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Chapter 3 - Chapter 2: Aptitude Test

At last Omega's name is called, and she is led into a room where Nyx, a Domitare woman, waits to administer her aptitude test. Omega looked at the mirror and Nyx noticed her.

"What is it with you Abnegatus and mirrors?" she asked.

"We reject vanity," Omega replied.

"Yeah. I know. Sit down." Clicking the tab on her computer.

Omega sits on the aptitude testing chair.

Nyx isn't as severe-looking as many of the other Domitare, but she has a tattoo of a black and white hawk with a red eye on the back of her neck.

Omega can't contain her curiosity, she asks what the hawk symbolizes, and Nyx, surprised, tells her it symbolizes the sun, to remind her how she overcame her fear of the dark.

"I'm Nyx Eurybia Berney. I'll be administering your test. You'll be offered a series of choices to test your aptitude for each coalition until you get one result.

Omega laid on the aptitude testing chair.

"I wouldn't sweat it."

"95% get the coalition of their origin, and from the looks of you..." Omega utters.

Nyx hands Omega a vial of clear liquid and tells her to drink.

"Bottoms up."

Omega smells the vial of clear liquid and drinks it. She closes her eyes and sighs deeply.

She opened her eyes and saw herself alone in the room, seeing her reflection in the mirror, and heard a girl's voice. She looked back and saw her multiple reflections in every corner of the room.

"Choose."

A moment passes, and Omega stands in the school cafeteria, in front of a table on which are two baskets. One basket holds a chop of meat and the other a long knife.

A woman's voice tells her she must choose one.

"Choose. Now. Before it's too late." but she refuses, and suddenly the baskets disappear and a ponderous dog starts prowling at her, teeth bared, and she realizes why she would've needed one of the objects.

She remembers everything she knows about dogs and sinks to the ground and lies down, hoping this will serve as a sign of submission. It does, and the dog begins to lick her affectionately.

Suddenly a child appears, the young version of herself.

"Puppy." the girl calls the dog and runs for the dog, it seems as if the dog is about to attack her when she decides to throw herself on top of the dog and wrap her arms around its neck to prevent this from happening. The dog and child suddenly disappear.

She wakes with a feeling of guilt and realizes she is back in the aptitude testing room with Nyx.

"Get up. We're going out the back door before a supervisor comes."

"But what was my result?"

"Come on!"

"What happened?"

"You're going to tell your family that the serum made you sick and that I sent you home. All right?"

Nyx says that her test was extremely perplexing, and excuses herself for a moment, leaving Omega alone to worry that she failed.

"No, but what was my result?"

When Nyx comes back, she announces that Omega's results are inconclusive. Each stage of the test is meant to eliminate one or more coalitions, but in her case, only two were ruled out overall.

"Abnegatus. And Eriditus, and Domitare."

"Domitare..."

"You're results were inconclusive."

If she had smiled at the knife and chosen the meat, she would have been led to a test to confirm her aptitude for Abnegatus, but she didn't, so it is ruled out.

And her knowledge of the dog ruled out Eriditus. Omega's results contradict each other, so none of the other three coalitions are ruled out, she displays equal aptitude for Domitare, Abnegatus, and Eruditus.

"That's impossible. It doesn't make any sense."

"No. Not impossible. It's just extremely rare. They call it 'ANOMALOUS."

Nyx tells her that people with this kind of result are called Anomalous, but she warns Omega that she must never reveal this information to anyone because Anomalous is extremely dangerous.

"You can't tell anyone about this. Not even your parents. As far as the world is concerned, you received an Abnegatus result because that is what I manually entered."

"So what am I supposed to do at the choosing ceremony? I was supposed to learn what to do. This was supposed to tell me what coalition to choose, the test. We're supposed to trust the test."

"The test didn't work on you. You have to trust yourself."

She agrees cautiously, then goes home to begin thinking, she will still have to choose coalitions on Choosing Day tomorrow, regardless of her inconclusive results.

She walks home and spends time observing her city and thinking about her life in Abnegatus. From the outside, the peacefulness seems ideal, but she has trouble living up to the purity of thought.

On the walk back she passes where the Outcast people live in poverty. They are homeless, do not eat food, search the trash bins, and have dirty faces and clothes. The Outcast either never chose coalitions, or failed to complete initiation. They do the city work that no one else wants to do in exchange for food and clothing. Omega runs into an Outcast man who asks her for something to eat.

She feels threatened, and the man warns her, "Choose wisely, little girl".

She waits on her front step for Apollo to arrive, and eventually, he does with the neighbors, Gaia and Robinson in town.

At home, she cut off the vegetables into their desired cuttings. She cuts the carrots in round-sized, cabbages, potatoes, and other vegetables.

Apollo enters the kitchen and asks her about her aptitude test results.

"What happened to you today?" Apollo asked, Where did you go after your test?"

"I got sick, so they sent me home early."

"Did you finish your test?"

"Mmm-mm."

"What was your result?"

"What was yours?"

Apollo senses immediately that something is wrong, Omega insists that she got sick after the aptitude test and went home early.

Gaia and Robinson are convinced, but Apollo isn't, after a little bit of tentative flirting with Gaia, he asks Omega to tell him the truth. She refuses and asks if he'd bend the rules to tell her what happened in his test. He refuses as well.

They cook dinner together until their parents come home, and her mother Hera Demetria Curtney-Crawford says that she heard something went wrong with one of the tests and the results had to be reported verbally. Apollo and Omega deny hearing anything about this.

"Why did you just leave without telling anybody? Her father, Zeus Apollonio asked worriedly.

Eat her food. "I was sick."

"Omega...I don't think you understand the level of scrutiny we're under. They're doing everything they can to discredit us right now!" her father said.

"Who is?"

"Eruditus." her mother replies.