Soren’s eyes slowly opened. He had been living at ‘The Academy’ for a few weeks now, along with 24 other kids about his age. As he got up, he realized that today was more important than the rest. “Today is the last day of the month, test day” He got up and quickly changed into his clothes. It was only 6:45 in the morning, but breakfast would start in fifteen minutes.
Soren smiled to himself as he walked out of his room. He was glad that he had decided to sit next to Keia in class. She was a really nice girl, and was pretty cute too.
As he walked into the common area, he was hit by a depressing aura. Most of the class was already talking in groups of three or four, and even though he couldn’t pick out one distinct conversation, it was obvious what they were all talking about.
As he walked in, one of the other students came over to him. “You’re Kai, right?” Soren asked. “You got it!” Kai decided to push a little bit farther. “Everyone seems so depressed about the test later today, I know it’s for a good reason, but I just can’t seem to take it seriously.”
“I know what you mean, but the mood is just so depressing in here”
“Well why don’t we go talk somewhere else” Kai suggested.
They walked out of the common area, and into one of the main hallways. As they walked, they talked about all sorts of things: Class, sports, Mr. Fabio. At one point they ran into Mr. Udon, who offered them one of his many Styrofoam cups of udon, but they turned him down.
Then the conversation shifted to girls. “So then Soren, I’ve seen you talking to Keia a lot. You like her don’t you….”
“No way, well maybe a little” Soren admitted.
“Soren, you should totally ask her out, I mean, she’s really cute, and you two are obviously close”
“NO WAY, we are just friends, and I don’t want to ruin that. Anyway, with everything else that’s going on, I don’t think that this is a good time for a relationship.”
Eventually their made their way to the kitchen. As they entered, Keia and Haruka waved them over to sit with them. A few minutes after, Devin came over and sat down with them too. As they ate, they talked about the upcoming test.
“Do you really think Mr. Fabio will kill one of us?” Haruka asked
“Nah, if he does, he’ll get sent to jail.” Devin responded
I wonder what’s going to happen today. I’m not that good at school, so I hope I don’t get the lowest score. Thought Soren.
“What’s with that face Soren?” asked Haruka
Soren realized that he was frowning, and smiled at her. “Oh, I was just thinking about the test. I’m not that good at school, you know.” Haruka smiled back, “You’ll do fine.”
After breakfast, everyone walked to the classroom together. Their shoes clicked on the stone floor, making it almost sound like rain. They all walked into the classroom and sat at their desks. Normally, the talking would be rampant, but today there was silence.
Mr. Fabio walked in a few minutes later wearing a Tuxedo. He clearly had a pistol strapped to his belt. Soren eyed him suspiciously along with the rest of the class. Soren’s eyes swept the room, looking for any way to escape if necessary, but the only way in or out was the door at the front of the room. That is, unless he was willing to scale the 20 foot wall up to one of the windows near the ceiling.
Mr. Fabio handed a ream of paper to Tykie, supposedly the tests, and told him to take one and pass the rest back. When the tests finally got back to Soren, He immediately saw that that it was a History/Social studies test. His heart sank, Social studies was his worst subject, and that was saying a lot. For example, Soren couldn’t even remember who was elected as the U.S. president in 2016. He knew it was probably important, but he honestly couldn’t remember.
After everyone had the test in hand, Mr. Fabio said that they could start taking the test.
Soren skimmed the test. He quickly saw that it was a very specific subject.
1. Use the six question words to describe the founding of ‘‘The Academy’’
Soren though back to the lesson about the founding of ‘The Academy’, but it all seemed like one giant swirl of information in his head. Something about a Man name Taio Kovinski. Maybe he was looking at the question wrong. Soren reread the question. The six question words… weren’t those who, what, when, where, why, and how? He realized that he might be able to figure it out.
Who…. It was founded by Taio Kovinski, he remembered that. What. He founded ‘‘The Academy’’. When…. Soren racked his brain. 20…16? No, that was the election year that he couldn’t remember. Maybe it was 2020… but that was the year that the UN disbanded, and ‘The Academy’ wasn’t formed until after that UN was disbanded. His mind raced. 2025 was the civil war, when ‘The Academy’ was in its prime. It must have been earlier than that. 2024 was still too soon…. 2021! That was it! The year after the UN disbanded, Taio Kovinski had formed ‘The Academy’ as the training program for a new world police force, but it had backfired in 2028, when Taio died, and the Mafia took over the organization.
Soren had it! The who, what, and when. Where was in Japan, and the why was simple; to replace the UN, and become the world’s new police force. He also knew that Taio was a rich and influential man, this would have made it easy for Taio to start ‘The Academy’
Soren wrote down his answers and moved on to the next question.
2. What involvement did the Government have in ‘The Academy’
This was a much easier question. None. ‘The Academy’ had been built by individuals and organizations to function apart from governments. It had its own rules, and its own judgement system.
He quickly moved on to the next question.
As soon as he read it, he knew he was dead. Dates. He moved to the next one, and saw that it was also a asking for a date. As he flipped through the test, he saw that all the rest of the questions where either asking when something happened, or what happened on a certain date.
Soren did his best, but he knew it wouldn’t be good enough. He could only hope that there was someone else in the room that was worse at this than he was at remembering dates.
Kana smiled to herself as she jotted down answers. Her pencil flew across the page. As she came to the last question, she glanced at the clock. There was still half of the hour left. She glanced around the room, and saw that two people had finished before her. Maybe this class wasn’t as dumb as she thought it was… but then again, maybe they had just given up. As she thought about it, the latter seemed more and more likely. Soren always seemed to struggle through history class, and Ricardo… well, he seemed to either sleep through class, or not even bother to show up.
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