A single tear trickled down the small girl's cheek as she hugged her father for the last time. Her father cried softly into her messy, wavy blonde hair.

'It's going to be okay, pumpkin,' the girl's father told her in between sobs.

The girl broke away from her father and nodded, her face now wet from crying. Her father wiped the girl's tears away with his thumbs, then gripped her face in both his hands.

'I'll miss you, Lucie.' He whispered.

'I'll miss you too, Daddy.' The girl spoke in a high, innocent voice.

The father and daughter stood inside a huge white building, a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, with dull grey chairs lining every wall. Sitting a few seats down from them was a mother and her son, a boy with dark hair who was about the same age as the girl. The girl watched in horror the boy being taken by two people in white coats, one man and one woman, away from his mother. She started crying again. She did not want to be separated from her father.

'Lucie, Lucie. It's alright.'

But her father's words brought no comfort to the crying girl. Tears continued to spill down her big blue eyes, dripping onto the clean floor.

'Sorry to interrupt.'

The girl jumped at the sound of an unfamiliar voice behind her. She wiped her face and turned around. The same two people that had taken the dark haired boy were here to take her as well. She turned back around to face her father.

'Are you going to be like Mummy?' She whimpered.

Her father did not answer. He looked down at his feet and then rose from his seat. He gently pushed his daughter to one side and looked the two people in the eyes.

'Take care of my little girl,' he spoke so quietly that he thought his daughter couldn't hear him. But she could.

'Of course, sir,' the woman said equally as quiet, 'you are doing a great thing.'

The girl's father took one step towards the woman.

'Don't make me regret it.'

Then he stepped away from her and squatted down next to his daughter. He pulled her into a tight embrace.

'Goodbye, Lucie.'

'Goodbye, Daddy.'

Then the man in the coat pulled the girl away from her father and the woman grabbed her by the hand.

'Thank you,' the man said to the girl's father.

And with that the girl was pulled away from her father, away from her old life.

Lucie blinked hard to stop herself from crying as the two strangers whisked her away from the room, and down a long corridor. The corridor was also pure white like the other room, but had several lights in it. There were tons of white doors lining the walls. Lucie counted fifty, but she was sure there were more. Each door had two names on it. Lucie didn't even try to read them all, they were walking too quickly. The only names she caught were the ones on the very first door she saw - 'Deedee and Stephen'. Suddenly the two people stopped walking. The woman let go of Lucie's hand. They turned to face a door on the left. The sign read 'Isaac and Lucie'.

'This is your room. You're going to stay here for a few hours, and then we will retrieve you to run a few tests. Then tomorrow we are changing your name. You won't remember your old name,' the woman spoke in a quick, harsh, tone.

'I think that's enough information,' the man glared at the woman.

Lucie looked up at them, her eyes wide with fear. She liked her name. She had been named after her mother.

The woman glared back up at the man, then shook her head slightly.

'Alright. In you go.'

She opened the door and pushed Lucie forcefully through it, then slammed the door shut behind her.

Lucie stood frozen inside the room, and caught one last exchange between the two strangers.

'Who was it that invented the Flat Trans?'

'Emma Furtan.'

'That's a good idea for a name.'

'But all the others have old names.'

'Not the Asian boy who came in a few days ago, Minho Chang was around at the time of the sun flares.'

'I suppose you're right.'

Then the two voices faded as they walked away, leaving Lucie behind. Lucie turned around and took in her new surroundings. The room was ridiculously small. A bunk bed and a toilet was all that was in the room, and there was close to no room around them. Lucie sat down carefully on the bottom bunk, and put her head in her hands. What was happening to her?

Then she looked up and saw a boy's head hanging down from the top bunk, staring right at her.
'Hello.'

Lucie screamed and jumped off the bed out of shock.
'Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down!'

The boy she had seen jumped down off the top bunk and stood next to her. He was shorter than her, with scruffy blonde hair and huge brown eyes. He looked about Lucie's age. She took a deep breath. He looked harmless.

'Who are you?' She croaked.

'I'm Isaac. Who are you?' The boy spoke in a British accent, his voice was quite low as well.

'I-I'm Lucie,' Lucie stammered. Then she remembered the woman telling her she was going to have her name changed, and her and the man discussing a woman named Emma Furtan.

'But I won't be Lucie for long though, I think they're changing my name to Emma.'

The boy smiled.

'Really? Emma's a good name. So is Lucie. They're changing my name to Newt I believe, after Isaac Newton. They thought they were rather funny when they thought of that. Do you know who you're being named after?'

'Emma Furtan,' Lucie said, although she did not know who Emma Furtan was until she heard the two people talking about her.

'Emma Furtan… didn't she invent the famous Flat Trans? Marvellous invention, that was.'

Lucie grinned. She liked the way Isaac talked, he sounded so intelligent.

'Yes, she did.'

Isaac gave Lucie a thumbs up, then plonked himself down on the bottom bunk.

'The first girl who came here came through a Flat Trans. Deedee.'

Lucie's eyes widened. Only really rich people had access to a Flat Trans.

'Wow.'

'I know.'

Lucie sat down next to Isaac on the bed.

'Why do you think we're still alive? How have we survived the Flare?' He asked her.
Lucie shook her head.

'I don't know. It's like some kind of miracle,' she muttered.

'I don't believe in miracles,' Isaac said bluntly.

'Why not?'

'They're simply a figure of the imagination made up as a fun reason to explain things that are out of the ordinary.'

Lucie nodded. She did believe in miracles, but she didn't feel like arguing with the boy.

'Do you know what kind of tests they're going to do on us today?' She asked.

'I have no bloody idea,' Isaac muttered.

Then he looked Lucie in the eyes and smiled again. And as of that moment, Lucie knew they would be great friends.