"-and he's only 14… " Azario stated his face unsettlingly blank.
"14!" Andrew parroted incredulously.
"No way," Sam spoke with giddy shock.
"They abducted a kid to be a soldier," Arif worded, cruel mirth also present in his voice.
"Why would he pick that/" Andrew inquired.
"Did he think it was cool to be a soldier on the front lines or something?" He proposed.
"Something like that" Azario responded despondently.
"Wow, I feel for you… " Andrew declared sympathetically as he paused, considering his next question carefully.
"Was your brother the '5678' that the purple head was talking about?" Andrew questioned further.
"Yeah, " Azario responded.
"He's that kid!" Sam stifled a grin, still unable to contain his dark amusement.
"He seems really out of hand," Arif commented evenly.
"Yeah, he kind of reminds me of my own brother. He's annoyingly, impulsive but he is autistic,"
Feeling the pressure to elaborate build, Azario blurted out.
"He was born with NF1, which meant that he would have behavioral issues-"
"-and luckily for me, he has mind numbing levels of stubbornness," he added traces of frustration still in his voice.
"NF1? What's that? "Andrew inquired.
"It stands for neurofibromatosis type 1, which is a genetic condition and causes tumors to grow along your nerves,"
"Tumors! That's messed up man," Andrew couldn't contain himself, looking apologetic
"I'm sorry to hear that," Arif replied somewhat concernedly.
"Damn!" Sam exclaimed
"Are they cancerous?" Andrew continued.
"They're usually not but can be… " Azario notified.
"How are you supposed to know" Andrew asked.
"It's the responsibility of the specialist doctor for NF1 to check every year, but the specialist doctor we had was a scumbag. Sohe kept dismissing any concern my mother or brother had and 'cause my mother couldn't speak good enough English, she didn't really know if it was serious or not and of course trusted the specialist."
"I only found out because I was concerned about the back pains he was getting, so I researched it myself", Azaria revealed vehemently.
He was so concentrated on his emotional rant that when his attention shifted back to the group-he saw that the expressions seemed blank, and not at all sharing the same emotion as him, making him feel embarrassed, he realized he had said too much
'Damn it, why did I just blurt all of that out for no reason? I'm such a idiot!' he thought, wallowing in self-hate
"Wow, that's really messed up. You need to sue that specialist," Andrew stated, his eyes looking serious
"100%" Arif echoed
"I was planning to. We were just waiting for the results of a scan for my brother… then this circus act happened," Azario's face creased, his voice tinged with vexation.
"Do the tumors give him pain?" Sam asked haphazardly.
Azario paused in thought for a moment.
'There's no point now. Might as well just tell them about it.'
"Yeah because they press on his nerves," Azario answered.
"That's crazy, that must hurt a lot", Arif stated ambiguous.
"Is that why he has those back pains," he hypothesized.
"It is," Azario announced.
"They did get better, after he started stretching like the physiotherapist recommended" he elaborated.
"Why would that help him?" Arif inquired further.
"Its because it makes the muscles tendons in his back looser, alleviating the pressure on his nerve,"
"Oh~" they exclaimed mutually.
"Anyway, you guys seem like you're a similar age to me," Andrew remarked.
"I'm 17 " Sam said.
"Me too!" Azario voiced in surprise.
"No way me too," Arif added with a wry smile on his face
"There's no way you guys are telling the truth cause I'm 17 too," Andrew declared; bewildered by the supposed coincidence.
"I'm not lying," Azario asserted firmly.
The others responded similarly.
Andrew pondered, holding his chin with his left hand.
"So did they put people of a similar age together? Or maybe gave them a higher number?" Andrew verbalized audibly.
Azario crossed his arms.
"That wouldn't make sense, since my brother is only one number higher than me and I haven't seen anyone even remotely as young so far,"
"You're probably right" Andrew affirmed.
"So, what kind of coincidence is this?" he continued.
"Yeah, "Azario breathed out, almost absentmindedly considering this.
