They arrived at the BlueBird academy late that afternoon, just as the sun started to set over the horizon. The bus had dropped them a few kilometers from the academy and they walked the distance in silence. Nervousness is starting to replace the excitement.

The large gray and blue building was built in a castle style, with high towers in each of its five corners. It towered above them as they walked to a giant archway in the middle of the outer walls. Passing through it, there was a large opening in the center with a sign post, pointing them to the correct locations. They followed the reception directions and entered a long dark part of the school with a small desk and tall woman sitting behind it. She had short black hair stopping just above her shoulder and was wearing a black suit jacket and skirt. They approached her.

“Hello,” Ana said in her usual chirpiness. Her voice echoing off the tall empty walls. The woman looked up and he could see a name tag on her chest reading ‘Isabel’.

“Hello, how may I help you?” she said with a friendly and welcoming smile.

“We are here for an interview for the challenge. I am Ana, and this is Luca.”

“Oh! I see now, please fill in this register for me and I will show you to the waiting room.”

After they filled in the required details she left through a door to her right and they followed with their suitcases. They enter a long hallway with doors on either side of it. They were marked Room A1 - B5. Upon reaching the end of the hall, they entered a large open area where there were lots of people sitting. Luca guessed them between the ages of 15-25. It looked like there were thousands of people. She rummaged through a bin with badges tagged with numbers and handed them each one. Y48 and Y49.

“They are now interviewing the letter D so I hope you guys are in for a long night. Feel free to make yourself at home and even sleep a little.”

They sat down with their suitcases and started looking around. Scattered all around them were suitcases with their owners, sitting in groups or sleeping on them using it as a makeshift pillow. Luca could feel his tiredness set in again and rested his head on his suitcase. Sleep enveloped him and he was sent to a different world where his father came over every evening, and his mother and sister were singing and playing in the living room.

An intercom woke him up with a ping.

“Please move the benches until all food is placed on their respective tables. Then dish up in an orderly fashion. Afterwards Y32 and Y33 can make their way to the interviewing room.” He sat up and saw Ana looking at the speaker which was making the announcement.

“How long was I asleep for?”

“Hey! Only a couple of hours. People have been getting rejected and leaving in droves. I am getting kind of nervous.”

“Well, we are here now, if we get rejected we go back to our shitty lives. At least we had a good day right? “ He smiled at her. Amused at the positive words coming out of his mouth.

The waiters finished bringing the food in and a queue had started to form as they were dishing up. The room came alive as everyone woke up and started talking. The crowds have reduced in numbers and they were quickly in front of the queue. He looked at all the variety and couldn’t believe they were eating so well. There were many items he had never seen before and Ana laughed at all his questions. Eventually he settled on a banana, apple and a large piece of steak and a sausage.

They ate their food and put their plates back.

The intercom pinged again.

“Y46 and Y47. Please make your way to the interviewing room.”

“We’re next,” Ana said, “What if we’re not good enough. What if we are not what they are looking for.”

“Then we were not meant to be here Ana. Please. Relax. It will work out in the end.” But even he was nervous and he had no way to get back home tonight if he did not make it.

He quickly removed the thoughts from his head. “It will be fine.” He put his hand on hers and she smiled at him.

The door opened and both Y46 and Y47 came out crying.

With a ping the intercom read out their numbers.

“Okay,” Luca said, “this is our big moment.” He took a deep breath and sighed.

“Even if we don’t make it Luca. At least we know each other now right?” She had tears brimming at the bottom of her eyes.

“Right. Let’s go.”

They were greeted by a large bookcase standing against the back of the room and a large wooden desk in front of it. It was an ancient dark brown. Behind it, sat a colossal man with enormous hands which could probably wrap around my head.

“Welcome.” He had an air of authority around him.

“Hello sir.” They responded together.

“Please, have a seat.” He didn’t even look up from his paperwork. “Gamertags?”

Luca glanced at Ana as she went first. “thePinkmachine, sir.”

Luca said his gamertag, “Na’tan. Sir.” He looked up from his paperwork for the first time, studying Luca for a moment and then continued writing.”

“Ah, Na’tan. Hmmm.” And he made what looked like a checkmark on his paper.

“Prefered position in a squad in MOBA’s and MMORPG’s? Ana?”

“Support and tank sir. I…” she was cut short by the man.

“Luca?”

