They used to say the world would end while no one was watching. If they knew how true that was, they would probably be dancing in their shallow, quickly-dug graves. It started on a Saturday, which used to be the best day of the week. Now it's the same routine on Saturdays as Sunday through Friday: try to eat, try not to get eaten. Not necessarily in that order.

But let's start from the beginning.

If you've ever taken the SAT, as in the Scholarship Aptitude Test, aka Sarcastic Asshole Training, you know it's probably the worst. When they make the test, they tell the authors that the more cryptic the questions are, the more money they get. At least, I figure that's how it went down. For the kids taking it, you wake up at six o'clock so you can drive a hundred miles to your nearest "testing center", then you proceed to word-vomit everything you've learned since first grade onto a mound of paper. Your resulting score determines your college career and self-worth as a human being. It's really a fun process.

It was September when I finally got around to taking the SAT for a second time, after my first one put me in about the 80th percentile for math. Not bad for an English major... But I wasn't an English major. So I bit my tongue and paid another hundred and fifteen dollars to be judged a second time. The one redeeming factor was that my best friend Alex was also taking the test with me and offered to drive the both of us there. I was checking that I had all of my stuff when she pulled up.

I believe her exact words were, "Rory! Come on, you can just find a pencil in the pit!"

Cars that belong to teenagers are not famous for cleanliness, but I cannot overstate the mess that inhabited Alex's back seat. I'll leave it at the fact that it got the nickname 'the pit' for a reason. Turns out, there were several pencils among the gum wrappers and actual used gum, but most of them were covered in gunk of which I would rather not try to guess the identity. I was glad when I found a couple of pencils at the bottom of my bag.

When Alex pulled into the parking lot for the high school hosting our test (not our local school because the slots were filled), there was already a chain-gang-like line of miserable-looking students waiting out front.

"Five minutes to spare," Alex said, high-fiving me as she jumped out of the front seat, grabbing her keys from the ignition. She double-checked that all of the doors were locked while I adjusted my bag.

I don't know why she was always so careful with that car. To put it frankly, it was a piece of crap. I don't think someone would steal it even if it were unlocked with the keys right there, much less breaking in to hotwire it.

"Five minutes until hell, you mean," I muttered. We took our place in line behind a girl with punk-rock blue hair.

Alex scoffed, "So negative. Didn't you say Chemistry was hell? And English? And Spanish?"

"They were also hell. There are multiple circles, you know."

The proctors filed out before Alex could comment. She rolled her eyes as they reminded us to have an ID out, before leaning over to me and pointing to the youngest proctor, a girl that looked about twenty or twenty one. "I hope we get her. She seems like she would let me use a mechanical pencil during the test."

"Ha, ha. I'm just hoping we get in the same testing room. Madison was at the same place as me last time, but she was in the furthest room from me. I couldn't steal her food during break or anything."

"All I've got are poptarts," Alex warned, and I shrugged.

"Good enough for me."

For some reason the proctor took about thirty seconds longer to approve me than he did for Alex. For her, it was a quick exchange.

"Alexis Habib?"

"Yo."

"Room 112."

And that was pretty much it. For me, it was less quick.

"Aurora Veloz?" he asked, looking over my ticket and license as though he might find the key my secret life as a serial killer or something.

I smiled. "That's me."

Pause.

"Your hair is longer in the picture."

The picture was from a couple months before, and I had chopped off a good foot of it for some wig charity since then, but it wasn't as though I had grown an extra nose. "Yeah, I donated it."

Another pause. "Room 112."

I was so caught up in making sure he saw how exasperated I was, I almost missed the number. Still, he handed me a slip of paper and my ticket and ID, and moved on to interrogate the next kid. Alex was waiting behind the corner.

"Huh. Usually they ask me to give them the 411, not you." She gestured to her hijab as explanation, and I frowned. I had been witness to people's idiocy about Alex's religion more than once. "What was up?"

"My hair. Apparently he hadn't heard of the idea of cutting it before."

Alex laughed. "Whatever, man. You look better with a bob than with three and a half feet of bullshit in the way."

"If I had to deal with a yard of hair, I think I might actually consider going for the futuristic punk bald look," I told her.

Room 112 turned out to be an auditorium of sorts, at least what I would consider to be significantly more than a simple classroom. There were about fifty kids in our group, at least that was my original estimate as we checked into the room and took our seats. I would later find out there were forty-six, but you know what? Professional estimation is not my intended career, nor is it the career of anyone with self-respect, so... Whatever.

It turned out that Alex got her wish, and twenty-one-year-old proctor girl was the one in charge of our room. She seemed distractible enough that I doubt she would have cared, even if one of us pulled out a box of crayons and started to fill in the bubbles with those. That in mind, I put my ticket on my desk and turned around to face Alex behind me.

"How old do you think blondie is?" Alex asked, nodding to our proctor, who was still checking people in at the door.

I groaned. "Too old for you."

"Yeah, yeah, but you said that about Jayden too," Alex argued, crossing her arms.

"Who was too old for you!" I insisted, not that my words had ever stopped Alex before.

Alex laughed. "Dare me to ask for her number after the test?"

"NO!"

"Yeah, okay, good idea, Rory. I'm so totally going to."

She only stopped giggling manically when proctor blondie walked to the front of the room and clapped her hands. I whirled around and dug my pencil and calculator out of my bag, before praying that this test wouldn't somehow be worse than the last one.

"So..." Blondie scanned the room. "You guys ready?"