Of Love, Lies, and Dreamers

Here’s the next chapter, hope you like it. Thanks to all the people who've been reading my work up to this point, and welcome to all you new folks. You’ll notice that I am taking a while to get to some of the juicier bits. I’m afraid I subscribe to the “all good things in their own time” belief. Have no fears, I will get to the fun stuff soon enough. I have a pretty firm idea of where the general plot, and many of the characters, are going, so nothing’s really filler, just slow. As a reader the thing I hate most in a story is feeling like something happened unreasonably fast. Example-Character A meets character B. A enslaves B. B hates A for this. Now B loves A. Than A decides… stop, wait a second, what happened with this 180? B hates A. Why does he like A now? I get Stockholm syndrome, and sure you might come to love this person eventually, but really? Just like that? Give me some plot support. Anything! As such I fear that you will find my writing leaning towards long winded, to avoid these situations. Also, fair warning, I tend to bobble between character’s points of view from one chapter to another. If there is a character you like more, or less for that matter, well…they should turn up sooner or later… probably… maybe…. we’ll see. I digress. You’re not here to listen to me wax on eloquent. As such, here’s the next chapter in the epic saga…errrrrr well here's the next chapter.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

“Does anyone else have a problem? Well then, it seems you are all ready for my exam. Shall we begin?”

They say that the best stories are the ones that have unexpected twists and turns. The best characters are the ones who never see it coming, but still come out ahead. Well Daniel didn’t know who they were, but they were full of crud. Unexpected twists and turns are just guano thrown in your face. The unexpected doesn’t make your life more interesting, it just makes it worse.

This little plot twist in his life was nothing but bad luck and some divine being deciding he was bored. ”Hmmm, I see, Daniel is having a test down there on Earth. What can we do to mess around with him?” This kind of stuff shouldn’t happen to normal people. The crazy proctor had thrown out that Sheppard kid and was already moving on as though he hadn’t ruined the kid’s life. What kind of sadist could live with himself after that? Who had put this guy in charge? The man wouldn’t care two wits about whether Mark and Dan didn’t get money for scholarships. No big deal that they needed to pay for school.

Thoughts of his brother had Daniel sending an unobtrusive glance to the left. All he could see was that blank void that Mark used to cover his face whenever something bad happened. Shit, just when he was starting to smile again, were Daniel’s only thoughts. Mark may say that Daniel was the emotional one in the family, but he was just less secretive about how he felt. Sure he had been angry about the car accident and maybe he had taken it out on the people around him, but at least it was some emotion. Honestly, it was the shorter brother that was having the most trouble dealing with his emotional baggage. The munchkin was just taking the less confrontational route of shoveling problems under a veneer of “too busy to handle it”. At this point, Daniel was beginning to dread the empty look of apathy. In the weeks that had followed the life altering car crash Daniel had been seeing it more and more often.

Daniel decided to deal with his brother later. If Mark wants an ulcer by the time he is thirty, let him. Besides, there were bigger problems at hand, and even if he didn’t thinks Mark’s methods were healthy in the long run, they would certainly get him through the day. Focus. The proctor had started in again, and failure to comply because he had been ignoring the instructions sooooo wasn’t gonna cut it.

“Much of the contents of this exam are what you would expect on a placement exam. Portions of it, however, are… shall we say unique. I have included questions for determining personality types, learning styles, pop culture preferences, among other things. These, in addition to the more standard questions, will be key in determining who your teachers are. You’ll want to be forthright with your answers. If you are lucky, a misleading, or false, statement on this exam will only leave you with a professor who hates you for not meeting their class specifications.”

Lucky? Daniel didn’t think that was lucky at all. Feeling a twist in his gut, the subject of spiteful teachers had him strolling down memory lane. There had been a teacher in his junior year of high school that hadn’t… “approved”… of his sexual preferences. Apparently her ex had left her for a man and she decided that was a great excuse to take it out on her gay students. She had made life a living hell. The woman went out of her way to call on Daniel in class to humiliate him with impossibly hard questions. She even went as far as to search for mistakes on his tests and papers just to knock down Daniel’s grade. Daniel had felt lucky to make it out of the class with a C, and that only with hours of work and dedication. What could unlucky be like?

“Every year when I proctor there is someone stupid enough to cheat. I hope to make this year an exception. If it isn’t, however, you should know that expulsion will be the least of your worries.” The last statement was said with an intimidating stretch of the muscles beneath his jacket.

Like anyone will cheat after that, Mark thought to himself. Guy is probably crazy enough to beat up the first person he finds sneezing, never mind cheating.

“In light of the high failure rate of my previous exams the administration has forced me to extend my time limit. As such, you will have two hours to complete the exam. Begin.” And with that under emphasized utterance a digital screen at the front of the room began the countdown until the exam ended.

Wait, begin? As in begin, begin? Mark’s inner voice wondered. But, even as he convinced himself he misheard the instruction, students around him ripped into the packets that held their tests. Beside him Mark was already busily scribbling the answer to some question. Shit, not good. I need more time than this, I can’t finish something this thick in two hours, teehee, that’s what she said. NONONONO, don’t get distracted. Just start the test like everyone else.

Ignoring the signs of his approaching doom he looked down at the packet. Breaking the seal he pulled out the test. It had to be a million pages long. No one could finish this in two hours! The first page greeted him with the words Crestor University Entrance Exam: Section One. Daniel glanced at the clock. 1:58:23. Deciding that worrying about time would get him nowhere he decided to start doing problems. Question 1.) What were the names of the Columbus’ three ships? Hmph easy. Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Question 2.) What is the formula for the area of a square? Base times height. No problem, maybe this test wouldn’t be so hard. Question 3.) What are the names of Jupiter’s moons. Uhoh. Houston, we have a problem. Ummm, just move on to the next one. Question 4.) What is the capital of Uzbekistan?

