Chapter 2

Looks can be deceiving

I woke up in a sudden unwanted nightmare of terror. It feels like real but it doesn't but the way it works in my head, there's no getting way out of it but I'm way too lucky that those nightmares were just a product of the cruel world visualize in my head.

My eyes were struck into the grey ceiling with only one bulb that somehow can make the room lighten from its darkness. There are no windows but the door and its metallic wall. I sit uptight to see the other things might be useful around but there's nothing can be found but a bowl for my bowel movements and the bed where I found myself lying down.

I didn't know how I did end up here. Waking up in such a strange room without even knowing what happened before I got here, or is it something of the sedatives they've got for me that I ended up missing some episodes in my head. No memories I can collect within those time but just after taking a shower. When they give me fresh clothes and all necessities that they think good and they directed me to the shower, for more like five to ten minutes I was there, scrubbing such dirt on my back, feet and all those parts that haven't been clean since the last few days because of the systematical irrigation of the water in the Waste Land. But it is so good to get clean and refresh to alongside to whether this all phase is gonna be dramatic and dangerous.

While trying to remember things happened after that moment. I still couldn't pick up some episodes to complete that timeline but still waking up in this small four-cornered room is such a nice trick to start this test and I don't know when does it gonna take long but maybe this is just their trials and I think they were trying to cope us up with every little thing that we ended up being alone and so one individual could have an option to forfeit his once in a lifetime chance of having a perfect life.

I didn't ask my Mother on what happens between each trial but she warned me that killing another individual isn't prohibited because it is what the tests are for, survival until you got yourself at the end of the phase and you would still think that an individual could be the same person he is when he finished the test? I don't think so because the cruelty of the world can change immediately one's mind in terms of survival.

I stood up from the bed and the first thing I saw was the trays of food lying on the floor in front of the door. I came to it and look at the foods that clearly betraying me because they were so good and the smell attacked my stomach but my Mother says, looks can be deceiving and by means of that, it is good and great to see because of its pleasing and attention-grabbing physical features but behind what it takes is not the same in front of what we have seen.

I may not be perfect, or it is just some of my speculations because we're on a test and I couldn't risk taking it without knowing what they gave me.

There are three plates served, the plate from the right pleases with gelatin in colored of red and by the chunks inside of it were could probably be a strawberry one and in the Waste Land, eating such foods coming from fruits and some of the vegetables are banned from our place. Once they found out we were eating a banned fruits, for elder people or the people who have failed the tests before has a death sentenced in punishment and for young people going to turn the legal age will be forbidden to join the Rebirth and also includes death sentence and for the past few years, nothing bad happened in regards to that.

The second one is a fried chicken, normally this isn't banned but it costs us too much just to get one but I do most love parts of the chicken is the wings. I couldn't tell but I do love it and the chicken part served in front of me is legs which the least I like. Then the third is ice cream with a cake, we have known these kinds of dessert by the billboard we've seen and just that, Null People hard to find to eat something like that because there's such nothing those kinds of desserts available to find in the Waste Land.

Waste Land is literally a waste where people couldn't find to do something worthy because all we do, are coming from the wastes of the Licit People.

I step away from the trays and didn't even bother to get tempted because I can't risk my life just because I've seen such beautiful things in my eyes but it cannot fool me. I'm not that stupid.

I go back to bed and lay in it. I stare at the ceiling and there's nothing coming from my head but just getting out of here alive to get to the Noble Land. Coming alone in this kind of initiation isn't what they just think it is. It is a matter of life and death and you put your life on this process, death is only on your way to stop you from getting that dream of becoming one of their people but that doesn't what I have in my mind, or my brother—he never looks back, so I don't bother myself looking out for him when I get there. He's no longer a brother of mine and that six years ago, I forget all about him.

