoving a piece of black cloth into my hands as I descended the last step of stairs. I looked up, bewildered and began to tie the fold up my neck, hurrying to keep in step with the person in front of me.

Another soldier was standing by the edge of the truck, it appeared that we were going to be transported in some kind of army truck. I was rushed into the confined space and settled on the left bench, my heart beating against my chest as nervousness set in. I briefly locked eyes with the guy in sitting opposite me and he gave me a reassuring smile. I only had time to realize that was Diego before someone pulled my blindfold on. I squirmed in my seat, taking in deep breath to calm myself down.

The ride was silence; I tried to stop my legs colliding with the people next to me. No one dared spoke and I had no way of knowing how much time had past. However, I managed to find out that this was part of the test from a girl who took the test the year before. It tests how well you manage under pressure and strange environment.

After what felt like an hour the truck came to a halt and I heard several people got took out of the vehicle. A few minutes later the truck moved again and this continued to happen for three times before I got dragged outside.

“Sit down here.” A male voice instructed and I complied. My bottom met a gravelly concrete floor and I strained my ears to hear my surrounding. I spread my mind and felt two stationary people within a mile of me. This must be one big city back in the Old Age.

My heart thudded loudly in my chest as I waited for the signal. My skin tingling with nerves as I recalled all the lessons I had been through which could be useful for the test.  The plan was to avoid as much danger as possible and head across the Ruin in a straight-line. This can’t be too hard. I slowly mapped out my surrounding area in my head – they didn’t say anything about this being against the rules.

“Initiating countdown.” A mechanically voice boomed through the Ruin and I could hear several animal noises in the background and grimaced. My heart jumped at the sound; they must be doing this on purpose to provoke the Legres.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven.” My muslces began to tense and I moved to a crunching position  withmy right arm to the back of my blindfold.

“Six, five, four, three,” I leaned forward on my left leg in a running, ready to run in a moments’ notice.

“two, one.” And with that, I flung aside the blindfold and started sprinting down the road.

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Hey guys <3 I am so, so soooo sorry for not uploading in like a month!

I would never had thought starting second year could be so messy :S but now I am all settled (well, almost anyway)! So I had time to write again :D

We are counting down to the end of Evolution now! 2 more chapters to go (if not one, depends on how long it ended up being)! And I am happy to annonce that I will be putting it in Wattys 2012 :D yay!

So please please please vote for it!

For the next chapter (grand finale :D) it'll hopefully be by next week, if not two :P

love x