Ally

Something eerily silent, and yet screams right on my face. Pitch darkness of nothing but an infinite fall on a void of disappearing memories, scorching like wildfire, ashes flattering in the wind, but nothing to save for all of it is ruined. The Heart of the Capitol, looking as magnificent as it should be, with trees sprouting on every inch of available land, trying to preserve nature's creation, nevertheless which who planted are the once who destroyed in the first place. Nature isn't going anywhere, it will stay here and flourish without the presence of man, without our disrupting manners and destructive actions.

Something moving, something shaking, my body's moving without my control, then back again, that silence, making no such sounds but able to tear apart my eardrums. Afterward, I woke from the sirens ringing on the corridors, I was being carried by Theo on his right shoulder, my upper half, dangling at his back to which Nessa is looking at me, smiling.

"Morning sleepyhead," she laughed, Theo slowly put me down to stand on my feet, "why did guys not wake me up, what is even happening?" scratch the back of my neck and fixed my very obvious bed hair with my fingers. "Well, we tried for 15 minutes, but geez you're a heavy sleeper, so just decided to carry you to Levels." Right in front of us is a massive open function hall with a stage up in front. The guy who took me here yesterday was on the stage, writing something down with his co-officer.

"Come on, need to get a table, or we'll need to sit on these crusty tiles." Theo led the way and found the three of us a table to sit on, in the far left corner of the room. Looking around me, about a hundred people are here, all about 2 decades old. At the stage again were guards, and now Porcha's there, standing dead center of the stage. With a clap,

"Good morning shifter! Today is lecture day, and before all of you complain, I know it's boring as well, but today's topics are very exciting! So eat up, and be ready by 9:00 am. Ta-ta." She ways as the rest of the people bow down, I do it as well to feel that I belong here. Nessa and Theo stood up, I followed behind going back, we had to press our middle finger on a scanner near the exit of the hall to check attendance. When we got back to our room, there was already food on the front door with a note 'Room 12' on it signifying that this is our food.

And Theo picked the two trays of food as Nessa unlocks the door. We placed the food on the floor since we don't have a table nor do we want to spill the food on our sheets. We sat together and started eating, "so Gogy, you didn't have a proper introduction to us yesterday, mind sharing?" Nessa raised her eyebrows in a teasing manner as Theo just keeps eating his food.

"Ah, well how do I put this into words," not wanting to fully give my true story, I tell it lightly. "Well, I'm from here, and I-I like the outdoors? A-and nature, I'm 20 years old, came from a poor family." I say to finish my words.

"You're 20? You're older than me, I'm nineteen," as she gulps down the broth of the noodles, "I'm the oldest then, 22." Theo, placing the empty bowl back on the tray. I placed back mine as well as I finished my food, with another hour to spare before this 'lecture' begins, wanted answers for a lot of questions in my head. So I asked,

"What is happening here? Like why are we here? And why have I not seen any adults aside from the Officers?"

Nessa sat on her bed as Theo laid on the floor, I kept my sitting position when I ate. Nessa speaks, "Well, the Invasion happened right? Was it a couple of months ago? I can't remember, well apparently, Earth didn't have a chance against this 'Invading Moon' and the Corporal called for help onto space and this 'New Pallas' corporation came along from another dimension they said helped us, as I saw it, they had a very big ship that looked like a needle and it crushed the Invading Moon into half and everything was going to be fine."

Theo continued, "But then New Pallas has said that they've predicted that the Invading Moon is going to come back again with even bigger Moons and power, so the Corporal and Pallas decided to join forces and they've said, the seniors and us juniors needed to be separated because our tasks would be different and this would also strengthen our independence. So I heard, the adults are in the Asian Islands and we're here at The Americas."

"But why would we need to do this? They said to us that we're going on this Shift Ports or something and we're going to be transported to another dimension? But for what exactly?" followed my question.

"Well, we need to retrieve certain artifacts from these planets and bring them back here at Earth so that we could make a Trade at the Invading Moon and make them stop their plans of destruction and put an end to this invasion without the use of force." Theo sat up and looked at me, "We've been to a ton of lectures and training now have we not? You should have learned this by now, we've been here for 2 months already, in a month or so, we'll be finally called Official Shifters, come on let's go to the field!" as he stood up and out the door, Nessa followed behind as I slowly stood on my own,

"What do they mean, we've been doing this for 2 months? And the invasion happened 2 months ago? It was only 3 days ago and I only got here yesterday, what the hell is going on?"

As I leave the room and onto the corridors leading to the fields where everybody seems to go, I followed the crowd and I looked around me, multiple symbols of the Corporal and 'New Pallas' above it with a quote at the bottom,

'Trust in us." The sign says.