Another day arises.

Tom looks at Iuustin that seemed to be doing a lot better from yesterday so he leaves him alone, not wanting to bother him.

He looks around after Jo, but he isn’t there. It was pretty weird, because usually he would chant around some made up song about how beautiful that day will be.

Iuustin:”I thought you were supposed to say “Good morning!” when you see someone you’re acquainted with in the morning… ”

Tom(in a somewhat awkward tone):”Oh! Good morning! How are ya’!”

Iuustin:”Good morning! I am good. But… where is Jo?”

Tom:”I was wondering too about that, but I think he is allright.”

They go to eat, waiting for Jo to pop out of any corner, but Jo is still nowhere to be found. Then they are guided by their teacher to the supposed school, where Tom and Iuustin are taken to the last floor, in smaller classroom ,where they meet up with Edward and Stefan.

There was no sign of Jo there either, so they sit down and wait to see what happends.

They are left waiting for a while the floor beneath them trembles from the normal kids running in the classroom.

At some point a woman kept screaming:”Calm down! Back in your benches!” till all the kids followed.

Tom puts his head on his desk, hoping he would get some extra sleep, but he is woken by Jo entering the room with Zoya.

Tom kinda wanted to ask him where has he been the whole morning, but… well… 2 year olds like him don’t ask those kinds of questions.

She starts to teach them lots of letters, with which they were quite familiar.

Tom and Iuustin were bored out of his mind and waiting for the bell to ring so they could go on break, since they knew them so well they were able to read books at their former house.

The bell rings and all of them almost jump out of their benches and head towards the door .

Zoya:”Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

They all turn around slightly confused and look at her, waiting for her to continue.

Zoya:”You will go on break when we finish the alphabet!”

Disappointed, they all go back to their benches, while they felt the floor tremble once more beneath them from the kids running outside to play.

They finally get the alphabet done, they are let outside for a break.

On their way out they realize that all the kids have finished the courses a long time ago.

Iuustin:”Jo, did something happened? You aren’t this quiet usually .”

Jo:”Well last night they woke me up early and started to give me all kinds of exercises to do and basic math, while they observed me closely. It was kind of creeping the hell out of me. I think I get now why y’all kept holding back my knowledge. Because if not we are going to become some lab rats or something!”

Tom:”Congratulations! It would’ve been a very good observation if we didn’t realize it a long time ago.”

Jo:”I get it! I get it! But I don’t think they will do something too bad to me…’’

Jo get’s interrupted by Edward.

Edward:”THIS WORLD...uh...another world…thing… looks like our old world, but in the past, do you have any idea how weak of morals people were having during those times?! Slavery was still a thing!”

Jo:”Well I am trying to look at this in a positive light..”

Iuustin whispering:”You two! Shut the f*ck up! We are in big trouble either way! We are all like 2 or 3 years old! We should be sh*ting our pants and put random thing in our mouths at this age! Not learn and understand the alphabet! We really should try to tone down our “intelligence”!”

Tom:”So we won’t be having such a good time... We really have to start to act hella stupid. Cuz I wanna live my new life! And I don’t wanna live it hidden somewhere where certain people can satisfy their curiosity. “

Stefan:”Can I say something?”

Tom:”….”

Stefan:”I think that we should stop talking around here, they might listen to us.”

All of them nod at that statement.

They all exit the building in silence and find a nice spot somewhere they thought they could speak normally till they are being called back to study.

When they go back Zoya goes thru the alphabet once more and lets them go.

By now it was late afternoon and they hurry to go eat the dinner before the cantina will close.

Tonight the food tasted bad, as usual, but a different kind of bad, even thou it was served the exact same kind of soup almost every dinner, but they couldn’t complain since the cantina ladies were watching them while they ate and no one wanted to make them upset.

Tom and Iuustin notice is that some of the boys that put some other kid with the head in the toilet a few days ago and went away were there eating.

Iuustin taps Tom’s shoulder and points at them.

Tom:”You saw it too?”

Iuustin:”Yeah..”

Tom:”I thought they were expelled or something.”

Iuustin:”Me too, but let’s not tell Jo yet.”

Jo:”HEY! HEY! WHAT ABOUT ME? WHAT ABOUT ME? YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT ME BEHIND MY BACK?”

Iuustin:”No, no, we just…”

Jo:”Ah! SO, YOU ARE TALKING SH*T ABOUT ME IN FRONT OF ME!”

Tom:”Please, lower your tone we will explain what we were talking about after we eat.” He whispers while lowering his head and taking a bite out of a slice of bread.

Tom:”Hmm…Look, we will explain this to you later, we caused enough of a fuss.”

He eats the rest of his dinner as fast as he can and walk out of there with Iuustin and Edward who also finished eating.

They say “good bye” and walk off to their bedrooms to kill some time before they go to sleep, but they are all put to do some chores before that.

Now, after realizing that his behavior was not normal, not one bit, for one of his age he get’s kind of stressed.

He started to look around, feeling like someone is watching him even thou he is alone in a hallway putting water into the pots of some flowers. He sees somewhere in the other end of the hallway two soldiers..

They were staring at him, not even trying to hide it.

Tom:”F*ck! I am not sure if they are bystanders or not, but if they aren’t and they will see me continuing doing this at this pace I have no idea what will happen! All wanted is to live a comfortable and laid back life…How did it come to this? If I start to pretend to be some normal two year old now, they will probably think that I noticed what they are doing, but if I keep doing this like I normally do, they will do something with me at some point! F*ck!”

He continues to do his job and moved to another room to see if those soldiers will follow him or he worried too much for no reason and started to pretend to dust off some shelves there.

Unfortunately for him one continued to pursue him, pretending to guard the entrance of the door and peeking on him from time to time.

Tom acknowledging this he becomes more and more stressed, till he is done pretending and storms out the door outside to find some place to relax, leaving his chore not fully finished.

He goes to the back of the bedroom building and sits there, wondering what will happened to him in the distant future.

Sitting there he came up with two scenarios of his future.

The first one is that when he will reach an older age he will be dissected to see what made him behave like he did.

The second one also was supposed to happen when he will reach an older age, when he will become a puppet of the government of some country, brain washed to do certain stuff or behave and think for their benefit only.

Now, even more stressed out by these thoughts than before, he goes to search for Iuustin or Jo to try to talk to them so he could forget his worries.

He started to look around and got caught by the soldier that was watching him earlier.

Soldier:”You did not finish your work. Go back and finish it!”

He goes back and finishes quickly and goes to his bed to find some comfort there.

From his bed he could see those few bullies that returned. They were not causing trouble anymore for some reason, but Tom didn’t question it, thankful that at least they stopped bother him.

The next day comes up and Tom follows the routine: wake up, eat the breakfast that tasted exactly like the soup from yesterday for some reason and then waiting around to see what, whoever was in charge of their activities, decide to put them to do that day..

They are all taken to do some exercises for about two hours then they are put to clean some windows and after that they all have a break.

About half an hour afterwards they are guided into what became by now a school.

There they meet up with Stefan and Edward and it seemed like the words “Please, stop trying so hard to show how intelligent you are or else it may cause us a lot of trouble.” finally got thru his thick skull.

For the next few months this was the routine and a new bunch of kids have come in.

Something mildly interesting that happened during those months is that a shooting range opened a few kilometers away and gunshots could be heard every once in a while.