Simon opened his eyes to see blaring lights staring back at him. He lay there and let his eyes adjust to the brightness, squinting them a bit. He was in a sleek, white sort of coffin. The “coffin’s” top popped open with a silent poof. This made the lights even worse. Simon was wearing a headset that covered his whole face. He quickly took it off, hating how rough it felt against his skin. Once he took it off, white vapor sprayed onto his face, both a relief and a bother. His suit was heavily padded, and his gloves made his hands two times bigger than they actually were. He took them off as well. Lights on his suit blinked a bright, annoying red for a few seconds. Nothing could be done about the suit, since parts of it were attached to wires that linked him to the sides of the coffin. A monitor displayed his heart rate, stress levels, and other bodily records. The beeps of the monitor slowed down, matching his heartbeat. It reminded him of a bass drum, an instrument from past times. Ba-dum, ba-dum.
Simon was dumbfounded. Was he not dead? Didn’t the gas take over all his systems and kill him from inside? What is going on? Then he remembered: it was a simulation. None of it was real, it was just an Exam that was supposed to simulate how a real war on the ground would be like.
Excuses for why he did so badly popped into his head, and Simon almost believed them. But deep down, he felt like the stupidest person alive. And, if he was being honest with himself, the experience scared him. Having no control over yourself felt strange. How fast he conformed to the gas, the betrayal from everyone. That last thought reminded him that, even though the gas and the whole environment was not real, his teammates’ actions were. Angered and hurt at that, Simon pressed the aide button near his bed. He needed a distraction, a chance to show that he didn’t care about his failure.
After a few minutes, an aide tentatively opened the door and entered the room. Simon put on his most annoyed face and said “These lights are blinding! Do you want me to lose my sight? Do you want these beautiful hazel eyes of mine to never see again? Turn down the brightness right now or I’ll have my daddy sue your company! Honestly, housing an amazing person like me in these terrible conditions should be illegal.” The aide, looking extremely annoyed yet trying not to show it, said that she will be sure to tone the lights down. “You better! If you don’t, I’ll be sure to have you imprisoned!” The aide frowned. Who did he think he was to speak to her like that? She stood there for a bit, dumbfounded at his rudeness. This seemed to anger Simon even more. “Well? Don’t just stand there like an idiot. I gave you an order, so go!” With widened eyes the aide muttered an apology and left, nearly tripling in her hurry.
30 minutes later and the lights were still the same. Simon started to suspect that the woman ignored his request completely. The monitor showed his heartbeat slowly increase, as well as his stress levels. How troublesome. Do they not know what an honor it is for me to grace their establishment with my presence? With a huff he reached over to the button again, practically smashing it in his fury.
Someone came in, except this time it wasn’t the woman. It was another person. “Where is that other girl, the one that was in here earlier? I want to have a word with her. She is such an incompetent worker.”
The new aide frowned and said “Ah, you must mean Claire. She is on her Front shift. Working at the front desk, an important job. Do you need anything?”
Simon was incredulous that someone would prioritize their work instead of him. He screamed. He squirmed and threw a pillow that barely missed the aide, who was looking at the prince with a disbelieving look. The monitor‘s beeping rapidly increased. “She changed her shift without telling me or turning down the lights like I told her to?! Bullshit. I demand that you fire her and have her arrested. Now! And turn down these damn lights or else!”
With a glare the aide put her hands on her hips. Although small and short, Simon found that he shrunk back a bit at her imposing figure. He glanced at her nametag. Rima. I’ll be sure to have you fired Rima, he thought. That gave him the confidence to lean forward and stick his tongue out at her.
Rima rolled her eyes. “You are an idiot. One day, you will realize how stupid and terrible you are and you will cry. When that happens, I hope you change and treat people with respect from then on. Now, if you just called me here to complain, then good day. I have better things to do than talk to a fool.”
