Final Exam

I didn’t know what I’d do if I failed.

Chirping crickets serenaded me during my usual 3 am spiral, while I counted white and gold bulbs on the twinkle lights above my dresser. What if I chose the wrong answers? What if my score wasn’t high enough?

I’d missed the exemption cutoff for the last final exam of my junior year by three points, thanks to the B- on a test I didn’t finish. Instead of a few extra days to rest before I spent my summer at the rec center working for the money I’d need for next semester, I had one more day of this.

The sun splashed across my cheeks—I slept through my alarm. I hopped over my half-packed trunk into my softest pair of baggy gray sweats. After two bites of an apple and a handful of cereal, I shoved keys and ID into my pocket and dashed across the nearly deserted campus to the Biosciences building.

A razor sharp pain in my throat and a few sneezes later, a reminder that I’d depleted my supply of antihistamine, I navigated the maze of puke green walls, stripped of tacked-up flyers for study groups and overpriced MCAT tutors. An acrid scent filled my nose, not unlike a singed electrical cord, the result of a mishap during a practical assessment.

I stepped into the wood-paneled exam room, with an oversized digital clock mounted above a smartboard-length mirror. Classmates I barely knew, in designer jeans and crisp button downs, occupied each row of carrels and scrolled on their phones or tablets.

A chair scraped the laminate floor when a stocky guy in a blue T-shirt took the only other empty spot in the last row. I sat beside Sam, or whatever his name was, and pressed my hands together on the desk.

Our TA, Lena, closed the door. My heart pounded a staccato beat. A hush swept over the room as they stored their devices in the vault attached to each berth.

“We will begin shortly.” Lena’s dulcet tone belied the harsh monochromatic armor of a wannabe prof. Our instructor was likely already on vacation, having fulfilled his responsibilities to his advanced level students.

Her heels clacked as she strode to the desk where she hooked up her laptop and clicked a few buttons to upload our exam. At the lift of a black lacquered index finger, our laptops rose from the aperture in the middle of our carrels, a soft chorus of screens swished open like doors in a busy hospital ward.

When I entered my information at the prompt, the screen flashed the exam page— Intro to Biochemistry. I clicked on the red and pink icon to begin and shivered, the air thick with the essence of frayed nerves and exhausted, unwashed bodies.

The first question appeared, and I read the correct one, nearly identical to a phrase I’d scribbled in my notes and reread before I closed my notebook. When I clicked the arrow on the oval, the text on the screen vanished like an apparition in a haunted house.

My heart raced. I pressed random keys, held the power button for ten seconds, every remedy I knew to restart my exam. I raised my hand, and Lena appeared and sashayed up the aisle.

“Yes, Dani?” Lena's folded arms displayed a watch glittering on her slim wrist.

“I don’t know what happened. It just went away.” She tapped a nail in the corner of the screen, and the exam reappeared. Her smug grin sent a chill down my spine.

“Thanks.” A check of the clock revealed 45 minutes remained, and adrenaline thrummed through my veins, the rev of an engine at the beginning of a thrill ride.

My eyes darted across the screen like an old typewriter tapping across a page, I recalled facts from my texts on dog-eared highlighted pages to answer the most difficult questions. I completed the last one, selected the Submit Exam icon, and released a sharp exhale that earned a glare from Lena. I wouldn’t miss her, or the way she criticized my reports, or answered my questions with a "Why are you here" glare.

I folded my hands and waited for my freedom, now less than five minutes away. Sam snored without the bat of an eye from Lena. The only other sounds were the frantic click of keys and sighs of testers in a race to finish.

I jumped at the buzz to signal the end of the session.

“The college will post your results in less than 20 minutes. Feel free to remain in the building until that time.” Lena stood by the door, a smirk on her full lips. I hadn’t expected a farewell, but this was something else.

Several of the others milled about the corridor, parked on wooden benches or huddled in groups. Snatches of hushed conversations shared details about beach vacations advertised in my aunt’s travel magazines, exotic locales in the Caribbean or southeast Asia, where the parties began at midnight and ended while the rest of the world woke to earn a pittance for a hard day's work.

Even if my career one day afforded me the opportunity for that life, I planned to enjoy my leisure without wearing it like a label that the rest of the world never deserved to flaunt.

When Lena strolled to the board outside the college’s office, a printout fluttered in her hands, all heads turned and conversations stopped. I waited until the crowd thinned out, and cheers erupted in every corner of the hall.

I inhaled before I scanned and found my number— A on the exam, A- for the course.

I shrugged and sunk onto an empty bench before I made my way back to the apartment. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes to run through my mental list of remaining tasks—pack the contents of my desk into the crate I planned to ship ahead of my trip home on Saturday morning, one less item to lug through the train station.