The room doesn't have any clocks or windows to know if there's still sun lighting up ahead but we can't figure that out. We're blind inside this room and the only thing we can do is to wait to what will happens next. Somehow, I feel so hot that almost my shirt goes full in wetness, I wore it off and when I seemingly touch the wall, it burns my hand and when I look at it, the metal is heating and I throw a sheet from the pillow to the wall and the second it touches it metal, the sheet goes in fire. I immediately get some water from the sink and tap on it, and its smokes afterward.

I thought the smoke will go away but it's spreading and the room goes cloudy. I drop down the floor and put my shirt on my face to not inhale the smoke. I tried to find where it is coming from and I can't clearly see because the smoke is thick and it makes my eyes teary.

I crawled down under my bed and since the smoke was above me, I took away the shirt in my face and inhale together with exhale, as I try to see how this all works, I should figure out how to evade the smoke away from the room. The sheet I've been thrown to the wall wasn't on fire or even in smoke and that somehow made me realize that this is really a test their giving. I heard blip sound on my left to found an air duct.

The air duct is close but it is automatically opened when the button changes from the color red to green. I immediately get out under the bed and pull it behind and so the air can finally get through it. It is like a vacuum that in seconds, it sucks out all the smoke around the room. When it is clear, I took a deep breath that feels like inhaling a fresh air coming out from the polluted city where all the bad smells reproduce.

When I set my eyes back to the door, a glass of water appeared. I'm dehydrated but I couldn't take it knowing that it might just be another part of the tests.

Momentarily, the metal door opened. I stood up to see the person entering the room but it is just one the army.

"Come with me."

"Where are we going?" I asked the Armed guy. "After all of what happened inside that room, that's just it?"

He looks back on me but that's it, he didn't even say a word and so I didn't have any choice but to follow him into where he leads me. I followed him then to find out the others were coming out of their rooms also—it had thought back in my hand if we all got the same tests and did we all passed it?

Not knowing what's happening is really dangerous for us.

I saw some people who were on the same tank with me and I also see a friend of mine, I waved back at her and she did the same thing and I'm thankful to see that she got passed through the identification process and the start-up room.

The armed guy who brought me lined me in with some of the participants of Rebirth. I look around to see familiar faces but I cannot name everyone whom I seeing or is it because some people I knew didn't make it through the identification process, or in that room.

I looked at the person beside me but he didn't bother to make some talks, either the girl one on my other side. I cannot be numbered how many of us are here but as I can see, it is still many more of the participants.

A High Council member comes in front of us to give a speech.

"As of now, there are hundreds of people have gone through the Identification Process and by means of that, Congratulations because you passed the critical first phase of the initiation where can determine your whole mind and body system to be able to go through the Rebirth and some may not be able to go through, they failed because they didn't deserve it." After she said that, a lot of people starts to gossip because of her hypocrisy, the armed men show them some taser if they didn't get to shut their mouth. "Stop whining about unworthy people and start looking up high to get your dreams lives to come true. This doesn't come with an easy process, it is going to take your insanity, go through your worse and all the bad things could happen but if you stay sane and alive... a one step ahead in the Noble Land. I hope this would affect you and what you believe in."

As the common things happen when at the end of a speech, the audiences would give the speaker an around of applause but it goes in a different way, the people didn't attack her but what happened were they vomited, a lot of them actually and one of them is my friend. I tried to go to her but the armed guy blocked and stopped me from doing that and all I could do is to watch her vomit like she never did before.

"As one of the rules applied in this test, looks can be deceiving."

When the member of High Council said that, I immediately remembered the foods inside my room and they were poisoned by it. I trusted myself and didn't get to fall on temptations because, in this world, luxurious things cannot be owned in just one touch and look. My Mom did the great advice and it would only be my view leaning towards this process.

As much as I wanted to be with my friend, I couldn't because the armed men go to the people who didn't get too sick and get them to fall in the line leading out of the facility. She's been suffering and I couldn't take how this Rebirth would work. They know that they cannot hold a lot of people in their land that's why they had a test of strength, worthy people for, in the end, they can use that person in what of his capabilities comes into.

And as I get in, their fall is coming down and no boundaries will set again.