The Exam
Good luck Gregory… That was the last thing I heard before I found myself laying down with my eyes closed. "Hey, Gregory… Gregory wake up or you'll miss breakfast". The sound of a voice I recognized echoed in my ears. "Fern?! What are you doing here?" I say confused, wasn't I supposed to be in the death game?
"Stupid Gregory, I'm here waking you, what else would I be doing here?" She said while shaking me back and forth. "Alright! Alright, I'm up! I'll be down in a bit" I push her off of me and lock my eyes on her, looking at her red hair, and teddy bear, I could say that this person was Fern from the Happy Village Orphanage. I watched as she skippered down the steps to the dining room.
'Is this the death game? Or was this just a mistake? How could this orphanage be a Death Game? It's so innocent, I should get dressed and head downstairs if this is a death game I wouldn't want to stand out' I finish my thoughts and go to the community dresser.
The community dresser was a place where all the children would find their clothes. It was large as it should be to fit the clothing of 40 children and all different ages. I quickly change into my everyday clothes and put my PJs in the basket next to the dresser. Heading down the stairs I hear the bustling coming from the dining room of children eating.
When I get to the bottom of the stairs I see a familiar hallway extending through the whole orphanage, various rooms extending from this hallway, and directly to my left is the dining room. I rushed to the bathroom to wash my hands, I
wouldn't want Mom reprimanding me. Heading into the bathroom I see that someone already beat me there. Drake was around 10 years old, he had dark skin, had a puff of curly black hair, but he was quite tall for his age, he also had green eyes. I saw Drake crying with his head between his legs.
*crying* "Hey Drake, if you wanted to not be seen by anyone you should've gone into one of the stalls. Are you ok, did someone hurt you? I'm here to help?" I say with concern in my voice. "Ya *Sniff* you were always smarter than me, the stall *Sniff* was a better choice *Sniff* I'm fine, just leave me alone *Sniff*". I just go up and hug him.
"Is it because you have to leave in a week? It's ok I understand, I will, we all will miss you, Drake you could always just visit us with your new family, but we'll always be family." I console him and it looks like he's a little better. "But none of the others have come *Sniff* back to say hi," he said concerned. "You'll be better than all the others that haven't come back to see us, you'll see us every week" I give him my nicest smile, and he smiles back, we get up, wash our hands and head back to the dining room.
'It's weird, not a single one of the children adopted came back to say hi, there had been a total of 41 children adopted since my birth, but not a single one came back to the orphanage, and now that I think about it, this orphanage is abnormal, instead of parents looking to adopt and coming to the orphanage, we are sent out every 2 months. The cycle is we are notified of who is leaving, then a month later they leave, then we are notified another month later of who is leaving next, not any orphanage I know with my limited memory of my past life is like this.'
We step into the dining room to see that Mom and her assistant are picking up the leftover plates and the children rushed to the testing room for their daily exam. Mom was a tall white woman about 6ft 1in in height, her brown hair came down to her waist and was tied in a ponytail, and she had a pair of circular glasses with some freckles on her cheeks, her brown eyes stared at us.
"You two missed breakfast, if only you got up on time, well we are taking the exam right now so make your way there." She turned away from us and to her assistant. "Aunt Erica, please look over the exam, I'll finish up here," Mom said authoritatively.
Aunt Erica was even taller than Mom, at least a head over mom's shoulders, her skin was a dark shade, much like Drakes, her black straight hair went past her ear, and her green eyes stared at us gently, but when her eyes stared at Drake there was a bit of sadness in them.
"Yes," Aunt Erica nodded her head at Mom and looked at us with a gentle smile. "Come along now," she put her giant hands on our backs and pushed us along to the exam room. When we were out of sight of Mom, Aunt Erica turned us around and handed us 2 green apples. "Here, I'm sure you boys are hungry. I'll even delay the exam a little bit so you can eat them" Aunt said with a gentle but kind smile.
"Thank you, Aunt Erica!" Me and Drake say in unison. We walk to the end of the hallway, where we see children of all ages pushing their way into a room to our right. "Children! Single file line, and no pushing, we wouldn't want anyone to get hurt," Aunt Erica said sternly to the children. Looking over at Drake I saw that he was devouring his green apple. "Sour" he muttered as his face scrunched up. I was taking my time when eating my apple, I'm a slow eater.
Entering the exam room, it was just a classroom with rows of desks, but I found that there was no teacher's desk, also the walls were plain white with no decorations on them other than a whiteboard. I guess they don't want us to be distracted. I quickly finished my apple and handed the core to Aunt Erica. There was no trash can in this room so I could only give it to her.
"Oops, I forgot the exam sheets, I'll be right back," She said as she sprinted out of the room before any of us could say anything. All of us were seated at our desks, ordered from oldest at the front and youngest at the back, I was currently sitting in the middle of the room and to the far left. Looking around me I started counting the kids in the room. I counted a total of 22 kids all at the age of 4 or above, anyone that hasn't turned 4 does not have to take the exam.
Aunt Erica rushed back into the exam room this time with a stack of papers. "Ok, I'm sure all of you already know how this works, you'll have 1 hour to answer all of the questions. In the end, I'll announce all of the scores from yesterday." Aunt Erica explained as she passed out the tests. "You may now begin" as soon as we all heard that we flipped our paper and started writing with the pencil we found on our desks.
The test was like an IQ test mixed with both Fight-IQ and EQ, it had a total of 300 different questions, so you would be able to get a total of 300 points. The first 200 questions were easy, using only 30 min on them. The last 100 questions are where it gets hard, usually, I'm only able to get through 30 of them before the time runs out. But this time I find that I'm having an easier time and by the time the hour is over I find myself at the 250 mark, it must be since I have experience from my past life.
"And that's it, pencils down. Hand me your paper." Aunt Erica commanded us, during the entire time we were testing she was walking around and making sure nobody cheated, not that anyone would, for you to get the perfect score you'll have to complete every question in 12 seconds, without breaks.
After we handed in our papers, Aunt Erica went to the whiteboard, erased what was on there, and started writing yesterday's test scores. 27 names with a number next to them were drawn on the board. Looking for my name I found myself in #7 with 233/300. Looking above me I found there was only one person with a perfect score, a girl named Clowey, who if I remember correctly was the only 12-year-old in the orphanage. Drake only placed in the middle with a 185/300.
Some of the kids sprinted out of the room to use the bathroom, completely ignoring the list of scores. 'I guess they weren't smart enough to use the bathroom before the exam, you only have 1 hour of precious time, and you can't waste it going to the bathroom.' I thought while slightly smoking the kids running down the hallway.
'It's only 8:30 so well have a little time before Mom prepares lunch, being one of the older kids I'll have to take care of some of the babies, so I won't have any free time until later, maybe I could get to know Clowey more, never really talked to her much…'