My eyes flew open when I heard the first screams. Smoke billowed around us and set my throat ablaze, and a metallic taste inundated by tongue. The thunder of heavy boots echoed through the corridor. I gagged at the rotten-egg stench. Sirens wailed, and made my pounding headache unbearable. I crouched in the doorway of the nearest empty classroom to hide, when the boot wearers barked orders and began to grab people-female students-and drag them toward the stairwell.

I fumbled for the knob to open the door when my hand slipped, right into the grasp of a thick, gloved hand.

“Let’s go!” My shoulder ached from the tug, the voice in my ear only slightly rougher than the floor under my leg.

“Why?” I breathed out, just above a whisper.

A mask covered the bottom half of his face, but I glimpsed a bead of sweat on the reddened forehead of this bastard intent on breaking my arm. When the baton struck a spot on my neck, a scream died in my throat.

My hands broke my fall, the floor damp and frigid under my fingertips. The others sobbed and hugged their knees; a few had twist-ties cinching their wrists.

“Let us go!” Her thick curls bounced as she shook her fists.

I mopped my cheek with the back of my hand, grateful that I hadn’t been restrained. A group of men in black helmets and white uniforms like spacesuits lined the exit, likely waiting to haul us to our destination.

“Attention, young women. You have passed your final exam for this semester. Your education will continue when you have fulfilled your obligation. Follow the regulators to your destinations and await further instructions." The announcement crackled through the speakers, a message beamed from the heavens. “Resist, and you may jeopardize your return. Prepare for dismissal.”

The others unleashed more piercing screams until the lights flickered on, and the siren morphed into a ticking clock. I’d lived my life for the past three years like an endless marathon.

It was now or never if I wanted to escape.

Another guard jerked my arm, and I squealed. I followed my classmates as we were frog marched out into the relief of humid air. I stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk, which earned another pull of my elbow.

The guard hissed in my ear. “Resist again, and I will hurt you.”

Campus resembled a ghost town, and the door to every building was wide open. Papers drifted onto the pavement like pale leaves under a sunny, cloudless afternoon sky.

I looked down to sell the lie. “I wasn’t trying to resist, sir.”

A convoy of white box trucks idled at the curb. A few of the girls struggled up the ramp, while the rest filled the vehicle, still tied and crammed in like ants, faces frozen in horror. I stepped on my untied shoestring just before I approached the end of the sidewalk.

“Leave it! Keep going, girl.” Another harsh tug spilled pain down my side. I pressed my instep into the top of the goon’s boot and twisted out of his grip. I lowered my shoulder and dodged his hand.

I hobbled up the sidewalk toward the intersection. Just as I stepped into the street, the world faded away.

I blinked my eyes. My head and neck throbbed in an alternating pulse of agony. The corners of my mouth ached, and I couldn’t swallow the metallic taste gathered in my throat.

I wasn’t alone.

The metal chilled my knee when I bumped the edge of the enclosure. I was grateful my hands were free, but I need to straighten my back.

“You just have to wait. They come twice a day, and you’ll probably be next.” I knew the voice, but there was no way to see the face.

The drip of a faucet threatened to lull me back to my previous state. “Where are we?” A curtain of dark hair swung when I tilted my head.

“In hell, Dani.”

I squinted in the half-light. “You know who I am?”

“Of course, you’ve sat in front of me for only the past three months.” The girl rattled against her cage when she looked over at me. I feared the door would burst open any moment.

“Who are you?”

“I'm Adeline, Dani. Why were you like that?”

“Like what?” I ignored the ache in my neck to glimpse Adeline’s profile, her beak-like nose, the sharp cut of her jaw.

“You always kept to yourself, never wanted to talk or study with us. Ow!” She knocked her head against the metal.

“I don’t know. I’ve never fit in anywhere.”

Adeline chuckled. “Well, now we have more in common than you think, Dani.” She swept her gaze around the room. There were at least a dozen cages, but only ours were not vacant.

I squeezed my eyes to stem the tears. “What did you mean earlier? What’s going to happen to us?”

Adeline crossed her legs and huffed. “They’re gonna send us wherever they want. A camp, a colony, anywhere. Maybe permanently. They own us now.”

I strained to hear anything other than the pounding of my heart and Adeline’s painting. I had no sense of time, but the pangs of hunger meant I’d been here more than one day.

All of the times I’d spent planning what I’d do One Day, when the tests and classes ended, my goals achieved, I had no idea an unknown “they” plotted to cage me like an animal and strip my ability to choose my life.

Yet, I chose this field of study, this university, this fate. Even if I needed to rely on more than the facts I memorized, I’d find a way to survive this challenge