Sun is just cresting the hills, I’m tinkering with metal and plastic scraps, attempting to make a cartridge for the Jekyll dagger (name is being workshopped).

“Oh Ross, you’re still up?” The sugary voice of Elyra asks.

“I took a nap a while back but got up again. Y’know, 3am inspiration type stuff,” I reply.

“Ah, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming with me to gather some herbs in the forest,” Elyra fidgeted with her shirt hem.

“Sure, I don’t mind,” I shrug and get up, Hooking my many small lenses to the arms of my glasses. She adjusts her satchel on her shoulder and retrieves a basket from her art area. She hands it to me and we leave.

⛭⛮⛭

I followed her until we reached the nearby forest which I recognized quickly.

“Aren’t we not allowed to go near the Lab?” I ask hesitantly.

“Guilds have benefits,” Elyra answers.

“Noted,” I comment. She teaches me about which herbs she needed, wanted, and were the most important. She told me to grab comfrey (or Symphytum officinale). I bend down, slightly cringing at the squelching of the mud and inspect the muck for it. I find some and pick out a few stems before hearing a scream. I get scared half to death and run over to where Elyra was.

She was down in the mud, pointing a shaking hand at the stream before her. I look to see a girl a little younger than myself that was unconscious, her white uniform stained and caked in the mud. The first thing that came to mind was that she was dead. I slowly approach the body and see two, fuzzy triangles coming from the top of her head. I slowly lift my hand to them before jumping back, are those ears?! Who has animal ears and are human? And they aren’t fake either! I shake my head, snapping out of it.

Focus, there is an unconscious girl right in front of you with a dirty white uniform and cat ears. I turn to Elyra, “do you know CPR?”

“No, but I do have something…” she shuffles through her satchel and pulls out a small plant (lobelia to be exact). She walks over to the girl, parts the girl’s lips, and places the crushed plant on her tongue. She pulls me away from inspecting the girl just in time as the girl jolted upright, spitting out water. I, again, cringe slightly at the scene. I quickly look for my notebook, and clutch it in my hands. Who is this? What is the purpose of her cat-ears? Where is she from?

I continue to analyze from a distance as Elyra took over.

“Are you okay? We found you lying in that stream and got worried,” Elyra says, reminding me of that one friend’s mother as she does.

“Cana…Where’s Cana?,” The girl looks upstream, fear enveloping her features.

“I dunno, we only found you down here,” Elyra says calmly.

Fear struck the white-and-black haired girl’s eyes, making them almost clear as she processed unidentified thoughts.

“Look. You’re wet, dirty, confused, and most likely lost. Let’s look for this ‘Cana’ character once you’re more cleaned up.”

“But-”

“You would likely grab the attention of government officials in those,” Elyra says in warning. The girl hesitated before complying.

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Who are these people? Curio? But they don’t look like Curio… What are they? I stare intensely at the woman and man. The man looked my age, maybe Cana’s age and the woman sounds so nice. Untrustworthy nice. And he looks too much like he could be a Curio. Miss Lady walks up to the dude before coming up to me.

“We can take you to the guild house to get you washed up, is that okay?” She asks. I nod in response, knowing I have little options.

We walk a while, Glasses keeps on trying to walk beside me but I hide behind Ms. Lady every time. He gives Ms. Lady a dejected look each time, making her chuckle.

We arrive at a large building with a bunch of weird symbols above the door.

“What’s that?” I ask, squinting up at the symbols.

“Whuz wha?” Miss Lady looks around.

“That’s a sign, it says ‘Artisans of Adonas’,” Mr. Book answers.

“Is this Adonas?”

“No, Adonas is our savior, our religion,” Mrs. Lady says with a distant twinkle in her eyes.

“Who are you anyway?” I ask bluntly.

“My name’s Elyra, he’s Ross,” Ms. Lady points to the respective people as she does so.

We enter the building and Elyra starts going through her bag as Ross goes off somewhere else. He returns with a rag and towl and gives them to Elyra, who takes me to a washroom before asking permission to assist my bathing. I was uncomfortable, but allowed it. I mean, the only reason we could’ve escaped was because Iris could write the map on her stomach.

“So what’s your style? Dresses? Denim?” Elyra asks me.

“What are those..?” I ask curiously.

“Wow, where did you come from where there’s no dresses?” I don’t respond to that, she’d probably find a Curio to take me back if I’d answered it. After a while, she leaves me to clean myself, which I did efficiently. I finish in the average time required at the Lab and hear a knock on the door. Elyra claims to be the only one behind it so I allow her entry. She places a bunch of uniforms before me and tells me to choose one.

I try to find one like my old one before looking up at her, “there isn’t any.”

“Really? I swore I got everything the size of the uniform,” she processed aloud.

“Where are the others then?” I ask, slightly concerned why someone wouldn’t have the right uniform.

“Uniforms? We don’t have anything like that…”

I go through the assortment again. I pull out a pair of blue pants that were roughly cut halfway down. “Are these jeans..?” I inquire once more.

“Those are Jorts,” Elyra explains.

“I heard about these from a friend, and about jackets made of the same material to help you stay warm,” I say aloud.

“Yup, but since it’s summer, we don’t need jackets except for in cold places,” Elyra briefs me on articles as I go through the pile again.

I pick out what Elyra calls a graphic tee that apparently said, “I’ve seen the future and I’m right in every one”, which humors me, and the Jorts from before, which crawls up my legs every time I sit. We exit the washroom and I hear the sounds of yelling.

I pause, are they testing on someone? Are they going to test on me? I shrink away from Elyra and glue myself to the washroom door, did I escape one Lab to wind up in another?

Elyra continues walking and I wait and listen. “Thane Blackthorn! I told you to save arguing with Lysa until we get an isolated wreck room,” Elyra berates someone around the corner.

A deep, scary voice replies, “you didn’t say anything though!”

“It really doesn’t matter, they’ll fight either way,” a second, more relaxed voice spat.

“You scared the poor girl,” Elyra started around the corner to chide the other voices.

After a while, Ross walked into view, causing me to tense up and flatten myself more on the door. “What do you want? To test me?” I growl.

“No! No, why-how could we? I just wanted to talk,” Ross animates his words with waving of his hands.

“About what?” I spit, were those motions a part of a signal?

“I think I know why you’re so defensive. I understand,” the ice-blue eyed male sighs.

“Understand what?” I falter a second before standing rigid again.

“You were either insanely sheltered by your parents or are a Lab escapee right?” I pause, mentally calculating how he could have picked that up, “you don’t have to answer that. But nobody outside of the Labs are going to strap you to a survey table and dissect you if you’re wondering.” Ross says, making me ease up slightly. They do seem nicer than most other Non-Tested.

Then again, I guess I’m now a Non-Tested too.