Balmore stared at the words floating in his vision… well, kind of. The words were there, but he couldn’t see them. It’s as though the words had somehow bypassed his optical nerves and been sent straight to his brain. He knew the words were there, and he knew what they said he just -- couldn’t see them. He supposed that this left him with the ability to see his surroundings and respond to the world around him, but the words still took a portion of mental focus that couldn’t be purely split.

Balmore wondered briefly about how he could dismiss the words from his mind as they were starting to freak him out. He also recognized the fact that he was freaking out at all was impressive given the calmness with which everything else that had happened contained. These… notifications? They somehow broke through the miasma that had settled over his brain. He could feel the force of peace trying to claim its way back into him. As he fought against the influence of the man and this prairie, the notifications sunk away as if responding to his desires.

Balmore didn’t know much anymore about what was happening to him. He thought the testing would start with a biological and medical inspection. He knew that only the best would be allowed to remain on earth to continue to contribute their genetics to the future of humankind. With limited resources, technology, and numbers they couldn’t afford to preserve anyone who would die early to mental or physical decline. Someone who would lose their vision would not be able to receive corrective surgery as they could in the old times. Somebody whose digestive system couldn’t handle the long-term diets of their local ecosystem would not be able to survive and was therefore not worth preserving.

He also believed that the testing would have some mental or academic challenge to discern the aptitudes of the children. He was under no dissolution that race, gender, or any other immutable factor would have any bearing on the design or outcome of the testing -- but humans had nearly caused the extinction of not only themselves, but every species on the planet. Their history books told the story of a near complete collapse of planetary biodiversity. Humans had imbalanced every ecosystem they had touched and far exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth. The only solution left to the desperate progenitors of the new world was to reduce our number to a sustainable population, and there had to be some way to ensure that the species continued to progress in spite of the harsh realities of life.

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This though, this was not anything that Balmore could have planned for. He had pushed himself through his childhood to the point of perfection. His family had kept him well fed with a variety of fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, nuts, and meats. He had exercised in a natural manner, doing the work of adults in farming and construction since he was 11. He had studied not just with the local schoolteachers, but with all of the elderly in the town who served as much as historians as they did advisors. He had refrained from any and every indulgence that might sully his chances at making it through these tests, only to find those preparations fruitless.

Before the calm could take him back into a happy complacency, he took a step forward down the hill. He had to move forward, to find the test and beat it. He at the very least had to leave this place in order to make it back to his home and to his family. He would find triumph here and return as a full-fledged citizen of the New America. He would find a wife, start a family, and prepare his kids the same as he was. He would live long and old and one day find this same peace around him -- but on his terms, when it was his time to find it.

Balmore found the second step easier than the first, and the third more so. This pattern continued as he walked through and out of the prairie. The entire way the grasses and flowers parted allowing him unimpeded passage out of the old man’s paradise. The scene around Balmore shifted as he once again was taken by darkness.