Darkness from the night before had just began it's descent in to morning when his eyes sprang open and legs swung off the bed to lift himself up to a standing position in one brief movement. Springs in the mattress creaked and press in to his hands as he pushed his torso up, the thought of needing to get a new bed quickly dashed by the reminder that soon he would have no use for it.
In the shower no effort was made to scrub or cleanse his hair but he stood eyes closed under the hot water slowly rocking his body to maintain the temperature evenly. Distracted by the ebbing grasp of sleep mixed with the constant thought of the materials he needed to remember in order to pass the test he would be taking in the coming days the water slowly began to lose heat despite turning the knob towards the hottest setting. Finally his daze was kicked and the soap grabbed to fulfill the actual purpose of his shower. After a brief scrub of a short shaved scalp the ice-cold water was turned off and the curtain pulled back to grab his towel while stepping in to the humid fog of the bathroom.

Drying himself off and wiping the mirror free of mist he stood for a few seconds staring in to his own reflection looking back. It wasn't the first time he had had to wake up this early in the morning. A few school trips he had gone on required him to be on the bus as early as 4am if they were driving somewhere real far away. For the last 3 months he had been waking up at 5am and ready to head out the door to his waiting carpool by 5:30.

The radio sparked to life as the schoolboy dressed in blue overalls walked past giving the knob a practiced twist. Clanking of pans in the kitchen over fought with the sounds coming out of the device in the next room over. An arm reached around the doorless archway to the table housing the radio and turned the volume up. More clattering from the kitchen briefly interrupted by the opening and closing of a fridge door were joined more coherently by the news report of what the days weather would be. Hot temperatures, light cloud cover, and low winds were the last thing he had wished would happen after a week of heavy rains left the ground soggy with moisture fighting it's way through the air every morning after the sun had burnt away the nightly cloudcover.

Sunlight was now beginning to stream in to the kitchen when the pans were tossed carelessly towards the sink and a plate of breakfast sat as a porcelain oasis against such a large table. The sounds of fork and knife against the plate was easily drowned out by the continued blarings of the nearby radio sat on an endtable opposite the dining room from where he was eating. An old thing kept as a curiosity by his parents and only capable of producing sounds with a slight crackle, it held up as reliably as anyone else's that he knew so he saw no need to replace it. At the back of his mind he knew it also held a sentimental value to him but he had been no stranger to replacing other things which carried a similar price.

Just 2 years after a diplomatic blunder caused two of the world's three major super-powers to nearly come to a full-on war, the treaty established by the three powers is set to begin its first phase of fulfilling the goals they set out to accomplish. In just a few weeks construction will begin on the first drydock in space capable of creating a ship of the scale required for the Caravan Global Peace Project. Not only has a project of this size never been attempted, but with most of the planet nearly ready to go to war only two years ago people are left to wonder if this is an endeavor that will ultimately unite the planet or provide more surface for hostile forces to create friction.

Realizing the food was left unseasoned in his rush to begin eating he pushes the table away from him and quickly strides over to the nearby cabinet where a small set of glass salt and pepper shakers sat stored. The table squealed against the wooden floor as it was dragged back in to place and the clatter of rapid eating recommenced. Across the room the radio continued to drone on about the upcoming peace project, conflicts in various parts of the world, and finally an update on the baseball scores from yesterday to reveal the Mariners lost another game. Although the volume had been turned up he still refused to actually listen to what was being said. Instead he continued to eat while staring out a window at the valley below being illuminated by the rising sun and Mount Rainier looming in the distance always acting as a constant reminder of both where and how small you were.

Sitting between the waking valley and his seat at the dining table was the road that went past his house which still lied covered in the shadow of the hill it rested on. Although his house was met on both sides with neighbors, across the street was a sharp decline which prevented other houses from being built and ensured that the view of the valley would always be there to greet the day. In one direction the road continued to follow the curvature of the hill, meandering through openings in the thick blanket of evergreens and leading briefly in to the Cascades before unceremoniously becoming some unknown forestry road. The other direction led shortly to an avenue that descended the hills towards the yawning city below fraught with massive boring rectangles of corrugated sheet metal and parking lots still nearly empty of the cars which carry the lifeblood of the nation to their day's tasks.

5:25AM