We could see nothing ahead of us except the concrete road.
I got the impression that this road would stretch on like this, empty, forever.
Even lifting my head now and then to look up wasn't enough to make me feel that my existence truly stood here.
I felt hunger and thirst slowly seeping through my body. The fact that not a single structure appeared before us only deepened my anxiety. The group… What could I do to join the group? I thought about the leader's words. What use would I be to them?
While I was lost in thought, I saw the blue holo-screen ahead. That, at least, made me a little glad. I stopped for a moment for my name to appear. Sis stopped as well and looked at the screen, but he couldn't see his own name. Next to my name, my task was still written. If even the tiniest clue had crossed my mind, I could have learned the rules. But I was stuck in place like a broken clock with a dead battery.
"My name isn't there," he said with a realistic hesitation. "Could it be… that this really is a prison?"
Without responding to him, I kept staring at my task on the screen.
"What's your name?"
Only now had it occurred to him?
Without looking at his face, I said, "Aysal." He nodded, then looked back at the screen. His eyes narrowed as he tried to read the text. "Your task is pretty strange! The rules of what—"
I cut him off with a gesture to be quiet as the sounds reached my ears.
Rhythmic footsteps were coming from behind us.
"Who is it?" he whispered in response to my attempt to silence him.
"It could be the group," I said. "We have to get close to them."
"That's a strange idea," he said thoughtfully.
The footsteps kept coming closer, but there was still no image.
"Why?" I said sharply.
"Because… If they knew the rules, they wouldn't have been locked up here."
I knew this place was definitely a prison—or something even worse. I just fell silent. "What if they really have learned how to survive here?"
"Then," Sis said—now the sounds from behind were bringing an image with them.
We both turned in the same direction.
"Maybe," he continued, "they'll do anything to survive."
The leader's footsteps at the front of the group filled me with terror.
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
When only a short distance remained between us, I closed my eyes for a moment. I could hear my heart pounding. My throat burned. Why were they coming? They advanced until there were maybe five steps between us, then tore through the silence like a knife drawn from its sheath.
The group leader's gaze fixed on Sis.
The moment he realized he was directing the attention the wrong way, his eyes landed on me.
At that exact moment, I heard Sis's voice. "What are you doing here?" He ran his tongue over his lip. "I mean, how do you complete your task just by wandering around this little city?"
As he spoke, my lips sealed shut.
The group leader cast a half-spiteful look at him, then took a deep breath. The gaze of the blond woman right behind him hardened as well. She made a move to act, but the leader signaled her to stop with his eyes. That was when things changed. "Have you thought enough?" the group leader asked.
I was shaken as if by a cold shower. "The rules of the game?"
As his gaze locked onto me, I was drenched in sweat. "I thought about it… but I couldn't find it," I admitted, averting my eyes.
"I know," the group leader said a few seconds later.
Sis's displeased gaze accompanied the silence between us.
"What is it?" I said helplessly, my eyes still turned away. A heavy silence took over. I had trouble swallowing. A single answer could change the entire course of my life in that moment. Where had my strength gone? My former confidence? No. Perhaps they had never truly belonged to me. They had been entrusted to me for a while, accompanied my life for a time, and then—like other people—left me and gone.
"There's a small game we play here…"
"A game?" I murmured; it was time to press my lips tightly together. In that moment, the silence felt crushing. I was like a ship collapsing under its own weight as no one made a sound.
"There are exactly twenty-two of us right now," he said pointedly.
As I held my breath, he continued. "Two too many."
Sis listened without speaking. I didn't look at his face.
"What will we do…" I said, my words trembling.
The light filtering through the opening dimmed.
"We'll remove the excess," the group leader said in a remarkably gentle voice. "An elegant game…"