Today was the day Norm, Jake, and I were to transfer into our avatars. It had been just yesterday we arrived on Pandora, but Grace wanted things up and moving as soon as possible. I woke up first, and had to wake up both Jake and Norm. It was 5 am on Pandora and the sun had risen.

I grabbed Norm by the shoulders and aggressively shook him awake. He groaned and rolled over, facing the wall. I did the same for Jake and he didn't budge. I rolled my eyes and filled up two cups of ice water and walked over to their beds. I stood in between them, outstretched my arms over each of their heads, and dropped the cups of water onto them. They instantly jolted upwards and uttered profanities under their breath at me.

"Rise and shine!" I said in a sing-songy voice. "I'll get you back for that!" Jake called out, sliding off the bed into his wheelchair. "What are you gonna do? Run over my toes?" I joked. "You got it!" He zoomed towards me as fast as he could and I ran down the hallway laughing. We made it to the kitchen out of breath and giggling.

Norm joined us shortly after, still putting on his shirt. "What are you having for breakfast?" I asked, opening the fridge searching for some familiar breakfast foods. I found some eggs, milk, cereal, and some vegetables that had been grown in space on the transport ship.

"I'll take an omelette please!" Norm said, raising his hand. I pulled out some eggs, peppers, and bacon and placed it on the counter beside the stovetop. "Can you make it runny? I love runny eggs." "You can make your omelette runny." His jaw dropped and he gave me a look of shock and confusion. "What? I'm not your mother. You can make your own food." I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

"Ughhhhh" Norm whined. He stood up and dramatically stomped over to the stovetop, preparing himself and omelette. "Oh can I have one too?" Norm looked over his shoulder at Jake in exasperation. "Hey, I'm a cripple. I have an excuse." He held his hands up in mock surrender. I giggled at them and got myself some cereal.

Once everyone was done eating, we headed down to the transferring area where Grace was there waiting for us already. "Took you long enough!" She said as she walked over to me. "I hope it wasn't too much trouble forcing these two out of bed." She told me. "Nah, the ice water worked really well." She smiled and led us over to three coffin-like contraptions.

"These are your link units." She gestured to the boxes. They had computer screens beside them, showing data from our avatar bodies' brain activity. "Norm, I assume you and Sena know how these work?" Norm and I nodded and walked over to our link units while she gave Jake a brief walk through of what to do.

I laid down in my unit and pulled the metal bars over my head and chest. Grace then walked over to me. "Ready to go?" She sighed. "I guess so..." I laughed nervously. "I'll meet you on the other side." She told me before pressing a red button that closed up my link unit. I relaxed the best I could and let my mind go blank.

I opened my eyes and saw two medical staff shining a flashlight in each of my eyes and snapping their fingers beside my ears, checking my body's responsiveness. I sat up and held my hands out in front of me. I was huge! I felt extremely strong too. I tapped each of my fingers to my thumbs like the medical staff instructed, and wiggled my toes. Norm became concious beside me not long after, and repeated the motor exercises.

Suddenly Jake stood up and struggled to remain balanced. 'Shit' I thought. 'He's going to try to use his legs.' Just like that, he was standing up and ripping IVs out of his body and knocking things over with his tail. The medical staff yelled out to him, demanding he sit down. Max's voice came through the speakers from the other side of the glass above us. "Jake, you need to slow down. You're not used to your avatar body-" "This is great, this is so great!" Jake laughed leaning against the glass window looking at Max.

"Jake! Listen to Max and sit your blue ass down!" I yelled. He looked at me and shot me a wink before wobbling out the doorslike a huge blue toddler. "Jake! Wait!" Norm called. "I'll go get him." I stood up, much to the discontent of the medical staff. "Sena!" Max yelled over the speakers. I turned to face the window and he gave me a serious look. "Be careful." I gave him a reassuring nod and ran out the door after Jake.

In just a few minutes he had gone from being unable to walk at all, to running around on an unfamiliar planet. I ran after him through a field of crops. I was much faster than before, I felt like I was flying. I caught up to him and grabbed his arm. "What the hell were you thinking! This is the shit that will get you kicked out of the program!" I hissed at him. He smiled down at me, "I can use my legs." Was all he said. He was in a state of pure bliss. I seriously thought he was about to cry.

