“Jake! Wake up, time for school!”

…

“Jake!” “Just go get him.”

Footsteps echo through the quiet second floor of the home and a door opens. Lights come on, sheets rustle. A woman sighs and yanks said sheets. A young boy, fifteen, splays out on his stomach, eyes cracked ever so slightly to see his mother staring at him with a twisted frown. She waits until he turns his head, then flicks his nose.

“Up. Breakfast. Let’s go.” She stares at him for an extra few seconds and he finally rumbles to life. Sitting up, he checks the clock. Six thirty. AM. And he just went to sleep six hours ago. Lovely.

“Okay,” is the single word he mutters as he yawns and stretches. His mother walks to the door and goes to close it, but stops as a small dog appears in the threshold. She smiles and leaves the door open, letting the pup romp through. Jake kicks his feet over the side and leans down to pet the dog, smiling as the puppy snugs into his hands.

“Mornin’ Rex,” he says as he stands. The dog barks then skitters out of the boy’s path. Quickly, Jake strips and puts on his school uniform. He unplugs his phone from the wall and pockets his headphones. He grabs his backpack then heads downstairs, puppy in tow.

“Jake.”

“Dad.”

Sitting at the table, old style newspaper held out in front of him, Jake’s dad sits with his attention almost entirely on the black text. Beside him, a young girl is fiddling with her phone. Sarah, Jake’s little sister, is already engrossed in the gossip of her middle school friends. Great.

“Hurry up and eat. I don’t want to hear about you being late today,” his mom beckons from the connected kitchen. Jake grumbles under his breath and sits down to eat. Eggs, bacon, toast, and milk. Normal. Yes, everything was normal. Normal wake up, normal breakfast. Normal family. After Jake closed the door to his normal home and then the normal front gate, he let out a heavy sigh. He looks up to the sky and stares at the puffy white clouds. Everything was so bland in his life. So monotonous. So stagnant.

He turns from his home and begins his trek to school. A short twenty minute walk every morning through a somewhat dense city. He meets his friends along the way and then leaves them about a third of the way to school. Why? To meet with his girlfriend, or a girl who suddenly confessed her love for him in such a way that he couldn’t say no. But Jake still chose to give her a shot. With his mind mostly just on video games and sports, having a girl in his life was a nice change of pace. Her smile was cute, she always smells nice, and he tends to forget about the boring world around him when she speaks. Indeed, it was nice. But, again; normal.

When they reach school, she kisses his cheek and then leaves for her own class. Jake at first was against the affection but her pouting face was too much, so he elected to put up with it. In class, he sits in the middle of the room, just off to the right. And for eight hours, he sits. Lectures about math, English, Japanese, science, history, and technology are pounded into his skull. For one hour, he gets a break to eat and between each class he gets ten minutes to breathe. After school, lacrosse practice. A short break in his monotonous schedule and the only thing he looks forward to are the times when he can carry the short stick and attack a goal.

Today, they have a game. Playing attack man, Jake stands and watches the initial face off, along with the next dozen. However, while he fully enjoys the game and does his part; his team doesn’t collectively feel the same. The game finishes with a score of eighteen to seven, with all seven being his own scores. He takes a shower to clean up, meets with his girlfriend who cheered him on, and goes on a date. Short and sweet, they go to grab a bite and he walks her home.

On the way back home, Jake stops at a park and sits down. At the top of a hill in the park, a bench is angled neatly towards the direction of the sunset, and comes with a view which includes the city. Beauty in its purest, quiet form. Jake sits here in silence, staring at the horizon as the sun fades away, ending another normal day. But, as he sits, he hears footsteps. Confused, he tenses. No one usually shows up this late.

Looking over to his right, he spots a new face. A woman dressed neatly in a black skirt, black jacket, and a creamy blouse, walks in her short heels over to the bench. She sits down in silence, smooths out her skirt, and sets her black purse down at her feet. She does this without a word, and stares towards the last few shaves of the sun as it dips below the horizon. Jake turns his eyes from her, but glances every few seconds. After nearly five minutes of nothing, the woman reaches into her purse, shuffles somethings around, and retrieves a pack of cigarettes. She lights one, then extends an offer to Jake.

