The lights in the room were a dim shade of white.
If a moth was in the room perhaps not even this insect would be entranced by such a pathetic source of light.
The small office was encapsulated by four suffocating grey walls that were inescapable.
Every couple of minutes, the lights would flicker and the person's face that sat across from her would disappear.
Every couple of minutes, Ivory would return into the nightmare she desperately wanted to forget.
In the darkness, Ivory rummaged in the box in front of her to retrieve any food supplies she could garner.
Echoes of gulping and tearing spread across the room.
Eliza sips slowly at her coffee from across the table, "How are you feeling?"
The lights turned back on, revealing the middle aged woman's tired eyes.
Ivory says with a small smile, "I'm feeling better."
Eliza nods her head, "Good. Good."
She takes out a notepad from her desk and checks off a few boxes.
Ivory's eyes tried to fixate on what the middle aged woman was writing down but she couldn't comprehend it.
Eliza asks, "You're a mutation user, right?"
Ivory nods her head.
Eliza says in an eerily calm tone, "It's pretty normal for sunburn users with the mutation to lose control, I've heard. I guess something about approaching a negative caloric value makes all of your minds act up."
Ivory sits silently.
Didn't Lyra mention something about mutated sunburn users during the training camp?
Yes, these individuals could go below their caloric limit and use their muscles or fats to produce energy.
Eliza gets up, knocking her coffee mug on her desk onto her white dress shirt.
She stood still however unfazed.
Eliza adjusts her red swan on her shirt and the stain seems to disappear instantly.
Ivory's mouth was agape.
Rematerialization didn't even account for an object being dirty, it was usually if an object was broken.
How did she do that?
Ivory gets up, smiling widely, "How does your shirt do that? Also where can I buy a shirt like that?"
Eliza chuckles, "Just a special outfit kind of outfit I guess. It's unfortunately not for sale."
The two of them walk out of the office and into a different larger room.
The walls were all a deep shade of red, reinforced with wooden pillars, and the room contained an array of treadmills accompanied by a variety of different machinery.
Eliza yawns, almost falling asleep as she walks.
The middle aged woman was clearly sleep deprived.
Coffee however clearly wasn't a solution.
Take that piece of advice from a barista.
Eliza says vaguely, "We're just going to do some testing."
Ivory says, "What kind of testing?"
What kind of testing could she be talking about that involved her running on a treadmill?
This seemed like some kind of a trick to make her do exercise…
Eliza stops next to one of the treadmills, "Go ahead. Get on."
A large rubber band device was attached at the center of the treadmill as she got on top of the machine.
Eliza motions toward her waist, "Step into the rubber band."
Ivory follows her directions and slips into the rubber band.
The cold elastic band tightly wrapped around her waist.
Ivory winces in pain.
Could the effects of her overexertion still be playing a role even at this very moment?
Why did her back seem to ache so much?
Eliza motions her to wrap the other light bands around her shoulders and finally attach the loose center piece to her chest.
Eliza says, "I'll be able to track how many calories you're burning per minute in relation to your heartbeat per minute with the caloric pulse converter."
These unimaginable inventions created during the shift didn't interest her.
She really just didn't want to run…
Ivory says with a frown, "How long do I have to run for?"
Eliza bends down, "Two hours at a steady pace."
Ivory sighs.
Eliza pulls out a mechanical notebook placed inside a hidden compartment of the ramp of the treadmill.
The notebook's exterior was made entirely of steel.
Upon opening the shiny silver faceplate, there were several quarters in a dataset being written down by the device on its synthetic paper.
Eliza points toward the quarters, "I'll break these next two hours into four quarters. In each of the quarters, I'll observe if there's any abnormalities in how you're burning calories."
Eliza smiles, glancing up from the mechanical notebook, "Just try your best and you'll do fine."
Ivory smiles politely, "Alright."
The first quarter starts, Ivory runs at a steady pace.
Approximately running at six miles per hour.
The elastic band wrapped around her body and stung her back every step she took.
Ivory winces.
Damn it.
Why did I have to be wrapped up in this shitty situation?
Why did I lose control?'
A new thought stung more than the pain in her back once it popped up in her mind.
Would everyone treat me as an outsider now?
Ivory gritted her teeth.
Would Ronan and Iris treat me differently?
Would they both treat me like a monster?
The more she thought deeply, the more time passed.
The quarters ended one after the next.
Ivory's focus drifted approaching the end of the final quarter at the end of the last hour.
The timer on the treadmill finally reached a distance of 12 miles with a finishing time of 2:00:00.
Ivory pressed the power button and breathed heavily.