Arif motion to say something.
"I'm gonna go speak to other people to see if I can get some information,"
"I'll do that too" Andrew suggested.
"I think we should all do that", Azario announced.
"We should try to find out what we can, whilst we still haven't been called to the test," he reminded.
The group nodded their heads in agreement.
"Right, now that, that is decided. Let's meet back here after we've gotten enough info," Azario suggested.
A dozen or so minutes later
As Azario made his way back to the spot he saw that Sam was the first one back.
"Hey," Azario greeted.
"Hey," Sam replied.
"So, how'd it go" Azario asked
"I didn't find out anything important, they all have the same story as ours" he disclosed sourly.
"That's the same thing I found out too," Azario responded.
"Damn," Sam remarked, disappointment evident in his eyes.
"What about the ages of the people you spoke to, did it seem like it had anything to do with their number" Azario enquired.
"Nah,"
Azario looked vacant for a moment.
"It was the same with the people I talked to as well," Azario informed.
Sam crossed his arms and sighed weakly.
Azario and Sam waited at the spot, as they spotted Arif walking past swarms of people towards them.
"Hey Arif," Azario beckoned.
"Hey," he called back somewhat half-heartedly.
"Did you guys find about anything?" he asked.
"They have the same story as ours, and the ages don't seem to be affecting their number. I'm thinking that it could be the order in which they abducted us because my brother was only a single number before me and I did see that he was being taken away before me as well."
"Really," Arif replied the embers of curiosity shining through.
"You're pretty smart," he praised in a neutral tone.
Azario once again felt a smile beginning to form unconsciously on his face.
'I can't smile like an idiot over something so stupid, he clearly doesn't even mean it,' Azario chastised himself.
Before the smile had the chance to form he quickly stamped the it out.
"It's no big deal, I just had the knowledge specific to make that conclusion,"Azario said evenly.
"Anyway, where's Andrew?"
Sam shrugged his shoulders, whilst Arif pointed to the back left of the hall, people were in the way so Azario did not have a clear sight of him.
"He went that way," Arif informed.
"Let's go check up on him," Azario suggested.
Arif gave a indecipherable look to Azario.
"You can go check up on him if you want, I'll talk to some of the people around here" he decided unquestionably.
"Same," Sam chimed in.
"Alright," Azario acknowledged as set off in the direction Andrew was in.
"Excuse me," Azario verbalized plainly, as he began pushing past people, nearing Andrews last known location.
The only thing he could hear was a jumble of noise, till he suddenly heard a series of boisterous laughter somewhere in front of him. He looked past the blindingly shiny bald head to see the origin of the laughter, only to find it was coming from Andrew who had his back turned to him. Some relatively ordinary looking pale skinned people of various sizes and genders were gathered, they seemed to be similar in age to Azario. They noticed Azario looking at them and turned to look at him, Andrew who had his back to Azario also turned around and paused momentarily.
"Ohh, you're here," he commented with a hint of surprise.
Prompting Azario to reply.
"I just wanted to check up on you since the others came back,"
"Yeah well I just made some friends... I think" he announced with mock uncertainty eliciting laughs from the group.
"We're definitely not friends," an adolescent male sneered with a grin on his face, he was nearly more than a head shorter than Azario, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
"Yeah",the others playfully chimed in.
Their level of closeness alienated Azario. Azario's body tensed.
"Did you find out anything," he questioned Andrew shyly.
"Hmm..." Andrew attempted to seriously scrutinized the friends he had made behind him
"Nothing of value really," he joked turning to flash a cheeky smile at his new group of friends.
"Andrew~," a female called out her voice laced with mock anger.
Her hair a dirty blonde with brown eyes, her hair seemed likely to have been dyed. She was a few inches smaller than Azario. Feeling suffocatingly foreign he excused himself.
"Right, I'm going to go back to the spot, so bye" Azario declared hurriedly, already turning around.
'Wow. he sure seems like he's found his people,' Azario concluded stupefied.
