The Test

One

I move before I can be moved, and meet a woman's gaze. Her eyes are cold and hard, and when I reach her, she says in a monotone: "Name?"

"Blackthorn." I say automatically.

"You're over there. Near the front." She replies.

I nod and head off in the direction indicated.

Since Ellie's Last name is Howard and Lena's Bouchard, only Lena is next to me as we slowly inch forward in our lines into this foreign building. Even then, she's a few people down from me. I crane my neck to see over a particularly tall boy's head as the set of steel double doors at the end of each line open and close for four people at a time- two kids, a male and a female each side, as well as two of the weird white-coats with their monotone voices and dull eyes.

When my turn comes, I have almost given up trying to see what lies beyond the steel doors, so I'm sort of nervous but also intrigued as an official grabs my arm on each side of me and steers me through the doors, down two long, white hallways, and to a door. The door is small, only wide enough to fit one person through it. It is plain white, with only a palm-scanner beside it, and a keypad labelled AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.

At the officials' direction, I place my palm on the scanner and wait for it to go green. When it does, a little beep goes off and the official on the left says gravely: "You may enter now." The official on the right says: "Good luck."

I pause. Why would I need luck?

The door whooshes open with barely a sound.

I step into the room.

*

Minutes after the test

The hallway is long and almost as white as the testing room.

I walk along it to the end, where a single door waits.

I push it open, hoping it will lead to something that is not death.

I don't know what I expected, because when I just come out at the lower end of town, I am surprised that it is something this simple, my 'fate'. I can just walk back uptown to my parents in the more upmarket section of town, and ask them what is going on. So I do.

The faintest flicker of nerves assaults my stomach as I raise my hand to scan my ID on their-our- wooden apartment door twenty minutes later. What will they think of me when they find out I've failed the Test? Will they even know?

Of course they will, I scoff. But they won't care, I reason. They're my parents. They said they'd love me, no matter what. But will they? I can't help worrying as I scan my ID at the door. It goes green, and I realise that some deep part of me feared they would know I'd failed and would purposely shut me out, or worse, hate me forever. Because she must realise that the Test is something pretty important. I can't believe I didn't know it was so important, but then, I didn't know about it at all until a couple hours ago.

The door opens, and I see my mother's face and almost crumble into her arms in tears, but then I register her expression. Stony. Hard, like the woman at the Test building.

When her eyes lock onto my face, they are devoid of emotion. Her mouth spits one word. My name. But said in a way I never expected she'd say it. Venomously. Like her own daughter's name is poison in her mouth.

"Ariana."

*

A lot can change in two hours. Your parents can go from loving you to hating you, you can have disgraced the family name by performing badly in a test you weren't even allowed to prepare for. They think you've 'disregarded their well planned, expensive education' by failing a test you didn't know was coming.

And now they're kicking me out.

Onto the streets. Which is why, I now realise, that door went straight out onto the streets of downtown. I was never supposed to go back to my parent's house. I was never meant to consider it, apparently. They've told me a thousand times since I first showed up at their door that I disgrace the family and them by even thinking about coming here after doing this abominable thing.

I was never supposed to remember, to even think that my parents might still actually love me. No. Apparently, that was naive of me. Stupid to even consider it, mom said as she shoved me into my room and thrust a bag into my hands. "Get packing, girl," she spits. She's so disgusted with me, she can't even say my name.

To think she was so nice to me this morning...can it really be just this morning? And she wasn't that nice to me. Not really. She just screamed at me to get up, like she does -did- every morning.

I sigh and start shoving clothes in the bag to take to the goodwill stores down the road. I know that's what packing really is. She wanted to eradicate every trace of me- and then I turned up to do it for her.

How nice.

Then I realise. Since I'm going out on the streets, I'm going to need some clothes, right? I don't know what I'll do when I run out, but oh well. I assume I'm going to be there for a long time, so I try to pack as much as possible, including underwear, toiletries and stuff.

And when that bag is full, I fill another. Then an idea strikes me - and for some reason I get ridiculously excited about this, as if me having all my clothes will bring the key to happiness - I can just fill bags with clothes, pretend I'm taking them to sell, and then leave and never come back.

I must admit. Even though I do say so myself, it is a pretty good idea, although rather an obvious one.

I pack a fairly large messenger bag with some essentials, namely my sturdiest clothes-shirts, jeans and sweaters, among other important things. Then I grab my brown leather shoulder bag from this morning with my port in it, and pause for a second. I should leave my port behind, or mom would be able to track me. But it has my only connection to my friends on it.... I shove it deep into the bag and pile other things over it, then shove that into the bag too.

I head out into the hallway, pausing only to check if my parents are in the living room. They are - and they're arguing. Again.

They've been doing that a lot recently.

At least I won't have to worry about family troubles anymore.

I open the door to the apartment slowly, looking around at my former home one last time before sighing softly and stepping out into the hallway, sealing my fate by shutting the door with a loud bang. My exile is confirmed when I try to scan in again: for the first time in my life, the light above the palm-ID scanner goes red and chirps: "Access denied. Please seek alternative access."

I am truly barred forever now.