“Don’t forget your lunch! It’s on table!” yelled my mom.

Does she not know exactly how many tables there are in here? We practically live in a futuristic manufacturing factory that constructs high-tech everything and will grab, stab, or clean anything. Both my parents are engineers so they used to spend most of their nights working here when I was a baby to make enough money to send me to Private school. They hated being away from me, (no surprise there, I’m fantastic) so they decided to move me to the factory to help them build the products since they were short on staff. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but I started saving my earnings and I’m a dime away from purchasing the new Hover Blade 450.

On my way down the elevator into the main lobby, I spot a bulging lunch bag that could possibly be holding about our entire pantry. I snatch it up and as I’m walking through the automatic doors to leave, Fjord was just entering.

“Hey Dextra! Ready for the Waving Test?” he asked with his usual enthusiasm.

“The real question is if you are,” I tease back.

We’ve always been like this since we were kids. Ever since I saved him from a floating asteroid that was plummeting straight toward him when I was only five and he was seven, we’ve been inseparable. If you think I have feelings for him, your wrong…maybe.

“So, anything new in your world that you just happen to want to do me the honor of telling me, or is the answer still no?”

Fjord always asks this question, and he knows it makes me uneasy. He thinks I’m hiding something, or that I’m some Inter- Galactic Traveler that took a girl as host to live here on Dramion for the rest of my life, he tends to over exaggerate if you haven’t noticed.

“No…and I still don’t know why it’s such an important question to you. Don’t you trust me enough to know I’m not hiding anything?”

He then turns his body in front of me so he is blocking me from continuing our path.

He looks great today, might I add. He’s wearing a very simple army green tee that highlights his muscle tone. His hair is sporting its caramel messy- but- neat du and the lights of the pub nearby are reflected in his eyes, making them sparkle as they gaze into mine with seriousness. When he looks at me straight in the eyes, it always haunts me, as if he is trying, searching for something; a piece of me that I have not yet found.

“Of course I do, it’s just the curious side of me that thinks your different from us…Do you ever feel like you don’t belong?

I automatically feel my face warming up to the thought of him knowing that I do feel that way, but I just can’t ever tell anyone…not even him because I feel like it’s much bigger than this.

“Well I’m guessing from your statement you do?” I respond careful not to give away my feelings.

“Well,” he mimic’s me, “what if I do, is that such a bad thing?”

He chuckles to make the statement light, and he blows the conversation away and it gets lost in the breeze of Dramion.

**************************

We arrive at the testing center, and I start to panic and get nervous. Fjord can sense it.

“You’re going to do fine. We’re going to be fine. All they’re going to do is ask us a few questions to determine whether or not we stay in this Galaxy or continue to the War.”

“But what if we get separated? You know that I’m not good at making friends.”

“Okay well there’s that chance, yes, but we always find a way back to each other. Girls line is that a way,” he points to the opening to the right of where we are hovering, “I’ll see you after the tests okay? Don’t worry Dextra, you’re always prepared. And think about what I said earlier. Different can be strong.”

And with those final words hanging in the air, he walks away. His words are suffocating me as I wait in line…

then get my identity checked…

then sit in the screening room…

then wait for the rest of the 15 year olds of Dramion to file in…

then when they start calling last names alphabetically, his words fade to the back of my mind.

“OPHELIA, DEXTRA,” Boomed the speaker announcer.

I stand.

I walk towards the metal garage door looking apparatus.

It opens, and the voice instructs me to walk into the ink black darkness.

I walk in.

The dark envelopes me and I can’t see anything around me, until, suddenly, florescent lights flip on, blinding me.

“Sit,” instructs the voice.

I sit.

“Answer the following questions with complete honesty. If you don’t, we will know that you lied about your answer and you will be expelled from Dramion immediately. If you agree to tell the truth and acknowledge the circumstances mentioned, please say “yes” to activate the first question.”

“Yes.”

**************************

The sun greets me like an old friend as I make my way out of the interrogation room. I walk for about maybe two feet before Fjord appears by my side.

“I’ve been waiting here for an hour!”

I respond with a blank stare.

“What were your results Dextra?”

“What were yours?” I fire back.

“Dramion, now answer me.”

“Inconclusive…but they’re sending me to War. ”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m different and my results are too complicated for them. I’m more advanced then they think, and they think I should be a leader in the War. I go out tomorrow with the next mission ship. Once we get to the base I’ll get trained and taught what to do. Does that answer all your questions?”

“Well, I mean, no. You’re going to sit next to me on the ship right?”

“Your results were Dramion though…”

“I just wanted to see what you were going to say. My results were the same as yours. I told you we were different.”

What Fjord didn’t know was just how dangerous being different would be.