"You will spend the next four days going through about 300 different activities, each taking from 2 to 20 minutes. Some of them will be as simple as watching a short movie, others will demand you to actively use your brain or body, but I hope you will take them all seriously."
Every child had their eyes gleaming at those words. They all had heard stories from their parents or siblings about how interesting this once-in-a-lifetime event was.
"I will separate you into several groups, and your assigned teacher will guide you through the assessment blocks according to your schedule."
He separated us into eighteen groups, six of them from my school, and delivered sheets of paper to the teachers. My teacher gathered around twenty students, and made a roll call.
With one last reminder from the well-dressed man, our teacher lead us to our first test.
"Okay, your first test is… in the Arts Sector. We're starting with the Arts this time, huh. Alright, follow me."
The place was immense. The corridor extended for what seemed to be a kilometer, and the tallest man alive couldn't touch the ceiling even if he tried really hard, as far as I knew. The walls were of a pristine white, and sometimes a glistening metallic gray. I had no idea what it was made of. There were lights embedded into every wall, and into the floor, which seemed to be made of smooth granite.
At last, we got to the 11th Sector, called The Arts. Apparently, there were 14 other Sectors just on the First Floor of the building. Despite the number of students, I believe there was only one such Appraisal Facility on every city, so it was a given that they were big, but the scale was just something else.
We were placed in front of doors, where sometimes a student was already waiting for his turn. My door opened as soon as I got close, so I waved to my friends and entered.
From this point on, every minute ran like a second.
The door closed behind me, and suddenly, I was somewhere else.
An expansive grassland stretched before me, bathed in the soft hues of the morning sun. The emerald sea of grass swayed gracefully in the gentle breeze, adorned with a multitude of wildflowers that painted the landscape with bursts of lavender, yellow, and orange. The air was alive with the sweet smell of nature, and the perfectly radiant sun illuminated a simple yet charming house perched atop the hill.
I could hear birds singing and the wind brushing the fields. It was calm, and still. Nonetheless, my heart was pumping particularly hard. The scene unfolded like a living canvas, an unexpected masterpiece that captivated my senses and left me in awe of the serenity that nature and the quaint house shared in perfect harmony.
Drawn towards the house, I followed a stone path that wound its way through the vibrant fields. The closer I got to the house, the clearer I could hear someone humming. It was tranquil... content... happy... As I opened the door, in the heart of the quaint cabin, I could see a beautiful young girl seated by a window, bathed in a pool of golden light. She was humming while reading a book I couldn't identify. I stood there, perplexed, but not willing to look away at the simple but captivating scene.
The girl then noticed my presence, and she gave me the sweetest smile I remember to this day, and happily said:
"Welcome back."
I struggled to close my mouth, and when I checked my eyes to confirm what I was seeing, the exit was right in front of me, with a sign that said 'Please, continue to your next test.'
Flabbergasted, I exited the room, in time to see someone else take my place with an opaque glass door closing behind him.
I looked around, still processing what happened in there, when my teacher went to talk to me.
"Leaf, you okay?"
"Ahn? Ah, yeah."
"What left you that way?" Mr. Brown looked to the door I had just exited and read the title. " 'The Girl in the Field.' Ah... that's a classic. Last year I saw a student returning to that one like ten times in a row. The girl has a knack for enamoring people, haha. If I'm not wrong, the work was influenced by a post-contemporary book written by..."
I had stopped listening halfway through. Was that magic? It was so beautiful...
"Mr Brown, can I go again? I really want to see it again."
"Oh, uh... it says it lasts 3 minutes, so it's not that long, but you should probably check the other ones first, they might be just as good. You can come back to it anytime, if you'd like."
"I can come back anytime?!"
"Yeah, that's why it takes four days to complete the assessment, we repeat the ones we like the most. Didn't you hear the Commissioner?"
"So after the four days I can't come back?"
"Yeah. It's booked all year round. To see it from home you'd probably need an edgerunner device for that type of resolution. And those aren't cheap at all, so..."
"Okay..." I was momentarily depressed, but then decided to hurry since I wanted to come back to it later.
And so, I set towards my second door.