Who I assumed to be Grace's avatar, came walking towards us. she had her dark hair tied back into a ponytail with a couple small braids adorned with beads at the front of her head. "Hey marine!" she called, tossing a fruit towards him. "Think fast." He caught it and examined it. "Good reflexes." She nodded her head in approval. Jake bit into the fruit and sighed as if it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. He handed me the fruit and I bit into it as well. It was juicy and sweet. I'd never tasted anything quite like it before.

"Guys look, GUYS!" Norm yelled, running straight at us with his butt hanging out the back of his hospital gown. He skidded to a stop in the dirt near us. "I am a living GOD!" He did a couple strongman poses before losing his balance, and toppling over into the dirt. Grace and I laughed at him and I held out a hand towards him.

"Come on, let's go get some proper clothes. Your ass is hanging out of your dress." He immediately covered his exposed rear end in embarrassment. Jake laughed. "Nice butt buddy." "Oh shut up." He rolled his eyes at Jake.

I walked over to Grace who led us to a big cabin, where all the people in the program rested their avatars. I was given a pair of booty shorts and a tank top that only went half way down my torso.

"Grace, what is this?" I gestured to the outfit. She rolled her eyes. "This place is run by men. So we've been provided with crop tops and tiny shorts due to a fabric shortage." She made sarcastic air quotes at the last part. "Ughhh" I threw my head back and flopped onto my bed. "It's really not that bad. It looks nice on you. Plus, it gets hot out here. You'll be thankful for the lack of covering clothing soon."

I smothered my face in a pillow when Norm and Jake walked into the sleeping area of the cabin. "Is she all good?" Jake asked, pointing at me. "She'll be fine." Grace said, patting Jake's shoulder and walking out of the room. Norm lifted my pillow off my head, and placed it on the bed next to mine. "Come on Sena, forget whatever's bugging you and let's go look around!" I sat up and smiled at Norm. "Sure, let's go."

We spent the rest of the day exploring the camp and tasting crops we weren't supposed to. We almost got caught a couple times, but the metal soldier suits were no match for our new found alien speed. Nearing the evening, we ran into a couple sting-bats near the outer fence, which we took as our sign to go back to the cabin.

When we got back we got a dirty look from Grace, to which we smiled innocently and walked to our beds in the back of the cabin. We sat and chatted with the other people around us.

"Hey! I'm Norah, what's your name?" A girl beside me asked. Her avatar was extremely tall and had beautiful swirling stripes framing her face and collarbone. She had curly dark hair and a shorter braid than most of us.

"I'm Sena." I smiled at her. "First timer?" She asked and I nodded. "Me and those two dumbasses over there." I gestured across the room to Jake and Norm who were fiddling with their braids like curious children. Norah laughed and gestured to a girl in the corner of the room opposite to us, who was reading a book intently.

"That's my sister, Catherine. We came to Pandora together when we were 19." "That's really young." I thought out loud. "Yes," she laughed nervously, tucking her hair behind her ear. "We came from a Russian science department. They started our training before we finished high school." She looked deep in thought and sighed.

"Have you been outside the camp before?" I asked. "Yes, once." She got a more serious look on her face. "My avatar body was almost killed by a thanator, so I've decided I'll be of use inside the wall from now on. My sister, on the other hand, leaves camp all the time. She does research on the animals and almost gets killed on a weekly basis. She has got some great stories."

"Wow, sounds like nature's a lot more intense here than on earth." I said, looking down at my sheets. "Yeah, cause we have no nature anymore." Norah joked. "I wonder if things are changing for the better back on earth." She sighed.

"Lights out people!" Grace called, turning off the lights and closing the metal gate to outside. "Well, I guess we'd better go to sleep before Grace rips our tongues out for talking." Norah told me. I laughed a bit and rolled over on my bed.

I let my mind go blank and the next thing I knew, I was back in my normal body, inside the link unit. It whirred and opened, allowing me to get out. Jake and Norm were out before me and began making their way down to our room to get to bed. We were all extremely tired from the long day.

I felt strange after being in the avatar body. My mind was reeling and was exhausted but my body felt like it had just woken up from a long nap. When we finally got back to the dorm I flopped into bed, not even bothering to change into my pjs.

Norm began snoring across the room and I rolled over dramatically to face the opposite way of him. After he had quieted his snoring, I let my mind drift off into a much needed sleep, and hoped that soon, I'd get to go outside the camp like Norah.