I need to continue

Limer also finishes hers. It’s surprisingly colorful; she seems to have mixed a bunch of peppers, salt, and other seasonings. The yolk looks perfectly golden, and the edges have a particularly uniform crispiness. Camille also looks to have finished hers. The egg she made looks almost identical to the teacher’s, but she then takes a cutter and shapes it like a heart. It’s almost cute, if I can say so.

“The presentation is important too, but I should say I’m curious to taste the one that Limer made.”

The teacher nods and walks over to us, clapping her hands and rearranging the cooking stations into one table.

“This is exactly what we’re going to do now. You guys can even help each other by saying what could be improved on each other’s work.”

She then focuses on the table, and in a few moments, several trays emerge from under it in the same cold mist. There’s a full meal that looks to be made to be eaten with our eggs. The teacher takes each of our eggs and rotates them around the table so each of us gets to taste each one.

Johan’s dull egg is just that—dull. He doesn’t even seem to have put salt on it. Camille’s heart-shaped egg is just a heart with bites taken out of it. The taste is somehow just… regular. Limer’s egg tastes simply amazing. I don’t like things too spicy, but even then, it’s not a bad taste. The others seem to think so too. Mine looks like just some mistake. There’s nothing special about it. Its yolk is slightly broken since I wasn’t able to keep it fully intact, and I’m almost sure some shell fell into it… The teacher was supposed to give us a report about our cooking right now, or a moment after? Remember, Layla, what happened after that meal? Ugh, my hand hurts…

“Cali!!!”

I call her from my room, where I’m sitting at my desk with the diary she gave me after we left school today. I was expecting it to be a simple task, but I can’t quite remember what happened earlier today precisely. A few moments later, I hear Cali’s footsteps running upstairs as she opens my door, worried, only to find me not wanting to do the homework she gave me.

“Do I really need to write everything down? I mean, after that awful cooking class, we didn’t do much, right? My hand is hurting. Look!”

Cali sighs as she comes closer to me. She looks annoyed but not mad as she takes my hand and starts to rub it, applying some kind of gel that feels cold on my skin. My hand wasn’t really sore, but I appreciate her care. She starts to talk to me in a soft tone while applying the gel.

“You remember you agreed to participate in any activity Camille suggested? You can make some effort. Calligraphy was one of the activities Camille said she does.”

I look at her and try my best puppy-dog eyes, hoping it will make her forget about me writing this diary, as I say,

“But it’s so boring. My hand hurts, and I can’t even read what I write. Isn’t it supposed to be something I’d like? How could I like something like that?”

As she comes closer to see what I’ve written, she can only see some strange scribbles that look more like random lines on the paper. But after a brief moment, she’s able to decipher what I wrote and says,

“Oh, you’re on the culinary lesson part? It looks fun. Since your hand is hurt, let’s go downstairs and eat dinner. You can continue later.”

She takes the notebook I was writing in and starts to walk out of the room, gesturing for me to follow her to dinner. I have to say, I’m still impressed by how she was able to read what I wrote. She stops at the door as I’m getting up and says,

“Just don’t give up on writing these diaries yet, okay? I want to see the way you see the world around you. So, even if you’re not going to continue with calligraphy, please keep writing these for me.”

I follow her downstairs right after she says this. I sit at the dinner table and wait. As I sit there, I watch Cali press some buttons on our kitchen. I can’t see well behind the counter, but I know she’s preparing something tasty, as always.

Just five minutes pass, and there’s a full dinner, including a heart-shaped egg. It looks to have been seasoned with the same things Limer used earlier. What was all that struggle from earlier?

“Did you prepare the same thing Limer prepared earlier? The appearance and taste are almost the same.”

“Oh, yeah, I improved it a bit. The teacher gave me everyone’s data so I could make it myself.”

I sigh and lay my head on the table, my ears flat against my head as I simply stare at nothing. What was the point of all that earlier? The same food, even better, is right in front of me again.

“You look lost, Layla. Is something wrong? I know this new school isn’t what you expected, but I’m sure it will be fun. Look at how many friends you made today.”

I look at Cali and then down at the food as I say,

“You don’t understand, Cali. It’s not about being fun or not… I simply don’t know why I should go there. Before, I was taught how to read and how the world works, but now I need to learn what to do with my life from now on.”

I sigh deeply as I finish saying that. This struggle is something I won’t figure out so fast, I’m sure of that.

“Actually, I understand what you mean. I’m a robot, remember? I know exactly what you need to figure those thoughts out, okay? But first, let me tell you something that might motivate you a little more. Alias has a special event at the end of every week where you can participate in activities in any area and compete against other students. This means that as long as you have knowledge about something, you can participate in those competitions and win a trophy if you win. What do you think? You could enter with those games you play.”

I turn my head to her, slightly interested, and ask,

“If what you have to offer is just some competition, I’m out. I can play without pressure whenever I want.”

“Hehehe, that’s where I got you, little Layla. Those tournaments are cumulative, and you get one trophy for each category won. And that means two things. One is that you can become an acknowledged student and ask for special goodies from the school once you accumulate enough achievements. So, what do you think? We could do a lot of different activities and win a lot of goodies for you. So, what do you think?”

My cat ears perk up slightly as I hear that. I still try to sound uninterested, but my body won’t help me hide it, as even my tail struggles to stay still.

“Well, it’s not like some basic competition schedule would motivate me to do homework, right? I mean, what would those goodies even be? There’s nothing that would interest me anyway, even if it was those new VR stations that were just released, or a massage bot…”

I swallow hard as I finish eating quickly and start to go upstairs, saying,

“I’m going back to that diary of yours. My hand’s already feeling good.”

“She’s always so greedy. I hope she doesn’t force herself too much.”

After a few hours of writing nothing more than unintelligible scribbles in the notebook, I fall asleep. I keep trying my best to write, even if it’s meaningless. The promise of goodies is enough to fuel me.

The next day, I wake up tired, wanting to sleep just a few more minutes, but my alarm clock rings nonstop. As I take it in my hand, I see something unusual. Why does the title of the alarm say “Meeting with the Singularity”? I didn’t set it myself. Cali probably set it while I was asleep.