Chapter 37
The Ones Who Did Not Break
Part 1
Day Three*
Date: 03/01/01
Location: Unknown Zone
Subject: Omar Akani
Status: Newly Activated
Experiment Phase: Post-Termination
Subject Names: Omar Akani
Previous Success Rate: 0%
Expected Success Rate: 50%
Mission: Survive
Mission Duration: 3 Days
Omar Akani
I always longed for the sound of the city more than the sight of it, because I grew up in a big city, Cape Town, in South Africa.
Cairo never really went quiet, day or night. Like New York City, even when traffic slowed, even when the call to prayer faded into the background, there was always something, somewhere. There were footsteps on the pavement, vendors calling out, the distant hum of engines underground. It was noise that became comfort after a while, that made me feel at home.
That's why I liked walking in those busy streets that afternoon, enjoying the view that changes every day and night. That day, the campus felt lighter than usual. Or maybe I was not paying attention to everything as usual, but for no apparent reason, I felt something was different; still, it didn't bother me that much.
I stepped out through the main gate of the American University in Cairo, Tahrir Square campus, my bag slung over one shoulder and white Bluetooth earphones hanging loose around my neck instead of being plugged in. I had just finished my last lecture of the day, pathology, which was dense and exhausting but satisfying in the way only medical classes could be when something finally clicked.
I was a second-year student, which was still early, but far enough in that quitting was no longer an option. I never regretted my choice of study, although I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, but I wasn't complaining either.
I paused for a moment just outside the gate, letting the flow of students pass around me. Some were laughing, some arguing, some glued to their phones. A few security guards stood near the entrance, scanning IDs and faces with bored efficiency. Everything was normal.
I checked my phone. No missed calls. No messages. Good, that means there are no problems back home. As the saying goes, no news is good news.
Sadat Metro Station was barely a minute or two away. I could have taken a microbus; plenty of them waited nearby, engines idling, drivers and conductors shouting destinations. But the metro was faster, cheaper, and more predictable. From my drop-off station, it was only a ten-minute walk to my small studio apartment. Tight budget, tight schedule; that was my life.
Learning medicine to become a doctor didn't leave room for inefficiency, so I adjusted my bag, took a breath, and started walking.
With the first step, I felt the difference. The first sign that made me feel that something was wrong was not visual. It was the pressure that I felt.
A sudden, crushing headache bloomed behind my eyes, sharp and immediate, like someone had driven a spike straight through my skull. I staggered, my hand instinctively reaching out to grab the metal fence beside the campus gate.
"What the hell..." I muttered.
My vision blurred, the world smearing at the edges. The sounds of the street stretched and distorted; voices warped into something distant and hollow. I squeezed my eyes shut, teeth clenched, heart hammering in my chest.
Migraine? No. Too fast. Too intense.
Stroke? Unlikely. Age, history, symptoms didn't fit.
Syncope? Maybe, but I wasn't lightheaded; I was in pain.
Think, Omar, think. For a few seconds, I started to analyze what was happening to me, but I didn't reach any conclusion, and the headache was also preventing me from thinking clearly.
I opened my eyes.
The street was still there. The gate. The guards. Students walking past me, some glancing in mild concern, others not noticing at all.
I exhaled shakily.
"Okay," I whispered. "Just breathe."
I took one step forward.
The ground shifted.
Not physically, not like an earthquake, but wrong, like depth itself lost meaning. My stomach lurched. The headache intensified, and this time my vision didn't just blur; it fractured like a broken glass that hadn't shattered yet, splitting into overlapping images that refused to align.
My ears rang, then everything went black. I didn't pass out; I was feeling every second of everything that was going on around me, despite the pain and being disoriented. When I finally was able to open my eyes, I closed them, maybe as an involuntary action from my body reflex.
Before I could see anything, the first thing I noticed was the sudden weather change, and I felt cold.
Something was pressed against my back, uneven and hard. I wondered when I had even fallen to the ground. I sucked in a sharp breath and immediately regretted it. The air was dry, stale, carrying a faint metallic tang that coated the back of my throat. My head throbbed, a dull, pulsing ache that matched the rhythm of my heartbeat.
I didn't move right away.
That was instinct, drilled into me through years of study and observation. Assess first. Panic later.
I flexed my fingers. Sensation intact. No numbness.
I bent my knees slightly. No immediate pain.
Neck? Slow rotation. Stiff, but no sharp spikes.
I was alive. Conscious. Oriented, mostly.
For the second time, I opened my eyes.
Gray stone stretched above me, forming a rough ceiling that disappeared into shadow. The walls around me were irregular, as if carved rather than built, their surfaces etched with strange grooves that didn't resemble any language I knew.
This was not the university's ground, not the metro station that I was heading to; not that I could have reached it anyway.
I sat up slowly, my head protesting with a wave of nausea.
"Okay," I said aloud, my voice echoing faintly. "Okay."
I looked down at myself, wondering since my surroundings changed what else could have changed as well.
Same clothes. Jeans, sneakers, hoodie with the AUC logo on the sleeve. My bag was still strapped across my chest, zipper closed. I reached inside, fingers brushing against familiar objects: notebook, pen, phone.
I pulled the phone out.
No signal. No service. Battery full.
The time read 4:17 PM.
I stared at it for a long moment, grounding myself in the possibilities of my situation. Was this a hallucination? That was unlikely. Too detailed. Too coherent.
Displacement was not a medical term, but it felt closest. Maybe I lost my mind and went crazy; that was also impossible but probable.
I stood carefully, testing my balance. The floor was stone, cracked and uneven, dust coating the surface. The space I was in looked like a corridor, wide enough for two people to walk side by side, curving slightly to the left and right beyond my immediate view.