Doooooooooooommmmmmmmm. He was going to fail out. His breathing accelerated to an unnatural level. Looking up to see if anyone else was having troubles, Daniel noticed that throughout the room people were steadily filling out answers, flipping from one page to another, getting further and further ahead of him. 1:53:31 Time was slipping away. At least a few people seemed to be facing a conundrum similar to his own. He noticed them by their furtive, anxious, glances. One cute twink, just a few rows to the left of Daniel, was looking particularly frantic.

Glancing from left to right, the boys shoulder length blond curls were merely accentuating his panic. Having been caught up in the cute boy’s frustrations it became quite obvious to Daniel that he was up to no good at a certain point. Daniel witnessed as the boy, still shaking slightly, starting looking at the paper of another test taker. Fearing for his fellow test taker, Daniel wished he could warn him when he saw a mountain of moving flesh flying at the blond. The bald ogre of a proctor was moving in towards the foolish cheater, ready to begin some sort of punishment. Watching with horrified fascination he saw the proctor’s hand come down on the table with a resounding thwack.

“I thought I was clear on my feelings about cheating, Mr. Harris. Did you think I wouldn’t catch on to your pathetic attempts to circumvent my rules? Well, it doesn’t really matter. It would seem I did not make my point clear enough. I will go to great efforts to fix this error. When I am done I have a feeling your mistake will be abundantly clear. Take him to a separate room. I will speak to him after I finish here.” The last comment was directed at the same two fellows who had taken the other boy. Just as they had the first young man, they took the blond Harris boy away. One of them gathered Harris’ belongings and followed in the wake of the other who kept a firm grip on the young man’s arm. At least Harris managed to keep a modicum of dignity, refusing to whine and cry the way the other guy had.

The commotion drew the attention of some of the people in the room, but even the few who were distracted at first quickly refocused on the test. What’s more, the people who had been panicking before no longer seemed to be as worried. They were following in the footsteps of others in the room and were blasting through there test. How can they be answering the questions so quickly, Daniel wondered, when just a moment ago they were just as lost as I am? Then it hit him. Of course! How could he have been so stupid? 1:46:09

The reason they were getting through the test so fast wasn’t because they knew all the answers. They were skimming through the test until they encountered a question they knew the answer to. In a test this long there was no way anyone could complete all the questions before time was called. That must be part of the test. You just had to get as many answers correct as possible. There was more to this test than met the eye. He should have guessed that their sadist of a proctor would pull some kind of sleazy trick. With that angry thought he started paging through his exam, answering the easy questions as they came up.

The next questions were about some Egyptian pharaoh, but he skipped past those. After that it asked for his favorite food, color, actor, and a variety of other personal facts. 1:39:40 Next were sports questions, but even these ranged from easy with Question 128.) Who won the last super bowl? (the saints, duh!), to the more obscure Question 142.) Who has the best batting average for their first year in the majors? (who would know this?) 1:31:19 Quickly jotting down answers he, wondered why there wasn’t any order to the questions. What kind of test has no flow? Was there no direction to it? It all seemed so random. Oh well, he’d ask Mark about it after the test. Mark was much better at figuring out puzzles and riddles.

Speaking of which, the next questions were riddles as far as he could tell. Question 186.) What is easy to get in to, but hard to get out of? Uhh, well the obvious answer was someone’s pants (snicker), but that probably wasn’t a good answer. 1:23:36 Hell, why not? He put it down anyway. Shifting in his chair, he fumed that the least they could do was provide a chair that was more comfy than sitting on a brick. Trying to ignore his discomfort he got down to the business of test taking. Answering easy questions as they came and not giving any thought to the sections he knew nothing about. Just like that the test bounced from easy to hard and across a plethora of topics. At one point he had to complete a maze, which was immediately followed by questions on the early Ming dynasty. He would find himself skipping past pages of questions when they were just too foreign to him. Still, before he knew it he was almost through the test, and looked up at the clock 0:02:00. How had that happened? At least there was only one question left.

Final Question- Using only one word, describe what you are, want to be, or desire. Choose a word that you feel can encompass your entire being, your view on life, what you hate, or what intrigues you. The word can be any part of speech, but must be a word you feel you could make a life with. No single word is necessarily right or wrong, but your chosen word must be intrinsically you. Hmmm, so another freaky psychotherapy-type question. Well, he still had a little more than a minute. Let’s see. After thinking about it for his few remaining seconds he came to a conclusion and jotted down his answer, watching as the timer ran out - 0:00:03, 0:00:02, 0:00:01, 0:00:00. A loud buzzer signaled the end of the test, and it echoed through the hall making a stark contrast to the previous silence. Well if that wasn’t the worst test he’d ever taken, he didn’t what was.

“All students will put down their writing utensils. Any student found with a writing utensil at this point will have their test rejected.” The proctor proclaimed, at which point Daniel’s pencil all but flew from his hand. “My assistants will collect your tests, at which point you are free to roam about the campus as you see fit, or simply return to your homes. Results for this section will be posted at the entrance of the second portion of the exam, which will be held tomorrow morning at nine. The location will be posted on the entrance exam portion of the student website. That is all.”

Great, Daniel thought, I get the rest of the day as a break until the… wait a minute. There was more to this exam? What the heck? If half of the people were going to fail the first part of the exam, what would happen at the second part? How many people would actually get in? The exhilaration he had been feeling at figuring out the secret of the first exam quickly disappeared, replaced instead by a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What’s going on with Crestor University? Was this normal college life? He and Mark had better talk about this, and figure out some sort of plan of attack; otherwise they might find themselves in serious trouble.