Chapter 041 - Skyscraper 01

  I found myself once again in that blank, bewildering white void.

  It was the kind of emptiness that erased your sense of self—no sound, no shape, no texture, not even a whisper of movement. Just me and an endless white that stretched in all directions, smothering time itself.

  I must have sat there for two days, maybe more. There was no sun to rise or fall, no clock to tick away the hours—only the ache of boredom gnawing at the edge of my mind like a slow, dull blade.

  Eventually, I stood. My legs were stiff, reluctant, but they moved. I began to walk, aiming for the border—or whatever passed for it in this infinite nothingness.

  Even finding the edge was a trial. Only the sudden flare of laser warnings—thin red lines slicing down from nowhere—let me know I was nearing it. I pressed a cautious hand against the invisible perimeter, cold and unyielding.

  From my pocket, I pulled out a small token: a steel coin with Cupid’s face etched into it. A souvenir from the last round, stolen in secret. I placed it on the ground as a marker and began walking along the border, each step counted aloud in my head.

  At 135,000 steps, I caught a glint of light on the ground. My heart jumped—I thought I’d come full circle. But as I bent to examine it, I saw it was just a button I’d torn from my shirt during my first circuit.

  I picked it up slowly, disappointment weighing down my fingers.

  This place was far bigger than I’d thought.

  So I kept walking. Hours, days—who could tell? The act of moving became automatic, a rhythm etched into my bones. Then, at last, I saw it again: that same Cupid coin gleaming faintly on the ground.

  I bent down, picked it up, and checked my count.

  Seven hundred ninety-three thousand steps.

  A week of endless walking. No sleep. No rest. No destination.

  I stood there for a long time, unmoving, as if I’d become part of the void itself.

  During our brief stay in the plaza after the last trial, I’d spoken with the others—players like me, scattered souls thrust into this strange game. We’d asked each other the same desperate questions:

  "Do you remember anything? Your name? Your past? Anything at all?"

  No one remembered. Not a face, not a home, not even a birthday. The only names we had were numbers the system gave us.

  Where had we come from?

  We were like duckweed floating rootless on a pond, like rivers without sources, trees growing from air—adrift, disconnected, unknowable.

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  No past. No future.

  Just fragments of instinct, knowledge etched into our minds without memory of learning. Muscle memory without context. A hollow sort of wisdom.

  Were we still human?

  I let out a bitter laugh and slumped down near the border, flipping the coin between my fingers.

  Probably not. But if not human, then what? Ghosts haunting a machine? Puppets dancing for unseen hands?

  I sat there in silence for an unknowable span of time. Then, without warning, a familiar sound broke through the void—a mechanical chime, sharp and sterile, followed by the roar of artificial life.

  This time, the "music" was different. Less melody, more noise: honking car horns, garbled subway announcements, the murmur of passing conversations. The clatter of cups in a café, the rustle of newspapers, the scratch of pencils on paper, the crinkle of plastic being torn open.

  It was city noise—a collage of urban chaos.

  Then came the voice. Cold. Monotone. Mechanical.

  “Congratulations, Player No. 32. You have cleared the third round. You may now choose whether to proceed to the next level.”

  I didn’t respond.

  It repeated the message, exactly the same.

  This time, I spoke. “Who are you?”

  I stood, voice rising as the questions spilled out. “Who’s behind this? Is someone running the game? Why don’t we have any memories? Were they taken from us? Who *are* we? What the hell do you want from us?”

  The system paused. Whether it was processing or simply ignoring me, I couldn't tell. Then, in the same lifeless tone, it said:

  “You have thirty seconds remaining to decide whether to continue the game.”

  I let out a sharp laugh—dry, sharp, and humorless. Then I threw the coin.

  Not gently, not symbolically—I hurled it with everything I had, watched it spin through the air in a shining arc toward the invisible edge of the world.

  The moment it touched the boundary, the lasers came alive. Red beams tore down in formation—four, five layers of slicing light aimed at a single steel coin.

  The coin was struck, pierced clean through, but it didn’t stop. It kept going, tumbling past the lasers, past the limits of the world I knew—vanishing into the blank beyond.

  I didn’t know where it had gone. I didn’t care. The act itself—the rebellion of it—left a warmth in my chest I hadn’t felt in... maybe ever.

  I turned toward the source of the voice, expression unreadable. “Fine,” I said, voice cool and unbothered. “Let’s keep going.”

  The alarm system wailed in protest, sirens blaring, red lights bathing the white space in an eerie, almost apocalyptic glow.

  The mechanical voice cut through the chaos, barely audible:

  “Understood. Player No. 32—initiating Round Four.”