There was a beep as the white walls of my pod began to change into white wooden walls. I blinked and started scanning the holographic control panel. There was a 3D model of my room. I dragged a dirty white wallpaper on the walls of my 3d room, then added a soft wooden board for the floors. Once I was satisfied, I used a finger to swipe the image upward. Immediately, my real room imitated the image from the control panel.
At least now it doesn't feel as suffocating as before.
I also learned that you could add furniture's or change them depending on your liking. I actually spend a lot of time decorating the room since I couldn't sleep a wink. I mean, I was sleeping until I dreamed about being in the plane again. Falling and falling. Then hitting the waters. Then there comes the bodies. Bloodied. Faces morphed. Gutts on the floors...
I shivered at the memory.
I woke up at around 3 am. I didn't bother to go back to sleep in case I'll dream of that nightmare again. No. Not nightmare. It was real. It did happen.
I already took a shower and was now wearing a gray and white jumpsuit from the closet. The bathroom door itself operates via touch and scan. Inside is also customizable if you use the control panel, but I opened for a shower with a heater, a lavatory and a toilet.
For now, at least.
The jumpsuit that I wore looks constricting, but it was actually light and cool. It did not restrict my movements, and it doesn't even block air.
I was laying down on my bed as I scrolled through the holographic control panel. The thing that I am amazed is that you can add a one-way window to your room. The concept is similar to a one-way mirror, where you can see the view on one side, but not on the opposite side.
I started scanning through other furniture's and frowned when I saw some weird decorations. My brow furrowed as I was about to scroll down when the control panel suddenly beeped.
"Mr. Mithun, I have come to pick you up." A video image of Seela suddenly popped out of the tablet. I helped and my hands immediately flew, hoping to close the video and image of Seela on the tablet. Unfortunately, all it did was add some random decoration in my room such as a lucky cat, a chainsaw, a human size poster of a star, bear rag, and a skeleton system. I cursed as I tried to exit the screen so I can clear up the unwanted furniture's.
I saw Seela frowning as if she can see me from the other side. Wait, can she actually see me? "Mr. Mithun, if you won't come out, I'll have to drag you out myself."
"You can't! I said immediately and looked at the mess in the room. "I'm...not decent."
"You should be concerned about your indecent action of tardiness." She said and then more I tried to fix it, the more random furniture was being created.
"I'm leaving. I'm leaving!" I placed the tablet down and came face to face with a hanging skeleton head of a T-rex. I screamed.
"Mr Mithun? Mithun! I am going in.
"Don't-" I tried to say, but my pod suddenly opened and Seela, wearing the same gray jumpsuit as me, jumped in. I was sitting on my floor as I hid behind the T-Rex skeleton in embarrassment when I saw Seela having a surprised look on her face.
"C-can we go now?" I offered. Wanting to be rid of this awkward situation. Stupid tablet and futuristic decoration.
Seela seemed to snap back to reality as he turned is back to me. "Follow me." Were his only words before he jumped out.
I glared at the T-Rex skeleton. "I'll get rid of you later." I whispered as I followed Seela down.
Our eyes met and Seela immediately cleared his throat. "Listen, here in lumora, we do not criticize each other's preference so-"
"Can we just go?" I cut him off.
"Right." Seela nodded.
Seela guided me to, what seems to be a cafeteria just beside the huge white dome that I saw yesterday. I did not notice it before, but just at the opposite side of where, I and she were standing, there were actually other facilities that the dome covered from our view.
Seela handed me a bracelet similar to his. It was a thin bracelet that immediately holed my wrist just as he attached it. "This will serve as your identification card. You can use this to get your ration of food and to enter facilities that you are permitted to. Breakfast is at 6-7am, lunch at 12-1pm, and Dinner at 6-8pm. If you miss it then you can't eat. We have two snacks that you can claim anytime."
We walked towards one of the huge disks like machine where people were lining up. Once it was our turn, Seela looked towards me to make sure that I was looking. "Scan your bracelet here." She said and placed the bracelet on the scanner for a few milliseconds. There was a short beep and holographic window suddenly emerged. "Then you just click what you want and done." I saw her tapping on the window and then it vanished. The table below opened and a tray of food popped out. "Now you try."
