Inspirational quote: People who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are usually the ones who do. Be like them.

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Four o'clock came way faster than Lauriel originally wanted it to.

Soon after, Doctor Kozak took out his earphones, informing both Astera and Lauriel that Lauriel needed to take her first test as soon as possible.

"Astera. It's four pm. Take Lauriel to her first test, where hopefully she doesn't die."

What's that supposed to mean? Lauriel couldn't help but wonder, staring blankly at Dr Kozak.

Dr Kozak didn't reply, just gave Lauriel a look that probably read, remember what I said, so what Lauriel did was to stand there, thinking about the past, thinking about what Dr Kozak had said to her.

Word for word.

"This is a life or death situation, Lauriel. If you don't do well in any of the three tests, you could die."

Lauriel had to ace these three tests. She didn't care how challenging or difficult they were, she knew she had to do well in all of them.

It took courage as well as bravery to do a test where if one failed, then they died.

Lauriel was not going to back down and die before her time, ever.

Nope.
No way.
No chance.

"Are you coming or what?" Agent Astera snapped at her, glaring at her. "It's four o'clock."

Lauriel snapped out of her daydream almost immediately, looking mainly at Dr Kozak, who looked at her then at Astera, whilst Astera was looking at Lauriel.

"Go on then," he urged, shooing both of them away. "Lauriel, you're running late."

Agent Astera and Lauriel walked out of the room, but then Agent Astera came back again, without Lauriel.

She was waiting outside in the meantime.

"You're back already?" Dr Kozak said, looking at her in bewilderment.

"We didn't even go." Agent Astera corrected him. "I can't seem to remember what room the test is taking place in? Please remind me."

Dr Kozak rolled his eyes as he put everything away, staring downwards at his watch which seemed to tell more than just the time on it.

He fiddled around with a few things on his watch, Agent Astera still watching him, Lauriel still waiting annoyingly outside, before he looked up at his wife.

"You stalling, Astera? And Room Seventeen," Dr Kozak told her once he had finished fiddling with his watch. "Oh and Lauriel, you know you get marked down if you're really late." He shouted across the hallway to her.

The sound of Doctor Kozak's voice echoed around the room and went around in Lauriel's ear like a vibrating xylophone to annoy her.

"Better start going then," Astera muttered to him, walking away from the room. "Lauriel, let's go."

He escorted both her and Lauriel out into the hallway, Dr Kozak's eyes intently fixed on them as he was watching both of them simultaneously leave.

And everything was actually somewhat peaceful and tranquil for him, until....

He was marking tests using his unusual photographic memory skill again, that was until his watched beeped, telling him that someone wanted to hologram chat to him.

He stared at his digital watch half confusingly when he saw an A.

He didn't know who the person was, so therefore he didn't reply.

But then the Letter A was followed by five other letters.

Rista.

Dr Kozak rolled his eyes in annoyance. He kept on declining the chat request, but Agent Arista kept on requesting him, and soon he became so fed up that he just had to accept once and for all.

A mini holographic Arista appeared on Kozak's watch. As usual, she was with her cat, KitKat (don't question it) and she looked like she had just woken up from a nap.

Her frizzy black hair was everywhere and her make up ruined face seemed to be moody and irritated, goodness knew why.

Dr Kozak couldn't help but stare at her horrifically because he had never seen anyone look that atrocious when they woke up, ever.

"Dr Kozak. You finally picked up, thank the Lord. Why did you keep on declining my request?"

Dr Kozak didn't reply, and looked down, marking the test papers.

"I don't know. You annoy me, I guess. What do you want?"

Agent Arista smiled, her cat making very tremendous miaow noises in the background.

"Just to say hi."

Dr Kozak lost it.

"You wasted our hologram credits just to say hi?!" Dr Kozak screeched, absolutely infuriated by now.

So because he was so angry at her for calling him for no reason in the middle of doing something very important, Dr Kozak slammed the table, literally flipping it over when he did so as well.

He didn't care one bit.

After all, Dr Kozak was a millionaire. He could buy like a hundred thousand tables after they had been broken.

