I couldn't take it anymore, I was exhausted after 5 days without food and 3 without water. I could feel that my body was slowly giving up; no matter how much I fought, my consciousness felt like it was slowly pulled away. I made up my mind that there was no longer any doubt. I will join the ascended, even if their expeditions have a 15 percent survival rate; it was better than starving to death. I stood up from the makeshift cardboard mattress, which had kept me alive through the cold winter nights. My clothes were worn out, riddled with holes and covered in excrement and dirt. I hobbled through the city, even from the slum, you could see the spacescrapers with their eccentric lights. I continued walking, and each breath of the polluted air felt like molten lead being poured down my throat.

  I finally saw the recruitment centre, a colourless building like the rest in the slum, with a sign accepting anyone. I entered the building, and it was just as grey and lifeless on the inside as it was on the outside. I felt immediately warmer. The man behind the desk looked up with worry in his eyes. he looked like he was in his mid forties and a thick moustache, and he was rather rotund. He stared at me with warm eyes.

  " son, are you all right?" he said while drinking a cup of synthetic coffee

  "Yeah, I want to join," I said, each word feeling hollow as it left my mouth

  "How old are you?" he said inquisitively.

  "sixteen," I replied as calmly as I could

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  He pulled out a form with characters I didn't understand, and turned it around to face me, and from the few words and letters I could make it out, it seemed to have been filled out.

  "Sign at the bottom of the page, he said

  I wrote my name with a few loops and handed it back to him. he looked at it for a second with a puzzled look on his face, then stamped it.

  "Congrats, you are now a member of the ascended, he said in a flat voice

  It was at that instant that my body reached its limit. 'Eat your heart out, world, I'm not dead yet.

  When I woke up, I was in another grey room with what looked like plastic Terran plants. I saw a volumetric display at the foot of my bed displaying information about me I didn't even know. I heard footsteps rapidly approaching. I turned my head and saw three people in lab coats enter the room. A female doctor quickly walked over to the base of my bed.

  "Well, it seems that the treatment has helped your prolonged malnourishment, which will have some impacts, but besides that, you're ready to take your trial. any questions"

  “What's a trial?” I inquired

  “You joined the ascended without even knowing what a trial is, she said bafled “So unlike regular dimensional gates, which take you to the 4th dimension, these gates are like the quizzes before a test. They also grant abilities and traits, but you can only do them once, and if you die in their zone, you die permanently, but no damage transfers.”

  “Whens mine?”

  “We’ve scheduled yours for the nearest availability in 2 months. During this, you’ll be transferred to PAC(pre-ascend camp), where all your needs will be provided, and you’ll undergo various courses to boost your odds of survival.