The air was rotten as we marched into the food hall. We were sat at a long table a seat apart from each other, and then served with a slop, which the delusional chefs called porridge. I looked out of the corner of my eye to see Jace right at the end, she was about to eat when the dark woman we had seen many times before walked in and took Jace away. We looked at each other with inquisitive looks on our faces when Sketch told us to continue eating. A cold swept through the air that chilled me to the bone and all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It was like there was something wrong, something that I couldn't understand. That's when it started to rain, hard and forceful on the roof of the halls. Winds battered the windows, and it started to hail heavily. This lasted for two minutes when the winds died down and when we were marched out I took a peek out of the windows I saw a white blizzard fall onto the ground. I'd seen snow before, but not in such a mass. We all looked at it in wonder until we were taken into the gymnasium and instructed to work out. They did this sometimes, just left us alone. This indicated that there was something wrong…
We craftily moved together and whispered really quietly.

"Did you see the snow?" Dennis said, his eyes bright with excitement. He swung backwards off a climbing bar and hung upside down for a moment.
Logan smiled and pulled Dennis down as he grabbed onto an overhead rack. Logan swung athletically from monkey bar to monkey bar to land on a platform across from Zack who was sitting at the top of a rail.
"It looks like it's settling," Zack then remarked before diving off into somersault in the air to land on his feet. He tagged me playfully with a smile on his face. I tousled his blond hair and rolled onto my back. Cindy was clambering up a rope, and she waved as she placed her feet on a stand to pull herself up.
"Do you think that we'll be able to see it?" I asked quietly. It did look inviting, the fresh and crisp whiteness that had suddenly covered the ground.
Everyone looked unsure; it wasn't like we regulated our own schedules. We all stared outside for a moment at the bright reflection of sunlight off the snow until Sketch and his goons walked in. He indicated for Logan and Cindy to climb down, and then we all stood to attention. He looked us up and down; I gaze directly ahead so that I don't catch his eye.

"Two mile run, starting in two minutes" was all he had to say. We exited from the gymnasium and I couldn't help but grin. We strapped on some boots then filed out. The start line was from the exercise court, through Manticore forest and a run down the mile long perimeter fence. We all started off together and as a piston went we trod in the soft white snow that crumpled under our feet. There was a taste of excitement in the air as the cold winds whipped our faces and freshly falling snow fell onto our rosy cheeks. Running through Manticore forest was relatively easy, just the now muddy snow impeded progress for a moment. But then as ran together down the fence we spotted a gate that had been left open. We all stopped and saw that the guard was absent…

None of us said anything. Then Logan took the opportunity. He stepped outside, and Dennis followed. Zack looked at them as if they were mad…then I too crossed the boundary. Zack was about to follow and I beckoned to Cindy who was just standing there with a look on her face that scared me. She looked at us if we were all traitors, and as the wind whipped up she glanced up to see the alarm lights start to flash on and off. Then a siren went and I knew that we had made a mistake. Zack immediately stepped back in and indicated to us that he was going to finish the course. Logan nodded; it was like every man for himself. He respected the fact that we were now in trouble and as the siren grew louder Dennis tried to get back into the Manticore compound but the gate slammed shut, and guards surrounded us from all sides. We knew not to fight and that's when it clicked in my mind. This had been a test, set up to see who was loyal to Manticore and who was not. It looked like we had just failed…