Something similar happened again, I was suddenly in another world. Or more likely, in some other art. This one was called 'Starry Night', or something like that.
As the name indicated, the night sky was full of stars, but it didn't look... realistic. It was almost like I was inside someone's drawing. The stars seemed to stretch across the sky, contorting and twisting, creating beautiful, colorful circles, and illuminating the ancient darker village.
Besides the shifting colors of the sky, it was an unexpectedly tranquil night. The moon seemed to be particularly different, as its glow brought a sort of chilling atmosphere to the place. Crickets chirped at the background, and the occasional dog resounded in the distance. The scenario had its own beauty.
Soon, it was over, and the door indicated my exit. Despite it not having appealed to me as much as 'The Girl in the Field', it was exceedingly beautiful, like nothing I had ever seen.
The third door led to something completely different. Once I entered 'Le Lae des Cygnes', I was in a clearing in a snow forest. The night wind blew and made me feel the chilling cold of the northern mountains. I saw a lake ahead, and made my way towards it. Suddenly, a song started playing. I couldn't identify where it was coming from, since the sounds were amplified inside my head. Despite that, it wasn't uncorfortable at all.
The flute was gently guiding me somewhere, and I followed. Once it built up to the maximum, I stepped into the lake, freezing it instantly where I stepped. I was compelled to keep going, so I did. The lake was freezing more and more as I took even more speed. Then, the gentle violin calmed down. The water was unfreezing again, and I saw beautiful snow white birds settling in the water. I looked up, and a stunning aurora borealis took place in the sky. Shivers ran down my spine at the scene.
Once the climax finally arrived, I saw pillars of cristaline ice forming from the freezing lake, dancing with the white birds in a magestic way. When the song ended and I saw myself back in the room, I couldn't move. I was too busy processing what I had seen and felt.
Those were the types of things I had seen in the Arts Sector that day. It ranged from songs, to dances, to scenarios, to movie shorts, to having to draw, and in that one, whatever I drew became reality around me (it was a pretty popular door). Some doors were visited in groups, but the majority of them were individual, and I only noticed how long had passed when it was time for lunch.
All that I described was from the Arts Sector, arguably the best one there was, but there were fourteen others awaiting me, with a multitude of different doors on each. They ranged from Math, to Sports, to History... basically everything you could dedicate your life to.
I went through several dozens of doors every day.
One of the Math doors had me witnessing the creation of the number 0, and another had me going through the proof that 1+1=2, which took some incredible 200+ pages just for me to not understand a single one.
The Physics doors were fascinating. One of them was a zero-gravity chamber, and I played ball with a bunch of other kids in there. Another one, called 'Cosmos', took me through a journey of the universe since its conception, and for the first time I learned of the ridiculous magnitude of the universe. On other doors, I visited exotic and inhospitable planets, as well as black holes and neutron stars.
Chemistry and Biology took me through evolution, to the world of the atoms and molecules, to the formation of embryos, tissues and the defense mechanisms of beings. I witnessed the beauty of wildlife, from the deep seas to the skies, and the intriguing existence of exotermic reactions.
On the Anthropology segment, I visited a plethora of different cultures, tested different languages and witnessed how the ancient humans thought and behaved. Then, I went to History, which took me through all sort of incredible stories, recounted almost from a first person point of view. That, then, led me to Literature, which connected all those dots into the flowing ballet of words that created a whole other sort of amazing stories.
The Politics and Management Sector intrigued me. It was hard to comprehend their tests, and their concepts were simple but elusive. Sometimes there was a quick team assignment, sometimes I just had to find ways to solve a problem. There was also stuff like the 'Trolley Problem', which I found too easy to be true...
And that's how it went. From mental to physical activity (on the Sports Sector), I was completely exhausted when the results came in on the fifth day. It came directly to my mother's address, 260 pages of an all-rounded analysis on my behaviors, likes, dislikes and aptitudes. I didn't put any attention to it since I didn't understand a thing, but I recall my parents being quite pleased.
Well, it was only in the next year that anyone actually used all that information. My classes were tailored, specific to my likes and dislikes. Of course, besides the compulsory disciplines that every student needed like philosophy, math and langague.
...