Charlie looked at the nondescript, yet ominous looking building that lay before him. The trial center for his state was his destination, the moment he had looked forward to as a kid now presented itself in all of its terrifying glory.
Charlie was like every other kid from his small town in what used to be rural Missouri. From a young age they were prepared for this day in their fifteenth year, the day that they would be tested and find their new place in society. Do well, and it meant a life of hard work, but relative comfort as one of the chosen, the leaders of this new society that had risen from the ashes of the broken and deplorable world that had nearly driven humanity to extinction. Fail...and that meant that their existence would suddenly be over. Not in the literal sense of course; they would continue to live. But everything that made you the man that you were would cease to be. Simply because you wouldn't be a man anymore. The idea of being transformed into a woman...a breeder...no better than a mindless slave...was not an enticing one to Charlie. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed his bag and slowly entered into the building.
After checking in with the clerk in the front and giving him his name, Charlie went to his assigned dormitory and prepared to unpack. He had said his goodbyes to his parents and younger siblings before he left, and he couldn't help but feel a pang of homesickness in his gut. He let that feeling be smothered though, he couldn't afford to show any kind of emotional weakness. Any sign of depression or caring of his past life would not look good for him when his every move, his every action was to be judged for the next three weeks. Family units only existed between the parents and the younger children. Once you turned 15, your family was behind you and no longer thought of as such. If you succeeded, then your father would essentially be like your new brother, an equal in this society in stature if not overall rank. Certainly there was a hierarchy within the society, but men more or less treated each other as kin; shared bonds of experience if not blood. Survive the trials and your mother and younger siblings would be beneath you. Objects not to be revered or cared for, but treated as the utilitarian objects that they were. Still, a small part of Charlie was still emotionally attached to his younger siblings...and even his mother to some degree. He figured it was common in the early days, and hoped that it wouldn't count too much against him if he slipped up in the first day.
The dorm was a fairly functional set of four rooms; three bedrooms (with two beds to a room) and a single common area for recreation and studying. Meals were taken in a communal dining hall with the whole of the campus. The campus itself was fairly large, with anywhere between 50 to 100 dorms in it, though not all of them were in use at any given time. He knew that his dorm would be full, and he idly hoped that his best friend, Timothy, would be joining him in his dorm. They had been friends ever since the 1st grade, and each relied on the other for support. What Charlie lacked in athletics he more than made up for in intelligence. Both would be factors in determining if he survived into his preferred adulthood. Reaching the dorm, Charlie was happy to see Timothy in the common room, though bummed that he wouldn't be his overall roomate. Timothy was a fairly good looking young man, with sandy blonde hair and a fair complexion. Charlie himself wasn't much to look at, with a freckled face and dirty red hair that he had inherited from his mother. He idly wondered if he looked like his mother had when she was in this position. When she had faced the trials, failed, and became the woman that he knew now. When he had failed in his quest to become a man, and simply been cast aside...
...Again Charlie didn't let himself think about it to much. It might not be a fair system, he reminded himself, but it was the only one that kept them from backsliding into the lawlessness and destruction of the before time. He idly made small talk with Timothy while the other members of his dorm arrived. Twin boys, George and Gerald, were in one of the other bunks. Twins weren't unheard of in this world, but they were uncommon, particularly identical twins. It was hard to tell the both of them apart. Both were built like linebackers and had jet black hair to go with their rugged looking features. Charlie joked that it looked like they had already been through the trials once by the look of them, a joke which the two took in stride. Timothy's roommate was a kid named Lance. He appeared cocky and sure of himself, with curly red hair similar to Charlie's but at twice the height and without any of the freckles. He also seemed to be an asshole, given the laughter he garnered when Charlie's roommate arrived, a mousy kid named Daniel who wore glasses and spoke very quietly, like he was trying to blend into the background. Lance immediately said that Charlie and Daniel were sure to become "cunted" as was the slang term, something that Charlie took offense to. The rough housing stopped though when they were called into a reveille and for their evening meal.
Dinner went off without a hitch, Charlie idly discussing exactly what the trials might be and how they would fare. Charlie couldn't help but notice Daniel though seemed even more uncomfortable with the situation. Silently, he shrugged and tried to ignore it, stating that if Daniel didn't shape up, he'd be sent to the "girl showers" for sure. That was the slang term for the Feminizing wing, where boys were sent and hyper-feminine sex objects came back out, all semblance of free will, intelligence, and confidence stripped from them so they could become doting housewives and mothers to the real men of society. After dinner, Charlie settled in for an early rest, unsure of what the next day would bring. He saw Daniel already in bed, covered up to his head despite the relative warmth of the spring day. Shrugging, Charlie turned in for what would happen next...