Silver and Maroon

Train Travel

As soon as I feel my feet step onto the cushioned carpet of the train I rip off my blindfold, and see people all around me doing the same. The train is amazing, it's made of the same precious medals that we see on broadcasts of the capital. I'm not poor and neither is my community, but we definitely don't have the same prestige that other communities or the capital have. The train is made of silver and dark blue panels of metal. The colors of the WCYW tests. When we arrive at the test facilities and Capital we will change into our designated colors. Boys will wear black shirts and silver overcoats with black pants and dress shoes. While the girls wear a thick dark blue skirt and overcoat with black buttons. They also wear a black t-shirt under the overcoat and black wedges. 

I am standing squished in between other sixteen year old's in the train door entrance. I can either turn left or right, to find a seat among the many plush dark blue chairs. There are two seats per every row so I will most likely have to sit by a random person. The train attendant Ama, I see from her name tag, has also been caught up in our chaos and looks thoroughly frazzled. She has been pushed up against the wall by someones shoulder and despite this continues to shout for us to find a seat. 'Right like that's gonna happen' I think to myself. There are about ten other people still gaping at the large train interior, and I doubt that they care about Ama's insistent shouts. I shove my way through the crowd and try to find a seat on the left of the car door. The only seat I see that is open to the left, is one by a tall brooding guy that I assume does not want to be here at all. He doesn't look up as I make my way toward the seat beside him. Maybe he thinks no one would bother to sit by him. He has short dark brown hair, almost black and dark green forest colored eyes. his skin is a dark tan color, that we don't see a lot in my community. I can see the muscles in his arms from under his black v-neck shirt. He probably wouldn't have a problem with any of the physical tests, let alone combat training to come. 

I come up to the seat and stand there as he looks up at me, surveying me. "Is it alright if I sit here? Not many other options." He nods slowly, seeming to still be confused why I would want to sit by him. I sit down on the soft plush chair, and first look at the chaos at the boarding door then, out at the home I will probably never see again. The mantra my mom has been repeating non stop to me the last few moths or so, echos through my brain. Right before I left for the third line of the sixteen that morning, she had said it again. "Anything and everything can or will be a test." One of the gifts that both my parents have, is to figure out the way a persons mind works. Which I assume is why they are psychologists. But I have always thought that my parents knew something about the tests that normal people didn't. I think they picked up on the added hidden factors of the what can you withstand game. The time to the Capital even on there high speed trains will be around 3 hours, so I decide to just let myself take a nap. My parents always said the best way to digest new things is to sleep on it.

I slowly drift back into the world of consciousness, and my eyes don't like the idea of opening to the bright light of the train. So I squint and blink to wake myself up. I realize with a start that my head is rested on something, I sit up and look to my right quickly, sitting there apologetically is the boy I talked to briefly before drifting off asleep. He leans his head slightly to the left and says "Uh, sorry, You were asleep and your head fell on my shoulder. You looked so tired so I decided not to wake you up, or move you." "Oh" I say not knowing what else there is to say. He asks "Is that not alright?" "No, no it's fine, I just wasn't expecting to wake up on a pillow of sorts." I say laughing shortly. This boy I thought was tough, and brooding sits there with red cheeks looking shy even. "Oh yeah, I'm Brendon the uh, pillow guy" "hey, Brendon the pillow guy. I'm Mazee Cole." "Nice too meet you." says Brendon awkwardly. I suddenly find myself smiling goofily up at his handsome face. 

I reprimand myself instantly 'NO! You are not going to start having a crush on a guy that can ground you to a pulp in the tests! No matter how cute and shy he is!' Despite the fact that I told myself to forget his shy face, I continue our conversation. I mean it's not like  we are going to probably see each other after this. "So Brendon..." I say quietly not wanting to wake anyone around us. "Before I turn to look at the window, how amazing is it?" "Oh" he says, and leans his head around me to look out the widow. "Well, if you like travelling through dark empty tunnels then it's absolutely spectacular." He says this without the sarcasm I was expecting. I can tell from his approach to our conversation he doesn't talk to people let alone girls that much. But I kind of like it you know, that I got him to open up and goof around a little. "Seriously?" I ask disappointed, I was hoping to see some of the other communities. All the different ranks live in the same region or general area but the communities include only your same rank. 

"How long have I been knocked out?" I say wondering how long it will be until we reach the large Capital. And how long I have until our friendliness disappears in the wake of competition for a better rank. He looks down at his expensive looking watch and tells me the time "We got on the train at 12:00 and it's 2:30 so about 2 hours and 30 minutes." "That means we'll be at the Capital in...." I was never very good at math, it being my worst subject in school. And combine that with being asleep just moments ago I'm not in the best shape to tell time. He turns and stares straight ahead not offering to continue our conversation. But I think I will be able to pull one out anyways. "30 minutes" Brendon says filling in the blank for me. And I am very thankful he didn't mention my very apparent trouble with math.