Time can't be this slow-all I know is this.And all I have done today is wait.My eyes stay stuck on the tiny digital clock set into my car stereo. It's still 3:53-7 minutes to go.For one moment, I let my mind wander. All of a sudden, I'm back at home, pacing inside my tiny room, the phone gripped tight in my hand. And Evelyn is on the other side."I don't know, it doesn't feel too strange, nor is it too normal. Just like the time I left town and went into training. Alright, actually, I think this time's less harsh than then," I have to let myself grin, slowing down my pace. "Glad to hear that you're happy to come back, then." I tell her, flicking a tiny roll of dust off the wall with my fingers.I can literally sense her smiling back beyond the line."Anyway. So I get to the capitol and... where was the building again?" I blame myself for forgetting the locations so often-however, it's not much of a surprise, because I have never been to the capital myself. "Just keep riding the road straight from the outside of the city-it'll lead you to the building. And since it's the biggest building in town, finding it as you go will be a piece of cake." Obviously, Evelyn is impossible to annoy. "Got it. At 4, you say?""Uh-huh. Shit. Leon, I think a guard is coming down to my phone booth-gotta go, since the dorm surveillance officer warned everyone that even today's behavior will go into the scores."I know Eve is smart and use to it enough to sort out a guard's footsteps from a fellow trainee's footsteps. I don't push her further."Alright. I'll let you deal with the guard now. Just contact me when you're out of the building."I think I hear a muffled 'yeah' before the sound of the receiver slamming down rings into my ear and the connection is gone. Already, in my head, I can imagine her backing off from the phone booth into the shadows or going up to the guard and tell him that she had been strolling around. Suppressing a twitch of my lips, I push the phone into my jean pockets--and I'm back, on the driver's seat of my car and urging the time to go by faster.Luckily, the time managed to go by as I briefly reminisced of yesterday afternoon-2 minutes have passed: 5 minutes to go now. Now, I stare out the window, flexing my fingers on the steering wheel and trying to find Eve's familiar form or silhouette or anything related to her.The building-which Eve and I had gotten used to calling 'the Underworld' during the first few years since she had entered there years ago-was huge, as Eve had described it so many times to me over the phone. It was literally a simple block of grey stone and concrete, adorned on the outside with rectangular and thin windows placed only a few meters away from each other. Even its entrance was simple-just a tiny rectangular hole placed in the middle of a frontal wall. Gee-Evelyn must have gotten sick of the building the second she arrived here for the first time, years ago.I now see a thin trickle of people exiting through the dull door. All of them have huge loads of luggage with them but seem to have little delay or annoyance dragging them behind. Their faces are cheery, some looking a bit sad. But I don't care much about them. I care about Eve coming out and me finding her.My jean pocket buzzes and I pull out my phone, a bit startled. I see Evelyn's name on the front.I hadn't expected her to call before coming out."Hello?"For the first time in years, I can't hear Eve's voice straight away.Instead, I hear a low argument going on."I told you to keep him out of this!""He's not as weak as you might think, Arthur! He can manage himself! And we need as much help here-""Artemis, it's not even a big problem. We might be mistaking things-""Evelyn?" I ask, eyebrows furrowed.There is silence for a second, then a voice pipes up."Leon?" Jesus, it's Eve. I feel a short spurt of relief, then am swept over by curiosity and concern."What's going on? Why can't I find you among the people coming out?"I hear someone-the other person with Eve-cursing."Leon, listen carefully," Evelyn suddenly lowers her voice, her voice a bit tenser than before."I am," I reply. I know that it's not my proper role to stay idle in my car waiting for someone who's not going to arrive soon and turn the engine off. I step out of the car and take a deep breath."I think there's something going on here--something conspiracy-related. I can't explain the details now-"I hear a few more dialogues of low whispering beyond the phone-probably between Eve and the other person once more."What should I do? If you're in danger-" I almost laugh at my suddenly-protective attitude. If Evelyn was compared to me, she would be the more rained, the more experienced."You should come into the building and use the stairs to come up to the 45th floor. I'll send someone to be waiting for you.""You're not alone?" Obviously, she's not alone, but still, I ask.Eve pauses for a while before replying."You remember Arthur?" she asks. "Of course," I remember her telling me about him over the phone from years ago. He was the only one who had managed to get close to Eve in the academy and at the same time, her roommate."He's with me. He'll get you." I can simply feel the urgency and seriousness in her tone."Ok. Just tell me one thing. Are there any guards?"I hear Eve suddenly move and pause for another second."No-I think most of them are at the ending ceremony site, wrapping things up. You better come in now. More important than the timing, Leon, is that you shouldn't get harmed in any way. Try to not meet anyone.""Got it."After not hearing anything from her for more than 10 seconds, I end the call and push the phone into my pocket, then jerk myself away from my car and force me to walk towards the building's cold entrance, trying to ignore the people streaming out of it. All of them are trained, and everything about the place is new to me. And no one would ever welcome a rural boy who isn't Gifted or skilled or anything. Still, for Evelyn and the Arthur guy she told me about, I'll just have to make the commitment.The entrance is, as Eve reported to me, empty of any official-looking