The nighttime snack was the one bright thing in the poor, although admittedly somewhat intelligent, orphans’ lives. At exactly 21:00, you would find a long line of eager children standing near Vodrim’s room, chattering among themselves, each of them holding a cup. There were extremely complicated crowd dynamics at play here. One could write a dissertation paper on the sociological phenomena that took place during this time of the day.

Broadly speaking, some would ask their friends to save them a spot, and those who were friendless or shy were usually pushed to the end of the line. All the second group could do was glare silently at the first, thinking about how there wouldn’t be any milk or sweet bread left once the well-connected kids had got double and triple portions. Dommage!

At exactly 21:01, the door to their caretaker’s room was opened. The corridors had bad lighting, and to the naive eyes of the young children, the open door, emitting light, seemed like a window straight into Ru’s forges! Food was handed out, firmly engraving the holiness of the moment in the minds of these children. Free food is the best, especially when your stomach is cramping from hunger. Food portions weren’t that big, small even, a bit of hunger boosts your thinking ability!

After some time had passed, and these orphans had left their nest, they remembered these childhood moments with deep nostalgia.

Being late for the most anticipated moment of the day, Karl was creatively cursing the Light god with all his soul. He was too young to know complicated poetic language, like the angry grandfather who had been distracted by Spawn, so his cursing style was still more of a mismatch of vulgar words he had heard in passing. It wasn’t very inspiring, but it was obvious that Karl was in the process of enriching his vocabulary.

Running through the common room, where all the classes usually took place, and picking his mug up from where he had left it on his desk, he ran up to Vodrim’s room. There was already a huge line of eager children with cups of different sizes. The deeper the cup was, the more milk the child would get, so it was in their best interests to bring bigger ones. Alas, there was an upper limit to the amount of free milk you could get, so no one’s cup was ever filled. Very sad.

_________________________

Having received his cup of milk and sweet bread, Karl went back to his desk, and, sighing, took out his textbooks. He had to repeat the material for tomorrow’s exam. He wasn’t alone, many of the other kids his age were doing the same. The orphanage didn’t tolerate laziness, handing out penalties to the lowest scorers.

That evening he didn’t stay up late as usual, because he needed to get enough sleep to be in good form.

_____________________________

A ray of light pierced the window that faced the inner square of the orphanage, and fell on the eyes of the peacefully sleeping boys. Karl, who slept right under the window, shifted, and hid his head under the pillow, escaping the irritating brightness.

The electrical lights in the small square were blazingly yellow, attempting to simulate the sun’s cycles. It was interesting how, despite living underneath the earth for many generations, the tunnel dwellers still tried to mimic daylight.

A few minutes later, Isneil, one of the orphanage teachers, slammed the door open. ‘Wake up, children!’, she approached each bed in turn, briskly pulling the blanket off of every child and throwing it on the table.

Taking away a person’s blanket in the morning is the best way to wake him up, especially when it’s freezing. Sunlight signals that it is not night anymore, and the cold air immediately makes the person unable to doze again. This beautiful and efficient method of waking a child up was praised and advertised by many.

Karl, who slept the furthest away from the door, was the last in line to get his warm blanket taken away, so he was partially awake by the time the evil caretaker got to him. He grabbed the blanket with all his might, tangling his legs in the duvet cover to increase friction, prepared to fight with all his might.

….He lost every morning, and this one would be no exception.

The boys in the room quickly dressed and had a small breakfast, and soon met with Vodrim near the testing place, a thirty minute walk away from the orphanage.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The exam took place in another school, this one less known than the orphanage’s one. A four-floor building dug out in the tunnel walls, its facade was completely flat, made out of uneven gray stones.

The only embellishments were a few decorative columns around the entrance, carved with the names of reputable students. These few names regularly got glances filled with awe and respect. Another way to motivate students to work hard.

‘Remember, we discussed this? Today, you sing the national anthem with the other test-takers. You walk into the school, stand where you’re supposed to, and sing when you are instructed to. I hope you haven’t forgotten our national anthem? I will not be surprised if some of you have, considering your less than stellar performances on the mock exams’, Vodrim told the group of orphans, glancing scornfully at some chosen few. It had been less than twenty four hours since they had last sung it, right before yesterday’s lunch, as usual.