Rima walked out of the still-open door, leaving a stunned Simon inside. When she closed the door, cheers from other workers nearby erupted. Simon could catch snippets of what they said, stuff like “Good job,” and “You tell him!” Color creeped up Simon’s neck as a blush of embarrassment spread across his face, increasing his temperature on the monitor. The redness, mixed with his scrunched up expression, made him look like a rotten tomato.
He was stunned into silence. Never before has someone told him off like that, or at least, not to his face. Sure, people whispered, hated him from afar, complained about him. But never in front of him. When in his presence people bowed, apologized, stuttered, needlessly complimented. It was the sort of treatment a prince got, and Simon bathed in it, gloried over all the respect and power.
But here, he witnessed someone defy and lecture him. It was shocking that not everyone adored him. For a long time Simon sat in silence, mulling over what happened. He then decided to eat some of the fruit sitting next to him. On top of a blue bowl lay fat purple grapes and crimson apples. Mango slices with such vivid shades of orange and plump, velvet plums. For the first time since he woke up Simon realized how hungry he was. As if on cue with this his stomach rumbled. Simon reached over and took a handful of grapes, popping them into his mouth one by one. For some minutes he chewed thoughtfully, thinking up excuses to give to his dad on why Rima and Claire should be fired.
Perhaps I could say that they tried to poison me, or that they stole my belongings from my locker. The latter could work. I would have to hide my bag somewhere though. More possible plans came to mind. But before deciding on a plan, the door opened. Muscles tensed and retort on the tip of his tongue for the next worker to come and bother him, Simon braced himself. But to his pleasant surprise, Octavia walked in, not another nurse or aide or doctor or whatever other occupations they had in this facility.
The poor girl was probably worried sick about me and decided to pay me a visit. I knew it, she loves me. Can’t blame her, I am an incredibly good-looking person after all. Leaning forward as much as he could, Simon said “Hey Octavia. What brings you here? Are you worried about me? You don’t have to be. After all, I’m a very smart and strong person. Attractive too. So many girls are in love with me, but I don’t like any of them. They aren’t good enough for me. Sure, I’m in a relationship with some of them, but you know I don’t really love them right? I’m just with them because they’re fun to kiss, and are stupid enough that they’ll follow any order I give them. Girls are like that. But you, lucky you, I like you. You’re good enough for me. So whaddya say? True, im 17, and I must choose a bride at 18. But I could pull a few strings and we can get married sooner, if you’d like. Or, if you want, we could keep our relationship a secret, letting us do whatever we’d like-“ Octavia, furious, abandoned her leaning-against-the-wall position, stepped to the side of the coffin and slapped Simon across the cheek. So much force was put into the action that a red, hand-shaped mark was left. The pain should be a burning sting, something that couldn’t be ignored.
Simon, however, just flinched the slightest bit and continued to stupidly smile at her, the corners of his mouth rising even more. “Playing hard to get I see? I love it when you get all feisty like this. It’s so refreshing and attractive.” Octavia rolled her eyes. “I don’t care about you. Get that in your dumb head already. I don’t like you, I hate you actually, and you shouldn’t treat others with such blatant disrespect. Girls aren’t just toys to play with, mess around with to your heart’s content. They have feelings, and they truly love you. But you, you just play with their feelings. So no, I will not marry you, I’d rather die than do so. I’m only here to give your report on the Exam and nothing else.” With that, she left an inch-thick folder on his lap. She sat on a chair and waited for him to open it, read it, ask questions.
Simon stared at the folder, then looked over at her with a bit of an embarrassed expression. Choosing to ignore what she said about his girlfriends, he leafed through the folder and looked at all the statistics and summaries of his performance. To his horror, his Exam grade was the lowest grade in the history of the Exam, a -10.
-10. I didn’t even know someone could get a score that low. I’ve heard rumors that, if one does really bad, the Education Board could lower their score past the scale, to a -1, maybe even a -5 if you’re absolute crap. But a -10. Yikes. What will my father say? Simon shuddered at the lecture he’ll surely get from his dad. He won’t be very kind to him. It was a consolation, though, that his dad had low expectations for him in the first place. Just, not this low.