“No thanks. Too young, sorry.” He answers. She scoffs and puts the pack away, along with her lighter.

“You’re never too young, boy.” She mutters after blowing a mouthful of smoke into the air.

“I like to think the law says otherwise,” Jake says. She raises a brow and leans back against the bench.

“The law also says no kids under the age of eighteen are allowed to be in the park after sunset.” The retort came swift, and Jake paused.

“I’ll take that as a point for me,” the woman chuckled. Jake smirked and leans into the bench.

“You like watching the sunset, boy?” She asks. He nods.

“It’s calming,” he says. She hums at him and takes another drag of her cigarette, blowing the smoke away from him. Thankfully, the wind carries it in the opposite direction.

“Are you bored, boy?” She asks, almost bluntly. Jake looks at her, but she doesn’t match him. Her eyes are set on the horizon. The cigarette burns between her pink lips as she sucks on it like a lollipop. For a moment, they sit in silence. Jake looks at the horizon, then down at his hands.

“What do you mean?” He fishes for more.

“You know what I mean.” The words dig deep and he looks at her again. This time, she’s looking straight at him. Unflinching, unwavering. Ice cold, her eyes dig into him. With that look, Jake can tell that she knows who he is. This encounter wasn’t normal. He hesitates for just a second, and looks to his hands for answers. Finding none, he goes with his gut.

“Yea, I guess you could say that.” Then, he remembers. She was standing at his school during his lacrosse game today. A minor detail he had missed before.

“Here.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small manila folder. Without much choice, Jake takes it. He goes to open it but before he can, she speaks.

“Inside is a choice. You can change your life and take a risk, or you can live how you are now. Bring your answer tomorrow.” She puts out the cigarette on the bench arm and blows a mouthful of smoke into the air. Without another word, she stands up and walks back in the direction she came. Without the sun to illuminate her figure and the lights slow to come on, she fades away into the dark, leaving Jake alone. He stares at the path until he can no longer even smell her faint perfume mixed with the stench of the smoke.

Stashing the folder into his backpack, Jake heads home. He eats dinner, says goodnight, and goes to his room. There, for the remaining four hours of his day, video games occupied his brain. But before he slept, he found himself attracted to the manila folder. He sits down at his desk, places the folder in front of him, and turns on the small lamp to give him some light. Unwrapping the thread, he releases the flap and pulls out the contents.

Four meager pieces of paper. Two of which are contracts, one is a list of things to be received in compensation, and a fourth is the reason behind it all. Jake Furrow. Selected because of physical ability, mental maturity, potential, and lack of impact on his surroundings. That was him, and he agreed. The paper stated that he had been chosen out of a hundred others to participate in a Beta Test, along with a small population of others like him. The details were scant, but interesting. He would be challenged to succeed, pushed to his limits and should he pass, he would find himself rewarded generously by the companies involved in the project. In exchange?

Jake had to give up his lifestyle. He would be relocated to the United States, would be forced to give up everything including his family and school, and would become the property of the company, Horizon, for the duration of the testing period. Said period could last for up to ten years, but was expected only to span three should things go well. At the end, if he survived, he would be given those generous rewards depending on his level of participation.

The wording of the sheet never said death would be a result, but Jake could read between the lines. Not only that, but he recognized the name of the company and its logo. Horizon was a company with no actual country it aligned to. Believing in full connection of every person on the planet, Horizon operated on a global scale, caring little for borders. But, no one could deny its advancements to technology and science. Due to these successes, Horizon became the most profitable corporation on the planet in a matter of ten years. And that was thirty years ago. Jake now new Horizon as the driving force behind nearly everything technology and space, and dozens of the bigger countries relied on Horizon for their technological resources and access to space stations.

To see that name at the top of the pages, Jake knew that signing his life away meant truly doing so. There would be no turning back if he signed the documents and went back to that bench. While his life was boring, normal, and stale; he still had family that cared for him. He still had friends that laughed and joked with him. He still had a girlfriend, he had school, lacrosse. He didn’t have anything truly stressful in his life that affected his overall happiness. If he continued with as he was, he knew he would go through life without much trouble. Most people would kill for such a simple life. But here he was…

…considering throwing it away.