I thought I would be okay with all this. A few other people have disappeared, none that I know. Yesterday, a boy I did know disappeared though. His name was Ethan. I think he was training to be a soldier, so I didn't know him all that well. Soldiers and artists don't mix.

   Yeah, you heard me right. I'm an artist. But that's not the point. The point is, things are getting worse. You're not just disappearing if you don't do your exercises. If you don't do them right, you get taken away too. 

   I don't know why. Nobody does, except the person doing it, of course. In all honesty, I had a little bit of an idea of what's going on. I overheard someone from the Orthodox talking about it. They said that they thought the person doing it wanted to build an army. The exercises were to build up our strength, and anybody who didn't do them were taken away to run tests on. It could be true, I suppose. 

   Today, right after lunch, the phones beeped again. It was at that moment where everyone goes quiet for two seconds, then they start talking again. Loud. Really loud.

   " Do a gymnastics routine across the gym," I said aloud.

   " Conner and I are with you," Chloe said.

   Rowan snickered. 

   " What?" I asked.

   " I just had the mental image of Conner in a gymnastics outfit."

   I pictured that in my head and started giggling. I suppose everyone else did too, because we all started cracking up, trying to imagine Conner in a leotard. A sparkly pink one, with rhinestones. At least, that's what I tried to imagine.

   Still laughing, we went our separate ways, just like everyone else in the cafeteria was. The twins and I weren't the only ones heading towards the gym, Dean (who had been with another friend today) and a black haired girl named Serena was too.

   Heading into the gym, who found everything set up already. There was a board too, with a routine for each of us. And there were six of those rows of mats. Conner and Dean had easier routines than us, I don't know why. Maybe whoever was monitoring us didn't like seeing boys in leotards, or whatever they would be wearing. 

   Chloe, Serena, and I had a slightly more complicated routine. It wasn't longer or anything, just more flips and leaps. We each grabbed the leotard under our names and then headed to the locker room. We girls all had gray leotards, and the boys had black tank tops and black shorts. We all got started on our routine, and none of us made it all the way to the end on the first try. The farthest any of us got was Serena, who made it about halfway.

   It took  us all maybe forty five minutes to finish, the last one to finish being Conner. It makes sense, Conner is the least flexible. Eh. We were all leaving to go to class when we got another message.

CLASS IS CANCELED GUYS. ALL THE TEACHERS HAVE DISAPPEARED.