After the dumbbell incident, everyone in the building became a lot more careful. People watched each other differently. Eyes stayed sharp. Nobody wanted to be the next idiot who got his head cracked open.
But that tension didn't last. Time kept moving, slow at first… and then suddenly fast. Before I even realized it, the 48 hours were gone.
That morning, the TV in our room turned on by itself.
A loud beep hit first, then a screen lit up with a cold blue glow.
A countdown sat right in the middle:
00:29:59
Under it, a line of instructions appeared:
ALL PARTICIPANTS — REPORT TO THE LOBBY BEFORE 00:00:00
My stomach twisted. Breakfast wasn't even an option. I couldn't eat.
Laura didn't eat either. She just sat across from me, biting her lip hard, fingers fidgeting nonstop.
She finally looked at me.
"Erwin… what do you think the next game's gonna be?"
I held her stare. She was scared, really scared. I could see it in how she kept rubbing her thumbs together like she was trying to keep her hands busy.
"I don't know," I said. "But whatever it is… we'll... deal with it when we get there."
Not comforting, but it was the truth. I didn't have anything better.
When the clock hit 00:12:40, we left the room together and took the elevator down. Everyone else from the building was already gathering in the lobby — all 48 of them.
Some stood still like statues. Some kept pacing back and forth. Others whispered among themselves.
One woman sat on a chair, chewing her fingernails. But she had already chewed them so much that she was close to biting her fingertips instead. It made my skin crawl.
The giant screen in the lobby kept ticking down:
00:00:16
And the whole room felt like it was holding one long breath no one wanted to let out.
When the timer finally dropped to 00:00:00, that familiar low hum rolled through the building and every light flickered in a way I had already come to dread. A second later, the walls shuddered and those same glowing doors appeared again, all twenty-five of them.
Normally, I would have expected hesitation, maybe even someone trying to stall or bargain with the system, but nobody did. Not a single person even slowed down. We all understood what refusing meant now, and after the river incident, nobody wanted to test the system's patience. Survival was the only instinct left.
Laura stayed close to me as she always did, walking beside me toward Door 461-B. She held my arm in both hands, not loosely either, like her fingers were convinced something would try to separate us the second she relaxed. We stepped through the door together, and the strange sensation of being pulled, stretched and snapped back hit again, and then the environment shifted.
We were standing in a massive circular hall. The ceiling was so high I could barely see where it ended, and the floor was polished black stone that reflected everyone like a warped mirror. People materialized around us in pairs, all blinking and adjusting, all carrying the same quiet dread.
A synthetic voice echoed from everywhere at once, cheerful in a way that made my skin crawl.
"Welcome back, Participants. We hope you enjoyed your rest period."
It sounded like mockery.
"Your next game requires alignment. You will have twenty minutes to choose a side. Red or Blue. Roommates are permitted to choose the same side."
Panels on opposite ends of the room lit up, painting the floor with two wide paths. Red glowed on one side, Blue on the other. There were no instructions beyond that.
People started murmuring. The quiet quickly turned into a low ripple of confused voices that filled the hall. I saw some already drifting toward Red, probably thinking it was the obvious danger choice and expecting the system to twist it. Others lingered, staring at the floor like they were waiting for a sign.
Laura pressed closer and didn't let go of my arm. Her grip wasn't panicked, just firm, like she needed to know I wasn't going anywhere without her.
A group approached us—five guys, five girls. The one in front had short curly hair and an easy kind of grin that didn't fit the atmosphere. He pointed lightly at me.
"You're that guy from the river, right? I'm Jude."
"Erwin," I said.
"We're fans," he replied.
I looked at him, not sure I heard him right. "Fans?"
"You inspired us to actually help each other back at the river crossing," he said, still grinning. "Figured we should at least introduce ourselves."
"It was nothing," I said.
"Humble too," he joked, nudging the girl beside him.
She stepped forward, pushing her hair behind an ear. "I'm Blaire."
"Nice to meet you, Blaire." I replied.
She nodded once and then glanced between the two glowing markers. "So… which side are you choosing? We'll go with you."
I looked at her, then at the floor where the red and blue lines divided the room. It wasn't a simple choice, and everyone knew it. Red always signaled danger in most normal situations, while blue usually meant safety. But nothing here was normal. Everything had been twisted so far, so any simple logic felt like a trap.
I noticed I wasn't the only one thinking that way. Most people were drifting toward Red, probably assuming the system would flip meanings, making the 'danger' color the safe one this time.
Then again, the system would definitely anticipate that. Which meant Red might not be safe at all.
I breathed out slowly and muttered, "Blue."
Jude blinked. "You sure? I mean, yeah, Red screams danger, but what if the system does that reverse psychology thing again?"
Blaire who was staring at me, immediately blinked like she just got what I was trying to say. "Or what if it doesn't, because it knows we'll think that way?"
"Exactly," I said.
Jude stared at me for a moment before nodding. "Damn. I'm glad I'm with you."
Laura squeezed my hand. It wasn't fear this time, just trust, the kind that settled under my ribs in a strange, warm way. I could feel her leaning into the decision, into me, as if choosing Blue suddenly felt like choosing something safer just because I said it out loud.
We stepped toward the Blue side together. Others watched, and some followed, maybe because they trusted my reasoning or maybe because they were desperate to trust anyone at all. Either way, the room slowly began to split into two clusters: Red growing louder and more agitated, Blue forming a quieter group, almost hopeful.
But the system didn't believe in safety, and as we stepped fully into the Blue section, I felt something shift inside me — a quiet certainty that we had chosen wrong."