No bodies. No blood. I don't even know why I was thinking of that, but at least it's one thing off the list of the things in my mind, so that was a good thing. I adjusted my bag and took a cautious step forward.
That was when the voice appeared. Not a voice from somewhere, not external at all; it bloomed directly inside my head.
{Subject detected}
I froze. Instantly, my pulse spiked, a surge of adrenaline washing through my system.
No auditory hallucination presents like this, I thought automatically. Internal stimuli of this clarity would indicate psychosis, temporal lobe seizure, or extreme stress-induced dissociation, none of which matched my current cognitive state.
The voice continued, emotionless and precise.
{Subject transfer completed successfully}
{Cognitive stability confirmed}
{Vital signs within acceptable parameters}
{Experiment TX 23 complete}
{System integration complete}
{Visual and auditory synchronization}
My mouth went dry. I could understand the voice in my head, and the text in front of me was in English, although I am not fluent in it; but I could understand everything, and what stuck with me was the word "Experiment."
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no." All the questions that start with the letter "W" were racing through my mind: What... Why... When?
A translucent interface shimmered into existence in front of my eyes. Not projected onto the environment but layered over it, like augmented reality without a device.
Text scrolled calmly.
{Welcome to Langkata}
The name meant nothing to me; I had never heard of a city or country by that name. So where the hell am I? Before I could think of anything else, whomever was talking and showing me the texts in front of me continued.
{You're the first human that took the shortest integration time}
{Bounce system points have been awarded}
{Points Available: 250 Points}
{Medical Knowledge detected}
{Langkatan Physiology and treatment method have been installed}
{Medic title acquired}
**Skill Description:**
{With this skill, you can do the following:
1. Perform First Aid.
2. Perform Medical Treatment.
3. Perform Critical Surgery.
4. Make Medications from available Materials.
5. Be able to use any scientific manner and technology available.}
{Mission will be available shortly}
That was more confusing than anything else I had encountered so far. Nothing was making sense to me. What system? What installation are they talking about? What's the meaning of the skills that can do all that? Where did it come from?
The only thing I was able to say at that moment was, "Who are you? Where am I? What do you want from me?"
I didn't get any response from whomever that was talking with me and sending that information to me. And who or what is this system? Of course, no one answered in the end.
I even yelled, "Who are you? Talk to me!" Instead of answering my questions, I got another puzzling statement in response.
{New mission available}
{Survive for 3 days}
{Primary Objective: Survive}
{Secondary Objective: Adapt}
{Failure Condition: Death}
A familiar cold settled in my chest, the one that comes with fear, the one that makes you freeze in your location and numbs all your joints. I wondered what I had gotten into. Since there is no use in me being frozen here, at least I have to move. The mission indicated that there is danger that I should survive, and the structures around me and the name of the place that I am in indicated that I am no longer in Cairo, the peaceful city. I had a feeling that I am not even on Earth.
"Alright," I said quietly. "Let's start there."
The corridor opened into a larger space, a ruined plaza of sorts, though calling it that felt generous. Broken stone structures rose like ribs from the ground, and collapsed walls and pillars formed jagged silhouettes against a sky that didn't look like any sky I had ever seen.
It was not blue.
It was a dull, bruised gray, layered with slow-moving clouds that glowed faintly from within, as if lit by a distant, unseen source.
No sun. No moon.
Just light, coming from everywhere and nowhere.
I stepped out fully, scanning my surroundings.
Silence pressed in, heavy and unnatural.
This was not a battlefield, at least not recently. No smoke. No active destruction. But there were signs of passage: scuffed stone, broken debris that looked disturbed rather than ancient.
Someone had been here.
I moved cautiously, every sense heightened. My footsteps echoed softly, and each sound felt too loud, too exposed. That was when I saw it. Blood.
Dark, dried, smeared across a slab of stone near a collapsed wall. Human blood, I was almost certain. The color, the pattern, the way it had pooled and then been dragged.
I crouched beside it, examining it despite myself.
Not fresh. At least a day old. Maybe two. It was definitely human blood; not much that it could be fatal or even considered a blood loss, but an injury nonetheless that made my chest tighten.
I straightened slowly.
"Whoever you are," I murmured, not knowing who I was speaking to, "you were here before me." That means there are other humans besides me here. I don't know if that was reassuring or scary. Not knowing and just wondering is really hard; I didn't even know what to think of so far.
Still, that thought was strangely comforting and terrifying at the same time.
As I moved deeper into the ruins, the system remained quiet. I am not really if it's observing rather than guiding. That unsettled me more than constant prompts would have. Not knowing what it or they have done to me.
I checked my body again, more thoroughly this time. No visible injuries. No implants that I could feel. No marks.
They hadn't modified me physically. A small chuckle escaped my mouth because of that last thought, but who knows what they're capable of those who transported me from where I was to where I am now within a blink of an eye. I guess they will ... but not yet.
My bag still held my notebook. I pulled it out and flipped to a blank page, writing the date, the time on my phone, and everything I could remember leading up to the headache. If this was an experiment, then documentation mattered. I am, or to be accurate, I was a medical student. Observation and memorizing were my strengths.
And as I took another step forward into Langkata, one thought anchored itself firmly in my mind.
If this place was testing whether humans could survive… then surviving wasn't enough. I needed to understand what I was surviving from and, most importantly, why.
And somewhere ahead, I knew, there were others who had already begun that process.
A/N
Hello everyone,
Thanks for your support I really appreciate it and sorry for the time delay today editing and grammar check took more than usual from me the original chapter was short so I had edit it again before publishing.
Please comment and tell me what you think.