Moving past the cramped droves of people, Azario made it back to the spot. He saw that Arif had struck up a conversation with a middle-aged gentlemen. As he got closer he made eye contact with Arif, a look of understanding was exchanged between them as Arif seemed to have wrapped up his conversation turning to face Azario.
"So was there anything new,"
"No, but he made a ridiculous amount of friends though, and he's got them all laughing and smiling" Azario conveyed still feeling astonished.
"Really?" Arif voiced seeming to be intrigued.
A derisive grin spread across Arif's face as his arms spread in explanation.
"That's the weird kid aura for you. They get all the attention,"
Not knowing how to react Azario made an incredulous expression with a slight smirk. Invoking a snicker from Arif.
Azario changed the subject.
"Where's Sam?"
"Oh, him," Arif verbalized, his eyes morphing into crescents.
"He's trying to make out with that girl or something," he jeered whilst pointing to his right.
This caused Azario to once again adopt an incredulous look as he looked to where Arif was pointing. He saw the side of Sam's face, as he was conversing with a blonde-haired adolescent female with green eyes. His face radiated copious levels of happiness, her face also undeniably reciprocating it, to an extent that is.
'He is so head over heels. Wow' Azario wordlessly declared with more sureity than he knew his own family was his family.
Arif broke into boisterous laughter seeing Azario's reaction.
"Did you fall for her too," he teased.
"No way," Azario affirmed without a shadow of a doubt, his not changing even an atom.
"She's okay," he decided to add.
His face scrunching somewhat.
Arif smiled.
"Damn, you're harsh man. I think I'm going to tell her that"
Azario jolted.
"What!?" Azario exclaimed, clearly not enjoying where this conversation was going.
"Why would you do that?!" he questioned loudly.
"Whoa calm down man-I just think she needs to deserves to know," Arif feigned with concern.
"If you tell her you're an actually rat!" Azario announced, considering the possible future of this action, the resulting rage distorted his face into something fierce.
"Alright, alright. I'm just joking don't get vexed. Can't you take a joke man?" Arif remarked mirthfully, a stark contrast to the meaning of his words.
"That's not a joke," Azario responded cooly.
"Alright, alright no need to get vexed, man", Arif jabbed.
"I'm not vexed", Azario huffed out.
"Sure, man", Arif affirmed mockingly.
Looking back at Sam and the blonde-haired girl, he could see a short dark-skinned teenage girl with braids accompanying the blonde-haired woman. She seemed to be enthusiastically a part of the conversation.
Azario kept to himself, deep in thought.
'There's no way they've abducted this amount of people in one go-right?' Azario contemplated.
Azario's face softened to some degree.
'And even if they did abduct this amount of people, it couldn't have gone unnoticed there must be help on the way. We can only hope.'
His face creased with worry anew.
'But would they even do anything about it? The whole world is basically under control of the vertex so they probably won't do anything about it,' he pondered cynically.
Suddenly the cordial atmosphere in the room shifted-sensing the shift he looked to the source of it, and to his shock he saw that the sliding doors were now open with hoards of people making their way through it. The people in front of him had begun shifting from its path allowing the people who had presumably taken the test to pass through.
"Damn, it's over already" Azario muttered, feeling the pit of his stomach drop.
The people in the room had already begun rushing to the people that had come back from the tests.
A cacophony of questions blanketed Azario's ears making him feel a sense of urgency.
'I need to ask them stuff too~' he groaned internally.
Seeing a noticeably tired looking individual to his right being ignored by the people in the room, he hurriedly approached him making eye contact.
"Umm... hey,so how was it-"
A loud male voice belonging to the vertex enforcer robot rang out, putting a stop to the frantic rush.
"Number 5256," it called out numbers once more, taking its place beside the new hallway.
Azario urgently looked back at the screen, his heart beginning to palpitate rigorously.
Though the list started at 5256 there weren't big jumps between the numbers even so towards the end of the list he undoubtedly saw it.