guards or officers. Now, only a few people are coming out through the entrance. Taking another deep breath, I go in, hoping Eve was smart and cautious enough to not be able to think up of any technology systems that might bar me from the entrance. Luckily, nothing stops me from entering, and I get in without making any havoc.The interior of the first floor is simply... cool. Everything is polished and formal, everything prepared. I get a feeling like today's a revolutionary day, for I get to finally see what Evelyn had always described to me over the line every day with my own eyes.I spot a metal door leading to the staircase and quickly jog towards it, trying to look formal. Maybe, unconsciously, also trying to look like a Gifted trainee who forgot to bring out something from his dorm. But I don't know much of the dorms nor the trainees(except Evelyn-and I barely know Arthur). I actually have nothing to even mimic.Still, I try my best and climb up the stairs, trying to not look around too much.Then something strikes me-no normal trainee would use the stairs, right? Someone familiar with the place would use the lift straight away.Anyway. There was no time to consider or deal with that.I race up the steps. Though 45 floors to climb up seems like a daunting idea, it doesn't depress me too much-I guess running around the town every morning did its job.The speed by which I can climb the 45 floors will decide how fast I will be able to find and see Eve and Arthur. It's almost amusing to find such a simple act of climbing the stairs the only block to finding them.Thus, I fasten up my speed.It almost seems like a miracle as I don't encounter anyone along the way. Everything's neat and solid about the staircase, and I'm getting a bit curious about the hallways and rooms outside this sterile-smelling staircase.My legs are starting to grow a bit numb by the time I reach the 45th floor. I hop onto the last step, but before I open the door, remember that I'm not at all allowed into this place. I tell myself mentally to calm down, then very slowly and quietly open the metal door.The first thing that hits me as I open the door is the cool air, probably generated from machines mounted on the ceiling. I see a steel-rimmed glass panel that seems to be supposed to work as a handrail in the middle of a large lobby with neat furniture aligned carefully along the walls and space. Tiles on the floor, all of them polished to shine and having an almost natural rocky black tone.-and a grey-colored ceiling panel that covers the entire ceiling. I think I can see an A/C machine mounted up inside there.I press myself against the wall and slide along it, wondering where the Arthur guy must be.-that's when I feel a tiny poke at my shoulder. Automatically, I turn around and find another figure posed in the same way as mine, just a few feet away from me. However, he managed to calculate my position and a patch of shadows thrown by a tall leafy plant and its pot onto the ground. -Quietly, making no noise, I examine him from afar.He is thickly hooded by a greyish and splotchy cloak, and it manages to dull several features about him-such as his quite tall stature and nimble movements. However, I still manage to notice a long and thin sheath stuck on a delicate holding decide strapped onto his cloaked shoulder.-and it holds a sword.Yeah, I now remember Eve telling me that Arthur was gifted in handling swords.Guess we found each other, afterall.Arthur, under his hood, seems to follow my every move and when my eyes stop at his sword, he gestures with one hand very subtly-a single movement of flapping a finger or two towards himself.He wants me to follow him.Of course.Wishing that I also brought something that could be useful in defending myself-just like Arthur's sword-I follow him as quietly as possible as Arthur nearly silently makes his way across the cool hallways, not looking up at all. He's really good at hiding and being subtle, I guess.We reach a door, and Arthur turns the circular handle locking it. When he opens it expertly and makes room for me to enter first, I obediently walk in.It's a tiny technical room that can control the heat and electricity on the floor. -and there's a thin metal ladder leading upwards.As soon as he closes the door and locks it back into place, my guide flips back his hood, and we finally take a good look at each other.Now that he has exposed himself further, he sort of looks... less powerful-or, at least, at first. He's shorter than I thought, with blonde hair curling at his forehead and ears, eyes staring back at me. His stubbornly set jaws and rather broad shoulders—probably from years of training-make him look firm, nonetheless.I let him stare a bit more at me before starting our first-ever conversation."So you're Arthur?"He doesn't even give me a tiny smile."Yeah. And you're Leon."Alright. That was no question. Just a confirmation to himself.I look away from the awkward situation and look up the ladder-only darkness meets me back from above."Where's Evelyn?" I ask, noticing how distrustful it is when Arthur's sword handle sways along with its owner's every move.Arthur gives me a questioning look, then his eyebrows do a quick wriggle as if he gets it."Ah-you mean Artemis?"I know that Evelyin's new nickname and officially used name here is Artemis-just because she is good at archery. However, we both didn't like the name and we had grown so used to calling her in her original name that I had nearly forgotten about it."Yeah." Arthur points upwards, towards the ladder. "Bet she's still crouched up there, surveying things."Though it's nearing a year since I last saw her, I can still easily picture her crouched up there, surveying something that I'm still unaware of.I put a hand on one of the steel bars of the ladder. "Wait-I have to get on it first. There's a damned lot of cables and valves here that you have to be quite careful and slow-just follow right behind me."He hooks his hands onto the bars and switches his weight from the floor to the rungs and starts climbing-his motions and swift, weightless