Octavia stared at Simon’s horrified expression, could practically see the gears turning in his head, thinking about what he should say to her and his father. His expression reminded her of the young Examiner. She laughed, although even that didn’t seem to distract Simon, who was in the middle of turning the pages and examining them from every angle.
He finally got to an important-looking paper, a gold seal on the front. “What’s this? It’s from the Education Board right? I recognize the seal.”
A grunt of annoyance. “Very good Simon!” she exclaimed, talking as if she were talking to a toddler who figured out how to count. “Congratulations on recognizing a seal. And you used your detective skills to figure out who it’s from. Wow, you’re so smart.” Then, in a normal tone, “Yes, stupid, it’s from the Education Board. Read it, don’t ask me what it’s about. Use your eyes for something useful, for once.”
Frowning, his eyes skimmed over the paper. What he read made him emit a groan, increasing his stress levels on the monitor. Who would’ve thought that this low score of his would attract the attention of the higher-ups? What should he say to Octavia now?
“Octavia, love, the system is rigged. It’s impossible to get a low score like this, so someone must be plotting against me! They didn’t want me to get the actual score I got, a 10, so they changed it. We should alert the authorities. What if they do something like this again?”
Oh, how she loved messing with him. “Really Simon? You think I’m stupid enough to believe this bullcrap you’re spewing? If the system’s rigged, you wouldn’t be the target because you’re the prince.” He was about to protest but Octavia raised a finger to shush him. “They’d get in huge trouble if they did, and get involved in a whole lot of shit with the government. Who would be retarded enough to do that? Plus, the whole Simulation office was watching all of the students’ actions in the Simulators. I’ll be blunt; you did terrible. Like, really bad. Honestly, I thought you were fooling around, purposely failing so horrendously to be funny. Not just being gas-controlled, but how you handled all the missions, like a child playing chess. So really, a -10 seems like the score you deserve.”
Simon was speechless. He didn’t think that their performances would be broadcasted to the whole office. Who else from his grade saw how he did? Were they making fun of him at this very moment, whispering to each other and gossiping? And if that wasn’t horrifying enough, Octavia continued talking. “Plus, not only was it broadcasted to the offices but to the whole school as well. After all, this Exam is a big deal, so 4th period classes were suspended so that everyone could watch. City public screens also broadcasted. Which means that over 500 people saw you horrendously fail in battle. Sure it was fake, just a simulation. But your performance showed how you would do in a real battle on the ground. So don’t expect any armies or battle schools to be tripping over each other trying to hire you anytime soon.”
That was when Simon decided that, if he were to die right then and there of a heart attack, well, he wouldn’t really mind. Because at least dying would be better than facing his peers staring at him, giggling behind his back. Public humiliation, just not in front of him. The cowards weren’t even brave enough to make fun of him in his presence. “I-I meant to do badly. I don’t need some dumb Exam telling me how good I am. I know that I’m the best at everything, even battle. So I was trying to be funny, doing really bad cause I already know I’m the best soldier to ever live. Honestly, if the higher-ups had any brains then they would be scrambling to promote me to General and give me my own army, all the while kissing my feet and feeding me peeled grapes. So yeah,” he added a bit lamely. “Anyways, wanna come over here and give me a kiss?”
Humans are supposed to be the most superior species, the most intelligent. This is why many times Octavia didn’t think Simon was human. Taking one of the apples from the fruit bowl, Octavia started making her way out the door. “The doctor should be here soon to check you and see if you’re free to go. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than talk to someone like you.” With that said, Octavia walked out.
Silence for a while, except for the slight buzz of machinery. “Damn why are so many girls walking out on me?” Was all that Simon said to the now-empty room. “Oh, I can think of a few reasons why,” someone said. And it wasn’t Simon’s lips that uttered these words.
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