“Carry and DPS sir.”

It seemed like for every answer he filled in hundreds of lines.

“Okay, you are both accepted, please make your way through the next door.”

Ana and Luca sat in shock for a second too long and the man cleared his throat. He looked up at them and motioned to the closed door to his right.

“Yes sir, thank you sir.” They quickly gathered their belongings and went to the next room where a young man was waiting for them. He was dressed in a black suit and had an earpiece.

“Hi I am Alfonso, I will show you to your rooms and then tomorrow you need to be back in this room at 8am sharp.

When they arrived at their rooms, Luca saw two bunk beds propped to the side of the wall.

“Its foldout beds to save space and underneath you will see there is a cabinet which opens and transforms into a desk for theory studies. Unfortunately it seems like your roommate did not make the cut so you will have a room for yourself.” he gave him a professional nod, as if he was content with how he delivered the information.

“Thank you,” Ana and Alfonso left and Luca stood alone in the small room. When he pulled out his bed, he saw there was a shirt on it. It had baby blue stripes on, bordered with white lines and was printed on a black shirt. It also had logos with all the school's sponsors on. He packed away his clothes and belongings in the closet and placed the framed photo of his father and himself on a cutout in the wall. Laying late into the night he thought about father and his family and how lucky he was to be here. I will succeed.

He woke up to the sound of a siren going off in the hallway.

“All students, you have an hour to get ready and then meet with the Dean in the food hall.”

He jolted upright and made his bed. Entering the food hall he saw Ana sitting with someone else at one of the tables and joined them.

“Good morning,” He said cheerfully. “Ready for the first day? How did you sleep?”

“Oh hey Luca! I made a new friend, this is Carlos. Carlos, this is Luca I’ve been telling you about!” He looked much older than them and was a bit more chubbier.

Luca nodded to him and said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“So back to your questions, yes so ready, and I slept well. Carlos said he’s heard rumors that we are going to be using a different kind of system than the glasses that are available to the general public.”

“Oh really, what do they say?”

Carlos looked shy, and didn’t like the attention of the other two on him. “No, that is all I heard.”

“Well I guess we will hear more today from the dean. Don’t worry about it!” Ana chirped reassuringly.

After breakfast they went to put their plates on the table and Carlos bumped into a short but muscular boy. “Oh sorry, I didn’t see you there.” He apologized.

“Better say sorry, watch where you’re going fatboy,” the short guy lipped back.

“Hey! That’s unnecessary!” Ana retorted.

“Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it, Skinny-legs?” he said, getting up in her face.

“Whoa, chill guys, this is going way too fast. Let's just take a breather. We’ll go this way, you go that way.” Luca laughed it off. The boy turned to him and said sarcastically.

“Who are you to tell me what to do. I might want to stay right here.” Luca could hear snickering from his three cronies behind him. He could see this cocky boy was looking for an altercation and tried to defuse again. He never saw himself as a fighter, and quite frankly had no idea how to fight so didn’t want to be involved in one, not on his first day.

“Look. He said sorry. We’ll walk away now and you just do whatever you feel like alright?”

The trio turned to walk away when Luca felt a hand on his shoulder pulling him around. Before he could get his arms up to defend himself, he felt another fist make contact with his face. He tried to blink away the pain while holding his face. He looked up and saw him pulling back his arm and hitting Carlos in the stomach, who bent over and started coughing. Ana screamed and started hitting the thickset boy.

“Alright, we’ll play. Hey! You want to do this?” Remember, don’t but your thumb under your fingers. He could hear his dad saying to him.

“What are you going to do? Hit…” As he was getting out his response, Luca punched straight for his nose, feeling a crunch under his knuckles. The onlookers have now started forming a circle around them, chanting and cheering. He wiped his nose and looked at the blood on his hand. “Numwit. You will regret that.” He punched at Luca’s face but he blocked it and caught the blow on his arm, he tried retaliating with his other arm but was blocked easily. Another blow came from underneath and he was too focused on blocking the first one to realize and felt his teeth clench together as he hit him on his jaw. Another blow came from the right, hitting him on his head and then a knee made contact with his face. A flurry of punches and kicks rained down on Luca as he was bending down covering his head.

“Stop! Just stop!” He could hear Ana screaming in the background over the crowd. Just then, the door leading to the kitchen opened.

“What is the meaning of this?”