and flexible, and I sort of watch him in awe. Guess training for years does all that stuff to anyone, even to someone a bit short like him.Eyeing his sword, which is wagging in wide arcs while still attached to his gear, I grab a rung and follow suit, sensing how much sound I'm making compared to Arthur.Climbing the ladder takes long, but still, much shorter than the climb I did with the stairs. I follow Arthur's feet(this is the first time I've realized that he's wearing shoes that have inch-thick soles) up to the flat steel panel at the end of the ladder and crawl along the rails preventing someone from falling down. I'm lucky, for I can see the ground through the numerous holes made in the steel panel, and I swear it's far away from where I am.After we've crawled along for a minute, making padded sounds with our knees and hands, then pounding metal sounds with the fronts of our soles, we reach a certain point of the panel where the ceiling suddenly angles 90 degrees upwards, giving us plenty of room to stand up. When I rise to my feet, my knees are sore from carrying my weight on the metal, and my hands are red from the pressure.Arthur doesn't hesitate even when he sees my palms."I think she moved position-wouldn't have gone far, though,"-and like that, he's jogging down the narrow metal alley, not even looking back if I'm following.I don't think I really like this guy-well, at least, he's much less favorable than Evelyn.I follow him, the hairs on top of my head skimming the metal ceiling.Up ahead, I see all kinds of wires stretching and crisscrossing their individual ways across the ceiling. Below, I glimpse a dotted and narrow view of a never-ending, cement hallway that I had been walking through before.And by the time I look up again, I see her.She is on her front, head angled right at the dotted metal pane below me and Arthur's feet so directly that I almost confirm to myself that she somehow knocked out and was lying on her face. However, when I get nearer, I find one of her eyes closed, and the other staring blankly at the floor, both her palms pressed to the metal.Though she's in the most peculiar position, making our last annual meet-up a bit awkward and dramatic, it's still great to see her once again. I have always imagined of this moment, of going to pick her up in my first car, of driving her home and talking about everything that we would do the next day together on the way there, both of us internally extremely glad that this meeting wouldn't end in a single week. Alright. I still have to admit it. Though it's great to see her, I still find her position on the floor a lot curious.I raise a hand, meaning to rake it through my hair, when Arthur swivels around-merely just a few meters from Evelyn, even-and stares flat at me, his silent footsteps stopping. I halt behind him, my eyes meeting his, then slightly swiveling over to Evelyn."You shouldn't speak out loud from now." He whispers, and at the edge of my vision, Evelyn jolts and tilts herself to one side, pressing her left ear to the metal.Her eyes brighten, and her lips arc into a smile. For Arthur's sanity, I seal my lips, but still mirror her facial expression, trying to walk as silently as Arthur towards her.Before standing up, she gestures to Arthur in a hurried way, waving a hand from his direction to the metal ground she had been pressing her face to, and walks fast over to me. Somehow, as if telepathy works between them or as if they made a detailed gesture-conlang with each other, Arthur crouches into an awkward position and presses his ear to the metal panel.Glancing down through the tiny dots in the panel, I think I see a wall and a closed door in it.Now, I sort of get it-Arthur's trying to overhear something. That also explains Eve's peculiar position before.But that takes only part of my vision. I let Evelyn interrupt my vision.Before I know it, she's suddenly in front of me and puts one hand on my back, looped over my shoulder, then the other on my side, and presses me into a hug. She's almost always greeted me in such ways, and I'm so used to it that I hug her back, still finding it a bit amazing and strange at the same time that the last time I saw her was exactly a year ago and that she still appreciates me enough to hug me on the first look of each other in a year."You know what?" her voice is the same as her voice on the phone-but with more presence and clarity."Yeah, I know what," I tell her my part. The greeting has been some routine to both of us, just like the hugging-part. She told me the same words, then said that she missed me terribly, though I had been on the phone for hours if accumulated for a year. And I have remembered it till now, enough to say it back as some joke to her.We just stand still like that, silent."Your friend's a bit... grim," I tell her in a whisper, and I can feel her chuckle, her shaking shoulders shaking mine back. I hope Arthur hasn't heard what I just said."But he was the only one to keep me some company-also understands the dark bore of 5 years of training. It was inevitable."Over her shoulder, I swear I can see the exposed side of Arthur's face scowl a bit. Thankfully, he still keeps his ears pressed and soon returns to concentrating on what Eve asked him to listen to."Anyway. Can you tell me what's going-"Suddenly, Arthur's face jerks up and he literally hops to his feet in complete silence, his face urgent. Just a split second later, the door swings open and I can see the tops of two men walking out of the room.Evelyn quickly pulls herself away from me, peering down through the holes in the metal. I crouch down and do the same, not knowing what to expect of the two.One of them is in a suit-a guard-, and the other is in a formal-looking training outfit, though it's hard to make out the details by looking at them from above.As soon as the men are 10 meters away from us, nearing the limits of what we can see from our location, Arthur jogs to us, one hand tight on the railing."They found you on the camera-they're going to send guards all over the place. We gotta get out of here now."