The day came, a few days after we met Marilyn, to enter into The Last. I packed up my things in my bag. Spellbook, Notebook, and a few pens and pencils, even though I probably won’t be writing anything. Before I left the house, Dad beckoned from the kitchen aloud, "Wait!"

     "Yes?" I stopped inches from opening the door.

     He rushed out of the kitchen, dressed in his slight gray business suit and over to me, who was standing in the foyer. "Here." He handed me a pair of his old black fingerless gloves.

     "Your gloves?" I questioned.

     "Yeah! You've already been using them beforehand and since this is the first day, you can have them. They fit you well, right?"

     "Are you saying my hands are big and manly?" I asked.

He chortled, "Yup! That’s right, man hands."

     "Hey, that’s not nice girly fingers!" I retorted back.

     "Girly?!" He looked down at his long slender fingers, "They're not girly! They're just long and-"

    "You’re digging yourself a hole, Jin." Mom's voice suddenly spoke from upstairs. 

Dad sighed, "I can’t win can I?"

     “Nope.” Mom laughed.

Dad smiled, “Anyway you have a nice day. If anything bad happens, call us immediately.”

I nodded my head, "I will! Although nothing bad should happen. Bye Mom."

     "See ya, my daughter." She bided.

Then I left.

    I headed to the train station that would stop right in front of The Last Building. The cars were crammed with Verses' who wore traditional outfits, uniforms or just plain clothes. It was easy to identify who was part of what Verse. It’s always like this the first day. 

     Generally, everyone wants to show off who and what they are. It’s like a competition of who is better than the others despite all of us knowing who the top ten are. 

     They wear ties, silk ribbons, pieces of clothing. Some wore happy expressions while others appeared as if they would rather crawl into the next dark hole they could find. Then there are people like me. Rowdy and ready to talk shit to anyone who dared to step a challenge.

     The train sped through the city and glided onto the water. The Last Facility was located out in the middle of the ocean. It held several buildings that were four to five stories tall painted in all white. The closer we became, the louder the excitement in the cars were. 

     Finally, the train reached the station in front of the facility and the doors opened. Verses strolled out, their eyes larger than normal and had no words to say.

    “Welcome all students!” Androids greeted the Verses as their steel hands handed out fliers and maps and their faux human face smiled.

     “Welcome all students!” One pushed a map of the building and a flier into my hands and then rolled past me.

     I pondered if those things really do have hearts and feelings and minds to think with. They say they do. "They" being the people that created them. They were originally created to be servants or “helpers” or something like that. 

     But it was until one Android accidentally received a mind. He expressed feelings, emotions and was able to make decisions. But that was over fifty years ago. They are still programmed to do commands such as the ones they're doing now and a little bit more. Like clean up streets, police work, but the rest are free to do whatever they want. They became a “Verse” just like everyone else.

    I walked alongside the crowd, entering the large main building that was filled with elevators, spiral staircases chandeliers, a few windows, cold flooring, and doors. Hundreds of doors everywhere. 

     There were monitors in the middle of the building that displayed hundreds of names organized by the first name and beside those names were numbers that told you the door. The first number was the floor, 1,2,3,4 or 5. Mine was 2. Second two numbers were the room. 52. So 252. Easy.

     I eased over to one of the more visible elevators that were overflowing and caused me to laugh. Verses were yelling at one another, trying to shove each other out of the elevator. None of the faculty that was around stopped this chaos and fighting and their expressions told it all. They too were amused at the simple-minded and even rooted for one to kick another Verses' ass.

     “Move out the way!” A guy with a bowl haircut and glasses demanded, pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Aces gotta go first!”

     "Aces?!" A girl with twin tails and horns got into his face. "And who the fuck said that!? Aces can kiss my ass!"

     "Aces get top floor obviously so they can go first!" He sneered, holding out his right hand which produced a large neon blue scythe that suddenly caught ablaze. “If you don’t move, I’ll cut all you down!” He threatened.

     "Ah, a Hellian. This should be interesting." I thought. 

     Hellians are the fourth powerful Organization and naturally hold the status of Death Reaper. They can collect souls from the living, and bring back the dead.  Suddenly I heard laughter behind me.

     "Comical isn’t it?" The laughing voice spoke.

     "More like pathetic," I said turning around to get a glance at who I was talking to.

     My heart jumped. Not from anything serious but from the unexpected surprise of who was speaking to me. It was a Pernal but not just any old Verse. It was the one that I saw the last day of The Center. 

     Their amethyst eyes started at the arguing Verses. I could see their short eyelashes pressing together each time they blinked. Their eyebrows were freshly plucked and I knew this from the small red marks were the tweezers went down too far and pulled up the skin. They were dressed casually; a long grey sleeved shirt and jean pants, too casual for what I heard Pernals wear.

     "Alright make way!" A Seether girl with long pink hair brushed past me.

     "Yeah, that’s right! We said move outta the way!" A blue-haired Seether boy scooted past them.

     They both wore the same dark formal uniform and frowned the same. They caught the attention of the Verses that were fighting around. I wanted to listen what they were going to say to the others but they started to speak again and I tuned into what they were saying.

     "Did you know there are several elevators that only go up so high?" They chortled, looking back at me.

     "Are there really?" I asked.

     "Yeah. It’s on the map the Androids gave us. The second floor is left, the third floor is right, the fourth floor is straight ahead and the fifth one is behind us." They explained.

     "Someone read." I smiled.

     "I had a little time on my hands. I came here earlier than everyone else." They stated, looking up at me.

     "Why? Isn’t that some pain in the ass?" I asked.

     "It is but I'd rather not deal with Verses so early in the morning. Like these bastards." They turned their attention back to the group.

    “Joyce. Anders. Move.” They said, catching the attention of the two Seethers who immediately moved out of the way.

     They lifted their hand up and with a quick swipe in the air, the Verses were forcefully pushed out of the elevator. Each Verse fell over another. Their faces gawked at around at what just happened.

     I could feel my eyes open. There were over a hundred people flooding the elevators and they did that with such ease. Joyce and Anders made their way into the elevator, holding it open for them.

     “Anyway make sure to get to class on time! You only have an hour to get to your class. I’ll see you later!” They told me as they stepped forward.

     “Wait!” I called out to them, “What Class are you?”

     “Oh, that,” They smiled as they strolled over to the elevator. “I’m an Ace.” They stepped into the elevator and waved goodbye as the doors closed.

     “An Ace.” I repeated.