Entering the building, the small group of around twenty orphans looked around.

The large circular room they had entered was already filled with a few hundred students. Most students were slowly lining up into orderly rows, their feet almost perfectly aligned, directed by their teachers to their respective spots. Some were still hugging their worried parents goodbye.

Karl, looking at one such child-father pair, felt his stomach sink slightly. A deep sense of envy filled him, his heart twisting.

‘The government is the best possible nurturer of children, offering them the necessary care and support they require. Parents may often instill anti-religious propaganda. They poison the psyches of the children. Teachers and government officials possess the knowledge and expertise to discern what is in our best interests’, Karl reminded himself, repeating what he had been told many times, then shaking his head to disperse his envy.

After all the parents had been ushered out, the director of the school shouted for the singing to start, and the sound of two hundred voices filled the room, echoing around and creating an eerie impression.

‘Rise up… Take back what’s ours… ‘

All formal government tests consisted of first singing the anthem, then waiting for up to a few hours to be called.After being called, the student would press his citizen identification card to circled spot on a shining metallic box, and, after some creaking, the paper-like display window would slowly turn and show the classroom number, a small amount of black smoke floating down.

When it was his turn, Karl walked up to the box near the exit of the large room.Black smoke had gathered around the machine, and it seemed as if the glinting metallic construction was rising out of a deep dark abyss.

Feeling his hands shake, the boy glanced to his right. Seeing the slightly menacing face of his caretaker not far away, he quickly focused and walked closer. There was nothing to fear, the smoke was a symbol of Ru’s presence in the world. After getting his number, he walked into the classroom, showed his identification card, and was soon at his designated desk, waiting for the test to start.

Even though they regularly had informal tests at school to better prepare them for the stress of formal ones, Karl was very tense. It was important, as their caretakers had often repeated, not to shame the orphanage. In addition, having a high score would increase his reputation among his peers. What if he suddenly forgot how to solve systems of equations? Or how many square meters were in a hectare? Or the formula for average speed? There were many things to worry about!

The examination was five hours long, with a short half an hour break for a quick snack. It was just a few cookies, so that the students didn’t starve too much. Stingy government!

The exam was made up of questions on mathematics, grammar, religion, and basic physics. There were also questions to test a student’s thinking, included to give the people who were naturally intelligent a comparative advantage. Those were the hardest to prepare for.

At first, Karl was so nervous that his hands were shaking, but as he got deeper into the theory, he relaxed, the many hours of preparation kicking in. The test seemed to go by smoothly, his nervousness not affecting the outcome.

___________________

It is hard to describe the feeling of finishing a life-determining exam. Right after it ends, you are still flooded with adrenaline, and feel as if you can spend the rest of your day normally. You go around, and compare your answers with anyone you meet. Mostly you just emotionally talk at strangers, cursing the problems or maybe telling others how beautiful your solution was, and they do the same with you, but you barely hear them, still caught up in the haze of intense concentration on just a few sheets of paper. People rarely experience this energy-filled intellectual rush in normal life.

After you somewhat calm down, you start thinking on how you will spend the rest of your day, how you will read through your textbooks to check if the answers you weren’t sure of were correct, or how you will have a good rest by inviting your friends over to play board games, how you will help your caretakers with dinner, and all that. You are filled with the light and airy emotion of anticipation for the amazing and productive break day ahead of you. You are like a newborn child, your future full of possibilities and opportunities.

….All of these beautiful, deep, and touching thoughts die down just a few hours later, when you are lying in bed and don’t want to move. You are so lazy that you don’t even respond to simple inquiries, just grunting in reply to external sounds. You are so motivated to study better, that whenever your eyes fall upon a stack of notes from late night studying, lying in the corner that always terrifies you, your face distorts and you quickly turn away, huddling deeper into your blankets. Many people are so motivated, that they even overpower their biological needs by skipping dinner, just not to move from bed.

____________

Like so, his life a frenzy of studying mixed with occasional religious perusal, Karl’s life flowed relatively smoothly for a few years.