Reality sunk in quickly for Alden. At least when his base grade had been changed by his mother there was still hope, he'd need to work a bit harder but he still had a bright future ahead him however with this new development, the light that he'd been chasing had just been devoured by an endless darkness.
As he sat there lost in nothingness, he suddenly realized something. Alden began to laugh to himself, for whatever reason his mind felt clear again. He caught himself before those around could consider him a madman and hid the rest of his laughter.
"Alden, is everything alright?" Henry asked from behind.
"Yeah don't worry too much, I just remembered something funny." Alden stated as he plastered onto his face the most genuine fake smile he could muster.
As he sat there, a random song he'd heard a few times before coming here begun playing in his head not as a primary task for the brain but as artificial background noise that tuned out everything around creating a sense of peace as he mauled over his new discovery. The song was Blood//Water.
The words of the assistant base commander repeated several times in his head the tone getting influenced by the song to become something more sinister than it actually was. The scene in his mind took a drastic turn from what actually happened in reality. The sweet smile the woman had on her face became a twisted condescending smile that sent a chill crawling up his spine, her eyes originally delicate now looked like those of a predator toying with its prey before it rips it apart.
'Young man, 17 is not nearly enough qualification for our Research and Analysis department standards. Am sorry to inform you but you can't join that department.' The words souded clearly with the song hitting its peak in his mind.
'Bullshit, my qualifications were enough to get me into a prestigious grade A base's Research and Analysis department. Had my mother not interfered with the situation I would be in a better place than this and you want me to believe those same qualifications couldn't get me that department here, a mere grade B, an entire world worse than a grade A.' Alden thought, everything finally clicking into place.
Henry had noticed the sudden shift almost immediately not because he was particularly close to Alden but rather it felt more like intuition. He and everyone else failed to notice the silver in his eyes sparkle for a second before returning to normal. In this very moment, something within Alden had snapped. He had changed in more ways than could be described with words.
"Gentlemen, what's up?" Alden whipped around with that same unsettling smile on his face.
"What?" One of the boys blurted out clearly having been caught of guard by the sudden shift in behavior.
"I mean like what's going on, it's my first day so I might as well get along with the schedule." Alden explained.
His eyes darted around instinctively capturing the faces of the members of the small group. One of them he recognized very well, it was Aaron.
"Oh well you don't need us to explain it to you, the schedule's right there. Although I must warn you, don't get too comfortable with it, it changes depending on the current mission given to the sector HQ." Henry explained pointing at the digital mission board.
The board was packed with information that the students were supposed to memorize. It consisted of the current mission information, some side missions and objectives given by some of this sector's supervisors and finally the schedule. The schedule contained activities going about a week forward and each hour of the day up to 4:00pm was designated for something. The actual mission was to be taken care of a bit at a time at specific times within the schedule.
Of course, due to the distance there was between Alden and the board, he couldn't fully read the details. Now at any point Alden could have gotten up and just gone to check the information properly as a few other students had even done this, but what would be the point. Alden's mind had flipped a metaphorical switch, he couldn't pinpoint how he was in the past but now, he'd only do things when he felt like it and right now, he didn't feel like going closer to check the mission board properly.
So he sat there, listening as the group discussed all sorts of things without him. The day went by fairly slowly. A strange new phenomenon had begun to occur in Alden's mind. Alden loved music fairly moderately, he had a unique talent that allowed him to record a song he liked in his mind and replay it based on pure instinct before memorizing the lyrics. Currently, this talent of his had entered overdrive, every song he'd ever heard before played themselves in rotation within his mind slowly filtering themselves until a select few were picked out and started repeating themselves within.
This phenomenon allowed Alden to tune out the world around him more effortlessly but came with the unintended effect of making it hard for him to focus. Due to this his ability to maintain a conversation took a severe hit to the point where after a few sentences, he'd begin to feel mental exhaustion and a creeping headache. The only solution he found to this was to just shut his mouth and listen more to the other party only speaking when asked a question or when his input was necessary.
His behavior slipped under the radar this time, those around him opted to believe in a unanimously thought out reason. The reason, he was a typical quiet kid who tried to force himself into socializing with them. They believed he would warm up to them over time and even though they never spoke a word of their thoughts to the others, a sense of understanding washed over each of them.
Alden meanwhile was having a very bad time keeping up this mystery as his Ressence reserves hit critical levels. Just as he was about to release his influence on reality, the same influence that caused the coincidental misunderstanding in everyone's minds, the siren sounded signaling the end of the day's activities. The students were to return to their barracks.