Pushing the door and stepping through, the room had six rectangular tables and six wooden chairs surrounding each of them. Contrasted with the building’s external ambiance of mineral outcrops and organic shapes of trees and shrubs, the rectangular room had empty shelves placed along its perimeter, leaving the tables neatly organized in the center. Even the hall I came from attempted to match the natural ambiance—with arches and carefully shaped stone that curved and unified together in expansive patterns, which anyone could tell came from an experienced artisan.

The warmly colored walls were a bright peach and glowed as if the sun wanted to shine through, but the material dulled its luster. Golden-brown shelves on the left and right were purposeless with its empty cabinets and did little to dampen the echoes of my footsteps upon entrance. A green chalkboard spanned the front wall—with a desk and mini table on its right, and a closed door on its left.

“Hey, you’re the first guy candidate!” I turned to a girl with a blonde ponytail – sitting atop one of two tables in the front row with maroon-striped white sneakers dangling in the central aisle.

Beside her, a silver-haired girl sat poised and proper in the central seat of the same table and turned to reveal green eyes. If her waist-long hair weren't wavy, her frilly green dress on a chair would've resembled an oddly placed potted plant.

A third girl sat at the other front table, already facing me with a squinted blue eye and stoic face. She quickly covered her mouth with her navy blue scarf and rested her head in her arms – sleeved by a trench coat a shade darker than her hazel-haired bob.

My eyes returned to the blonde girl sitting atop the table—legs dangling and swinging, and palms behind her as if in the comfort of her home, and I was her guest.

I walked down the aisle and sat on a chair in the second row of tables; facing the hazel-bobbed girl directly. We looked at each other momentarily before I broke off and put my backpack on the table.

“Come on, don’t be shy!” The blonde girl hopped off her table and walked towards me, now sitting on the corner of my table. “What’s your name? Mine is Kemia.”

“Laizen,” I replied. “Now, I think sitting on my table would make it smelly.”

“Then we can sit on Notemi’s table.” Kemia pointed to the hazel-bobbed girl in front of me. “I didn’t sit on her table because it seemed she would scold me.”

“I’m just tired because I should be sleeping soon,” Notemi groaned in an unexpected gentle voice. “Came from Australia.”

“And so she says,” Kemia continued, “but she needs to stay awake for whatever surprise comes next, let's be lively on her table and feed her some energy.”

Kemia got off my table and sat next to the resting Notemi, then gestured for me to join. I sympathized with Notemi since I was also tired, but for different reasons. I sat in front of Kemia and rested my backpack on the table leg, making sure no one would squish my only source of food: the one and only banana. But this was all for naught when the silver-haired girl pulled her chair over to sit in the aisle between me and Kemia. There was just enough space on the width of the table to fit her and her sprawled elbows.

“And my name is Lyviria,” she said, looking at me with gentle green eyes. “I can place your backpack on the table behind you, if you want.”

“Yeah…” I nodded. If everything were a living animal or human child, she treated inanimate objects with the same care and attention; a stark contrast to Kemia who seemingly wants to inject her upbeat world everywhere, every time, on everyone. As for Notemi; so far, she's more subdued than those two.

“So when did you all arrive?” I asked.

“Notemi arrived first, way before we did,” Kemia said. “She was napping by the time I arrived, and Lyviria entered shortly after I did.”

Lyviria giggled and covered her mouth. “We introduced ourselves quickly since Kemia was eager to know us. Notemi was reluctant, but gave in after being teased because Kemia wanted to see her eyes. To reach that end, Kemia played with her hair and hugged her tightly until she had no choice but to sit up and say her name.”

Kemia also giggled and placed an arm over the hunched shoulders of Notemi for embracement. Notemi lifted her head slightly from her crossed arms to assess the situation before hiding her eyes once again in the dark enclosure of her navy scarf.

“So Laizen,” Lyviria continued, “before you joined us, Kemia and I talked about what this Explorers Project could entail—from exploring the forests and oceans to learning about different cultures around the world. Notemi thought we may even go as far as exploring our solar system’s planets. The word ‘explorer’ implies many things we could do; especially with the idea that we were nominated to be the spearhead of humanity’s evolution. But evolution is the word I’m stuck at. How does a human evolve further?”

“We could go through heaven and hell and venture through all kinds of climates,” Notemi added, lifting her head once again. “We could build towering structures and organize people to complete a massive project. We even have technology which makes our lives much simpler—but none of them greatly transforms our basic needs in the world.”

“We still eat and sleep and fill our free time with activities, right?” Kemia interjected. Her voice indicated a recitation of their previous conversation I wasn’t a part of, yet her bubbly innocence was unaffected by the implications in this line of thought. Or perhaps the conversation did not register in her understanding at all. She darted her head to all of us on the table and waited for an answer; gently rubbing Notemi’s back with assured movements that hoped to magically revitalize the resting trench coat girl.

But the question that Lyviria posed – about how humans will evolve further – gave a sense of incompleteness. The same incompleteness as my search for an alternative to logic.

I was devoid of answers.

“So?” Kemia said with an eager smile. Her darting head transitioned to a dizzying swirl in search for a response.

“I don’t have an answer…” I replied.

“Aww!” Kemia deflated her poised body to a hunch. Within a few seconds, her compressed state sprang back straight as if she couldn’t hold it for that long. Yep, a good attempt at understanding our point of view.

“No matter,” Lyviria said. “It was a passing question since my practice involved medicine and healing. I’ve interacted with many resilient people after they injured themselves from excessive physical feats and wondered how they survived.”

Notemi sat up and stretched her arms behind her, letting out sounds of exhalation before joining the three of us in an upright position. The three of them sat frozen in silence and looked in my direction. "Did I say something wrong?" I asked.

Maybe I was missing some context. Maybe the girls understood something I didn’t.

“Someone’s coming,” Notemi said, “and they’re quite loud.”