LAST ACT

ONE.

As I lined up, I felt a soft tap in my shoulder. I whirled around to see a girl with curly brown hair and a bright grin illuminating her soft features.

She looked very familiar.

"Hi!" the girl exclaimed, extending her silver-embellished hand. "I'm Umbra."

I pursed my lips. "I'm SS," I replied as I took her hand and shook it. I swore I saw her space out for a hot second until she brought back her smile from earlier.

"It's nothing. I have a feeling that we'll be friends," she added.

I smiled at her, warmth budding up my chest with some foreign knot in my gut. "Me too," I said before turning back.

Ah. She's Umbra. I knew it.

I always knew her to be optimistic and bright, but I looked into her eyes and it feels like she's forcing this happy image on herself.

If she was talking to any other person, she would be labeled a creep. But I know Umbra. She's being friendly. She always is. But I couldn't explain why her eyes were so...empty. This is not the Umbra I know, whose eyes shone like the sun and whose smile was contagious and reached her ears.

Guess Eli wasn't kidding when she said this time loop was different.

But then again, was Eli even the type to joke around a lot?

I shook off these thoughts when someone patted me on the shoulder, from a scowling girl with jet black hair that tumbled down her shoulders like ocean waves. "Excuse me," she interrupted, "the line's moving."

"Oh, right," I grimaced, before moving along with everyone else.

After every technology we owned had been surrendered-much to the majority's dismay-we were all instructed to stand on a platform that had our names on it when we entered Room 256. Only then when the last person stood on their assigned platform did an astute man walk over to the platform in front of us, with a sleek tablet that seemed to have a blue hologram of the Vitruvian man projected from it.

Oddly enough, it reminded me of the technology from the time loop before this one. Advanced and high-tech.

"Welcome, everyone, to the final elimination round of Le Viour Academy's entrance test. My name is Dr. Aster Keele, and I will be overseeing the whole round," Dr. Keele said, with a stone-cold tinge to his clear voice.

At the front of the white, sterile-looking room with surveillance cameras on almost every corner, Dr. Keele stood like a dignified rationalist with a crisp lab coat and his ash brown hair in some stiff pompadour. His stern, slightly wrinkled face added some level of intimidation no other authority had, but for some reason, I wasn't really that fazed. I was used to people like him, especially due to past time loops in which I had to train under rigorous authority.

Chatter began to fill the room, until Dr. Keele made a motion that looked like a conductor finishing a song. That seemed to shut everyone up. "Today, all of you are gathered here as initiates for Le Viour Academy's admission rites, which will take a day," he explained. "For this round, you will be answering a hundred questions within one hour."

After Dr. Keele was done speaking, black stands with touchscreen tablets attached to them rose up in front of all of us. This room was quite out of place with a campus that looked like it was built for noblemen in centuries past. But hey, this is Le Viour, a school for the rich. Of course there's bound to be technology to catch up with the times, despite the fact that all our tech had been surrendered.

I felt a knot twist my gut again. I'm not sure how or what, but it's like someone is staring holes at me, that it was very unnerving.

"Those who do not answer everything nor meet the benchmark score will be pulled out," Dr. Keele stated. "Does anyone have any questions?"

Someone raised their hand. "What is the benchmark score?" a small feminine voice, like tinkling bells, asked.

"The benchmark is 75," Dr. Keele answered, then everyone erupted.

My eyes widened. I heard Le Viour's academic tests were notoriously hard. This is why I thoroughly prepared for this—while I underwent training to be SS, Eli made sure to quiz and educate me on various things, even hiring the best tutors and professors. As such, there is no room for me to doubt my score.

"Settle down. Likewise, do note that we are watching you. The timer starts in three...two...one."

Immediately, the first question popped into the tablet. As I breezed through the first few questions, I started to wonder. Who is that person staring at me like I had taken something important to them? Did I do something wrong in a past time loop?

No. I had to focus. There was a time limit for this academic preliminary test, after all. One hundred questions in one hour. It seems impossible, but I feel like there is something more to this.

I thought, I analyzed, I computed, then I tapped in my answers from the choices provided in the tablet, but somehow I could not shake off that unnerving feeling of someone staring at me.

But as soon as I finished with less than a minute on the clock, I turned around and found a mysterious man in a trench coat, his imposing eyes that were glued onto me seemingly like a viper's, about to lunge towards its prey. My heart stopped and sank to the floor.

I feel like he's about to ruin everything.

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