The entire experience was exhausting and somehow Ivory began to get hungry yet again.
Ivory turned to see Eliza resting her ahead against the machine.
She tapped her shoulder in which the middle aged woman was awoken and quickly analyzed the data set.
Eliza says in a groggy tone, "Let's go to the office."
Ivory removed herself from the rubberbands attached to the machine.
The feeling of unease on her back, slowly drifting away with no additional pressure on her back.
The young woman followed the proctor into the office.
Eliza turned on the coffee machine on her desk to produce another cup of coffee.
Eliza points toward the box of food and the packets of water placed on the treatment table to indulge in until she is done analyzing the data set.
Eliza sipped slowly on her mug, her eyes danced around the different data points on the mechanical notebook.
A few minutes later, Eliza was done.
Eliza says coldly, "There are abnormalities in your readings."
Ivory's eyes widened, "What abnormalities?"
Eliza says, "In each of your quarters you're estimated to use 10% of your total caloric maximum. That means after you ran for four quarters, you used forty percent of your caloric maximum. That's suspiciously high."
Eliza lays back in her chair, taking a moment to think.
The middle aged woman stands up, "I'll be right back."
Eliza leaves the room in a rush and brings back the caloric pulse converter.
Eliza says, "I'm going to use the caloric pulse converter to put you to sleep for a little bit. I need to take a closer look at you with some of my equipment to find out what's the issue."
Ivory gulps, "Okay."
Ivory laid down on the medical treatment table as the device was placed on her chest.
Eliza pulls out a pair of ear plugs from her pockets, "See you in a little bit, Ivory."
A long high pitched ringing sound surrounded the room, knocking Ivory unconscious.
The young woman opened her eyes.
She wasn't in the office anymore.
A faceless woman stood before her, wearing a top hat, a black suit, and appearing to have a pair of red keys for eyes.
Ivory couldn't move. No matter how desperately she wanted to.
Ivory watches while the tall creature gets closer and closer to the orange bed of the inn she stayed in, the past few nights.
The young woman closed her eyes.
She didn't want to see what may happen next.
Eliza says softly, "Ivory, wake up."
Ivory shoots up from the treatment table. She felt a strange sense of relief on her back.
Eliza's voice trails off, "I couldn't help but overhear how you were talking about the innkeeper in your sleep.."
Ivory holds her head, "I had some kind of a nightmare."
Eliza says, "Maybe but I wouldn't be so sure."
The middle aged woman holds out an object that was entirely transparent.
Ivory stares at her with a perplexed expression on her face.
What was she holding?
Eliza says, "Oh… right."
Eliza shakes the device revealing a machine that resembles a black mechanized ribcage. In the center of the machine, there was a yellow meter that showcased different energy levels.
Ivory asks with unease, "What is it?"
Eliza says, "This device.. was on your back."
Ivory's mouth was agape, "My back?"
Eliza wiggles the device, "All I know so far is this device steals calories or energy inside of your body and outputs it into this small portable generator."
Ivory says, "The innkeeper… Do you think that she placed this on me?"
Eliza shrugs, "The details are murky. I've heard a few things here and there that could prove that hypothesis correct but there's not enough evidence to fully prove it."
Ivory's hands grip the sides of the table, "How else do you explain this? Who else would place this device on me?"
Eliza holds out her palms, "Calm down, Ivory. You don't have to worry about staying in that inn anymore anyways. That was temporary. Lyra has taken the initiative to set up an alternative camp for sunburn users which are trainees to live in."
Ivory smiles grimly, "Yeah, how lovely of her. Lyra knew the point system would leave us in a bunch of shitty positions after all of us went into hiding."
Eliza raises an eyebrow, "Ivory, what are you implying?"
Ivory gets up, "That she took her sweet time."
Ivory shakes her head, "I just can't trust any of you. Tell Lyra to bring us both back to this supposedly new camp so I can rest."
Eliza pulls out a small glass display from her pocket to send a message to Lyra.
The two of them disappear in an instant..
Ivory and Eliza make it outside the subsequent room 101 to be greeted with several large green tents.
Ivory turns toward Eliza, "Do you know which part of that tent I'm staying in?"
Eliza's face contorts as if she was actively fighting for control of some kind.
Ivory glances toward her hands where the machine wiggles around sporadically.
The insect-like device squirms, attempting to stab the proctor's hands with its sharp appendages, trying to break free from her grasp.
Ivory says, "Shit."
The machine at that moment, successfully launches itself free from her grasp.
The ribcage-like device rolls away at an incomprehensible speed toward the large green tent in the distance.