The light dimmed. Everything ached. Slowly I rose, for the ground underneath my hands was too smooth to be natural. It wasn't tiles like the floor of the Diner, more like a single, solid, surface.  Somehow, something had moved me, making me experience death and bringing me away from the hamburger.

I tried to open my eyes and look around, but my eyelids were impossible to open.  It was like they were weighed down my boulders.  Still, I fought for sight and opened them with a pop.

The first thing to hit me was the noise. I had heard nothing but silence while on the floor with my eyes closed. The second I opened my eyes, an overwhelming flood of yelling, muttering, stammering and cursing filled my ears. So overwhelming in fact, I stumbled backwards into a set of double doors.

The second thing to hit me was the scenery. It was a practically a doctor's office waiting room. No, It was, it had to be one. It had the stench of sanitation spray and hand cleaner. There were a few chairs over to one side of the room.  The smooth floor I'd felt was a single, seamless, polished plate of white.  There were lots of other kids in the room, tons actually. The room looked ready to burst. The odd thing was, they all looked similar to me, like we were from the same area.

Suddenly a voice like that of Morgan Freeman's boomed throughout the room so loud, I could've sworn he was right next to me, "Welcome representatives of the First Continent. You may enter the big room now."

At the words, "Big room" a set of double doors behind me lurched open with a loud creak, revealing a large arena like area.

Tentatively I stepped out of the room.  Slowly the rest of the so called "First Continent" filtered out  of the waiting room, following my lead. A few seconds later, several other doors opened around the perimeter. All of us were under the age of 18, and we all wore different styles of clothing and had different features and traits, like we were all from different places.  As soon as everyone was in the room, the voice surrounded us again.

"Welcome, children.  You have been chosen to represent the countries you reside in. 46 from the First Continent, 54 from the second. 23 to represent the third and 12 of you, the fourth.  47 come from the fifth, 14 from the sixth. There are 196 of you in total." I did the math, the number was correct, and looked apparent as well, but something felt off. I could easily believe there were 45 others in the room I first landed in, and 197 of us out here.  It still didn't answer why we were here.

"You will be deciding the future of humanity, all of you. All you care about is at stake. There is no turning back. You will team up in order to face a series of Challenges. If you complete them all and survive, you return to a new, improved Earth.  If you fail..." The voice paused.  "You do not have to join a team, if you don't you will skip some major challenges, but you will find at times that you need others to support you. Your first challenge is to escape this room. You will find or make an exit yourselves. Only one team can prevail." The people around me muttered in ferocity and worriment. "All of you now speak and write a single language, English.  Everything you could do in your previous languages, all the strange words you knew, has been translated into English in your minds.  Now, I bid you all good tidings, oh and you have ten minutes. Welcome to the Child Trials."