After Earth's Fall | ✔ UNDERGOING CONSTRUCTION

Chapter 4

"Up, up, up!" yells Miss Megalla, her voice has a certain robotic twang to it, as if she were speaking through a fan.

Sheepishly, Nila awakes abruptly from her deep sleep and throws open her curtains, secretly glaring at her instructor through blurry vision. Despite the fuzziness, Nila can tell she's clearly not yelling through a fan, but a white, shiny megaphone.

'Those things still exist?'

Nila rubs her eyes in an attempt to wake up and as she looks around she sees people's lamps being turned on, one by one around the circular room. Apparently, everyone else isn't much of a fun of Miss Megalla's tactics as groans and complaints echo around the sleeping quarters. Just about everyone is unwilling to get out of bed so early. Nila looks over at Dylan's bed on the other side of the room, just in time to see him jolt up and accidentally hit his head against the top of his bed. Nila laughs and Dylan throws Nila an "It's not funny" expression her way.

"You've all got five minutes to get ready! Meet me by the doors once you're done!" the instructor yells one last time into her megaphone. With that, Miss Megalla walks off and to her student's enlightenment, takes the megaphone with her.

Everyone is then sent in a frantic hurry to get ready in time and they gather their stuff from their bags and rush to the bathroom. Everyone's bags have been placed in the centre of the room and Nila gets off her bed to find hers. All the bags are black with an electronic tag with the owner's name on it locked onto the opening so no one else can touch other people's belongings. She finally finds her bag and swiftly types in the passcode. The tag unlocks and she's able to grab her toiletries.

The bathroom is fortunately big enough to fit about twelve people, with multiple spacious showers, polished black marble benches, and sinks for people to hog. Nila marvels at how big the bathroom is compared to the one in her dorm room and then finds herself realizing where she is and the gravity of her situation. If she wins, which she has to, then she is really leaving Mars, and her friends and family, for good. Au Revior, ciao, sayounara. Her mind wanders to her parents and how much she will miss them when she leaves. She really has to start talking to them again somehow. Nila blinks a few times before looking beside her to see another girl, short and petite with tanned skin and light golden hair in a messy bun with a grumpy look on her face – she has been waiting to move past Nila this whole time.

"Oh! Sorry..." Nila blubbers apologetically and moves out of the way.

Nila quickly steps into a shower and undresses, dropping her clothes down a chute in the wall which quickly closes. She relishes in the relaxation of the hot water on her skin. Sadly, her shower can only last about a minute and she turns the water off. There's a ding sound and Nila turns to her left to open a slot in the shower wall to see a new, fresh set of clothing. Inside are the usual black top and leggings.

Once Nila's all dressed she walks over to a mirror and grabs out her brush to rake it through her atrociously knotty hair and decides to put it up in a miniature pony tail today. Nila smiles once it's done and starts to brush her teeth.

Nila walks out of the bathroom and puts her things back into her bag. There's a big crowd forming at the doors and Miss Megalla is making an announcement.

"From now on, training will be a little bit different than before. It will be based more on your intelligence rather than your physical abilities. As you can see, we've still got a training area that you can use in your free time," The instructor pauses and points to the centre of the room where all the equipment is. "But now, we want to see how good you are at solving problems and thinking clearly in stressful situations. We will be heading up to the Tower for this, so everybody needs to stick together and be sensible!" Excitement explodes in the room. The Tower? It's the most high-tech and important place on Mars. Plus it has the most important people working there. Oh! And how could she forget? The OMCC building is right next to it, perhaps she might see Chloe?