The Trials

I can't be here any longer

     "This is training for trial three. Here you will learn to harness your abilities. Then in trial three we shall see who is strong and who is weak. Once again, you will be training with the group you ment with on day one. Each of you have an instructor to show you, to teach you all you need to know to succeed. Good luck, but if you are who we are looking for you shouldn't need it."
      The five of us walk to our area. Where we find Michael, the sixth, and his father.... "Of course he's our leader." Jackson says under his breath while gesturing towards Michaels father.
     I shake my head trying not to laugh. I am really starting to like Jackson, "Shall we get started?" I say.
    "This makes no sense," Leah says, while desperately trying to understand the directions we all were given.
     They want us to stare at a marble and without physically touching it, make it move. Ava laughs when we are given these directions, "Easy!" As if Ava had done this before, she moves her marble first.
     "Wait, how?" Jackson says in awe. Ava smiles in return. I shake my head. Of course this would be easy for her.
      Slowly more and more of us master the skill, but I can't seem to make my marble move. When I'm the last one in our group who hasn't done it yet Michael looks at me and says, "Honestly I'm disappointed, friend." As if trying to make me angry Michael emphasizes the word friend.
     I stand up, "Why are you so rude? You hid this from me forever and now you're just gonna brag about how you're so much better than I am?" I yell. Michael steps closer to me then pushes me back. I'm so angry I can taste it. I scream.
      The lights go out and everyone and everything around me goes flying backwards. I stumble backwards, "What just  happened?" I stutter.
     "You my son, you." Says Michael's father with a huge disturbing smile.
     "You. Are. NOT. My. Father," I respond disgusted.
      I walk up to the closest wall. "I want to go to my room." This time I don't yell. I just stand there until a door appears, then I walk through it and go to my room.
     There is nothing to do in this room. This isn't even a room it's a white box with beds. I punch the wall. I have too much anger and no way of getting rid of it. I lay down on my bed and picture the days when Michael and I could stay up for hours watching Marvel movies and reading comics. Arguing over which comic book hero would become Marvel's next movie hero. Then I laugh about how we treat each other now, but Michael isn't the next door neighbor that used to be my best friend. This Michael is just the shell of the boy I used to know. Now all I can think is how much I miss my parents. The more I think, I begin to realize that I can't stay here. I need to ask to leave. Then the room shakes and the room's door opens. I expect my roommates, but when I look up my eyes immediately find Ava's. " I think, I'm going to ask to leave this." I gesture to this place whatever or wherever it is.
     Ava's eyes open wide, "You can't," she says as she steps into the room
     "I know you don't want me to go but, i'll be fine. I'll live a happy life," I say.
     Ava steps closer to me until our faces are inches apart. She leans into my ear and whispers, "That's the thing, you won't be alive if you leave here."
I take a few steps backward. The future I imagined, while she was gone, with my family suddenly becomes blurry.
     "How do you know?" I ask hoping that what she told me was just a mere attempt to keep me from leaving.
     "I... I can't tell you yet. Not until you're stronger, but I know you sense that I'm correct." I shake my head. I can feel that she's telling the truth, but my whole being wishes she wasn't.
     When Ava finally feels convinced that i'm not going to commit suicide by trying to get them to let me leave the trials, she leaves.
    Eventually I fall asleep. Not for long though. The normal shaking of the room warns me that the door is about to open. This time my tired roommates are on the other side of the door. That night they all kept asking what happened when the lights went out in the training room and where was I at dinner, but I don't respond. Not only because I am tired, but because I don't even know what happened with the lights. I only know that I caused them to flicker. Eventually their questions stop coming and we begin to fall asleep and I make a promise to myself, that I am determined to keep. I promise to help them survive. Yet as I fall asleep somewhere deep in my mind I know that it is almost impossible for me to keep that promise.