I did as she asked and scanned my bracelet. The same window popped out, and I finally got a good look of the menu. All in all, there were a variety of food combination to choose from. All were seafood and the ocean sea snake meat with a side of sea like vegetables. I clicked the one with the salmon and crab meat since it was the most familiar dish I saw. The window was no replace by the food tray in front of me. I took it and followed Seela to look for a place to sit.
"Seela!" A woman called out from one of the tables. The woman has a white, blonde hair and gray eyes. She was wearing a white jumpsuit like the rest of the people from the table where she was sitting.
Seela clicked in tongue in annoyance but gestured for me to follow her. As we neared the table, the woman changed her glance from Seela to me. She tilted her head to the side and looked at me. Then her curious glance was replaced with a teasing one that she aimed Seela. "Look! Our general is escorting a boy." She announces. The people sitting on the table gave him a supporting applause and cheered.
Seela didn't seem amused as she gave the man a death look. "Jack, 30 laps, 500 pushup, 1000 squats, and 300 jump overs. And if the rest of you won't stop clapping like seals, then you will have to join him." Jack's face seems to drop while the others immediately busied themselves by eating.
I looked at Seela with wide eyes. I am not athlete, but I can safely assume that the punishment that she gave Jack seems like a death sentence.
"Come on, general!" Jack protested as he looked at him in disbelief. "I was just kidding!"
Seela ignored him and gestured for me to sit on the table. A girl with brown hair and yellow eyes grinned as she moved to give us a space to sit. I gave her a small smile as I sat beside her. Seela followed and sat beside me. "This is one the new freires. Her name is Mithun reddy."
"Freire?" I asked. The word sounded weird in my mouth.
"It's what we call the people whose blood passes the minimum requirement to use our lemurian abilities." A man with dyed green hair and sea green eyes said. "My name is Willson, by the way." He reached out a hand for me to shake. It took it. "I assume you met Jack." He pointed to the guy, who was now pouting at Seela. "Then there's Israr." He said and pointed to the girl beside me.
Israr smiled is a petite girl with freckles on her cheek. By the looks of her I can guess that she's half Asian and American. "Hey!" She smiled and shook my hand in greeting. "It's been so long since we had a new Freire."
"Right." I said and gave Seela a look as I remembered someone. "What about Gita? She's a Freire too, right? Where is she?"
"She's doing fine. Asleep though. She recovered physically but she is still mentally traumatised."
At this, Jack stopped pouted as finally joined the conversation. "Traumatised? That bad?" He asked.
"She lost her unborn child." I said defensively. Not liking his tone. "Why? Haven't you guys experienced the same crash?"
"What crash?" Jack asked.
"Plane crash with..." I shook my head at the thought since I do not want to loose my appetite. "How did you guys get here?"
"I was in a car crash when a lady named Jennifer saved me." Jack said. "Watson was in a hospital that was being raided by soldiers. Israr had his grandparent's farm burned down as they tried to capture him. Lucky for us that we were saved in time."
"My grandparents died from a gunshot that caused the fire. "Israr whispered beside me. His gaze focused on the food in front of him.
"Point is." Watson says to change the subject. "None of us are safe in the surface anymore. All we can do is train so we can help others like us."
Jack slammed his fist on the table. "I know I got out of it lightly, but the others...I'm sorry." He told me. "I just can't believe that they would go through such lengths just to capture people like us. Our taxes are being used just to fund that kind of barbaric practice!"
Israr finally seemed to recover. She looked at me in curiosity. "Have you decided to join the front lines?"
I blinked. "What?"
"She hasn't decided what job she'll take." Seela said beside me. And when she saw my questioning look, she answered, "Front liners are like soldiers. It's a job that only freirs can apply because of our abilities. We train the new recruits like them" She pointed at the three people around the table. "In order to help us rescue more people yourself. The more people who join us the more people we can save."
"Plus, you get to wear these cool white training jumpsuits!" Jack beamed. "Who says jumpsuits trends are over!?"
Watson gave Jack a look as he patted his back while Seela shook her head and gave Jack his plate of salad. "Jack. ate. Stop talking."
And that was the end of our conversation as we continued to eat.