"Not necessarily Dr Kozak. I have another problem and I need Agent Astera again."

Dr Kozak rolled his eyes in disbelief, and was about to hang up on her until Agent Arista told him specifically not to.

"What's the problem?"

Although before Arista could actually say something, Dr Kozak said something else, probably the nicest thing he had said to her throughout entire history.

Well, that and well, on August 12th almost every year:

"Happy birthday. Arista. Have a good one."

Everything else that Dr Kozak had said to her were pretty much insults, give or take.

"You know, I really worry about you sometimes, Arista," he told her, stabbing himself with a pencil, goodness knew why.

Arista just asked why, but Dr Kozak didn't reply.
At least, straight away anyway.

"Because. You're only sixteen. You shouldn't be making this many mistakes at your age. When I was sixteen-"

Dr Kozak was stopped halfway by a holographic Arista laughing at him.

"What's so funny?" He technically howled at her.

"Sorry. I just can't believe you were my age once. I thought you've been ninety for all your life."

She kept on laughing, although stopped when she saw Dr Kozak looking angrily at her.

"I'm not 'ninety', I'm 35. Do 'ninety' year olds wear sunglasses, Arista?"

"Well no, not really, but they can if they want to," she answered immediately, shaking her head. "But you're blind remember?"

Dr Kozak was honestly ticked off by now.

"I'm not blind, Arista. I'm colour blind, yes. Kind of. How many times must we go through this conversation?"

Arista didn't reply. In fact, she had ended up totally avoiding the question.

"I was joking, Kozak. There isn't really a problem. I just wanted to intentionally annoy you. I really came to say hi to Lauriel."

Dr Kozak was confused.
Moments ago, he turned the table over, and had continued marking the tests again.

He stopped what he was doing, mainly to look at her.

"You know Lauriel?" He questioned, looking a tiny bit surprised.

"Well, yeah," Agent Arista replied. "We went to the same primary school. Plus she was my best friend, remember?"

Killing people for fun, Arista thought to herself. Dr Kozak had heard her but didn't say anything.

There was nothing to say at this point in time.

"You never told me that," he admitted.

"I don't tell you most things, sir," She reminded him, an annoyed KitKat miaowing on her lap. "You don't trust me, I don't trust you."

"That is correct," Dr Kozak agreed. "Look, kid. I have to go, okay? Don't call me, else I'll block you."

***********
Meanwhile, walking over to test room Seventeen, Astera escorted Lauriel into the room.

They had stopped to get ice cream on the way, not realising the time at all. It had also turned out that Astera wasn't really that crazy, and that Dr Kozak only paid her to be crazy to scare people.

"Lauriel... You honestly crack me up," agent Astera grinned at her, still laughing after Lauriel had told her something bizarre that had happened to her the other day.

"But all jokes apart. We need to start this test asap. Give me your ice cream."

Lauriel wasn't giving anything to her. She didn't know her well enough to trust her properly.

"But I've nearly finished it-"

"Give me your ice cream."

"Can I just have one more spoon, please-"

Astera couldn't take this any longer. Freakishly, she zapped the ice cream with her eyes, until it was left demolished and disintegrated on the floor.

"You never told me that your eyes were laser beams-" Lauriel shouted, but was stopped halfway when Astera put a hand to Lauriel's mouth on the words 'were laser beams'.

"Sh. Don't let Kozak know. I'm also a fortune teller as well. That means I can predict the future correctly. He doesn't know that either."

Lauriel didn't reply, just mainly looked down at the poor, disintegrated ice cream that was lying lifelessly on the floor.

She was also wondering if she could have possibly made a funeral for her food.

"Anyway. About the test. There's three predominant things you need to know about it. If you fail, you die, if you succeed, you live and move on to test two, and it's really easy."

Lauriel was relieved. Even better.
She didn't have to study for this test.

"Well it was easy," Astera muttered to herself, so only she could hear.

"In the past, anyway."

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Moral of chapter: If you don't know what to be thankful about every day, just be thankful that you're alive!