AFIRE: fight for the Earth begins✓

16.3 ZURI

The story so far:

---- Aija is a Volunteer at the Pristine School at Innermost. She works along with Zuri and Ze, who are her friends. Aija witnesses a strange event one night – light emanating from Rez's body. The kidnapper is after her soul, next, but he leaves her alive and goes away. Another man finds her, he wants to take her somewhere else - Aija though wary of him agrees. Aija learns of the existence of the aliens – the Ytai. Also, about the R'ies and H'eon, Harvesting and Àvo from Etrie. Etrie tells her that the man, who Harvested Rez (Thieron), will now go after her. He tells her that the spy/kidnapper's name is Luka. Etrie asks her to work along with him. Aija agrees to work along with Etrie on Harvest Stopping Missions.

---- Thieron and Nala check out a new target and realize that Etrie's team was trailing the same target.

---- Xan is a student at the Pristine School. He attends Cello classes at the same academy as his best friend Vaughn. Xan is preparing for the mandatory Eligibility Test that he must take once he turns sixteen. Xan has a small party on his birthday. Xan feels like he is being constantly watched. Xan takes his Eligibility Test and does well. He gets his Medicine Administration done. Xan feels sick and at his party, he faints.

---- Zuri is back at her hometown. She tells Alex why it's important to do well at school - so that they can both live at Innermost and bring their parents there too.

---- Zuri meets with her friends. She admits that she likes someone - a girl. Her friend Amyas tells her that he likes her. 

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****16.3 - Zuri****

When Zuri woke the next morning, Alex was still sound asleep in his bed. She rolled about on her bed for about a half-hour before she forced herself to get out of bed.

There was only one thing on her mind – Nala. Why hadn't she contacted Zuri yet? What was she hiding? Zuri kept saying things between them weren't serious, but in reality, she wanted to make them consequential. Only if Nala were a bit more open and not seem to have too many secrets.

She washed up, changed, and went downstairs to the main room. Imani was at the dining table, painting a beautiful waterside landscape. Zuri had never seen such a place in real life – only in DigiBooks.

"Where's your brother?" Imani asked, not lifting her eyes from the blue of the water she was painting. Imani had wanted to go to Pristine Two to study art. But, she hadn't qualified for it on the Eligibility Assessment Test and was stuck in Apper town where she had been born. Imani had been so happy when Zuri had been accepted to volunteer at Innermost that she had cried. "Get out of this town into the best of the world," she had told Zuri.

"He's asleep." Zuri yawned.

Her mother continued to paint, and Zuri had breakfast, after which she brought out her DigiBook and opened her History book to where she had last stopped and continued to study. A test was coming up in two months, and she needed to finish her studies if she wanted to do well.

Often, she pondered about how her life might have been if she had been born to a wealthy family like Aija. No, Zuri wasn't jealous – just curious. She loved her life as it was now, her mind just wandered on some days, to the possibilities of what her life might have been.

Would she have been free of the Study While You Volunteer Program? Could she have enjoyed her free time doing anything else other than studying? Would she have decided to become anything other than a teacher? It was surprising that Aija had chosen to be one, even when her parents were against it. Aija was rebellious despite her quiet and soft nature.