The change was not visible.
It was perceptible.
Something in the way the space held around me had shifted. Not a rupture. Not a vibration. Rather… a restraint. As if the white had stopped pressing against us.
I breathed in.
The air entered without resistance.
Too easily.
I looked around.
The other participants were still there, but the distance between them felt wrong. Not wider. Not narrower. Undefined. As if each of us now occupied a zone that belonged only to them.
I took a step.
The ground responded immediately.
Not by blocking me.
By adjusting.
A shiver ran through me. Until now, the Arena had reacted afterward—to pain, to mistakes, to excess.
Now, it anticipated.
I understood that something had changed roles.
Before, the space tested.
Now, it watched.
Not the way one watches a threat.
The way one watches behavior.
I turned my head toward Amad.
He stood a few meters away, motionless, his arms hanging at his sides. His posture was straight, but relaxed. Too relaxed. He no longer seemed to be fighting the fatigue. He was accepting it.
His gaze was fixed straight ahead, without real focus. Not absent. But… economized.
I wanted to call out to him.
My mouth opened.
I stopped.
Something inside me held me back. Not an external force. A brutal intuition. As if speaking now would freeze something that wasn't meant to be fixed yet.
I stayed silent.
And that silence… was noted.
I felt it.
Not as pain.
As precision.
As if the space had just traced an invisible outline around me.
I swallowed.
A little farther away, Bintou was pacing. Not frantically. Calculated. She walked, stopped, then changed direction. Every movement carried contained tension.
She was looking for something.
Not an exit.
A reaction.
I noticed that the ground beneath her feet no longer vibrated like before. It didn't resist either. It… remembered. Each step seemed to leave a trace that didn't fully disappear.
Bintou noticed it too.
She stopped abruptly.
Looked down.
Then smiled without humor.
"Seriously…" she murmured. "Even when I don't move, they're watching me."
No one answered.
But the space seemed to… align with her words.
No threat.
No punishment.
Just a silent confirmation.
Ayyi hadn't moved for a while.
He stood slightly apart, but not isolated. He was observing. Not the other participants—the intervals. The delayed reactions. The moments when nothing happened.
From his posture, I could tell he had understood.
Or rather… that he had understood he was being understood.
He inhaled slowly.
Then said, without raising his voice:
"This is no longer a trial."
No one reacted immediately.
"It's a reading."
A chill ran through me.
Reading.
The word triggered no visible reaction in the space. But it resonated inside me with uncomfortable clarity.
"What exactly are they taking?" Amad asked without turning his head.
His voice was calm. Too calm.
Ayyi hesitated for a fraction of a second.
"Not our actions."
He paused.
"What comes before them."
I understood.
Not what we did.
Why we believed it was justified.
Around us, the other participants kept moving. Some whispered to each other. Others remained still. Others shifted positions repeatedly, as if searching for an invisible combination.
But nothing happened.
Not immediately.
And that absence of reaction was far worse than pain.
A woman a little farther away suddenly burst out laughing. A nervous, uncontrolled laugh.
"You see?" she said. "It's fine. You just need to stop freaking out."
She made a wide gesture with her hand.
Nothing.
Her smile froze.
She tried again, louder.
Still nothing.
Then her laughter sharpened. Tense. Strained.
I saw her shoulders stiffen. Her breathing grow uneven.
She understood too late.
It wasn't the action that mattered.
It was the confidence with which she told herself she was in control.
She raised a hand to her temple.
"I…" she began.
She stopped.
Her eyes slowly emptied of expression.
She remained standing.
But something inside her had disconnected.
I looked away.
Not out of pity.
Out of clarity.
I felt that same familiar pressure behind my temples. Not painful. Precise. Like a finger placed exactly where a thought is born.
That was when I understood what the Arena was truly doing.
It wasn't testing strength.
It wasn't testing courage.
It was testing internal coherence.
Does what you do truly match who you believe you are?
And if it doesn't…
It doesn't intervene.
It lets the contradiction do its work.
My stomach tightened.
I thought about myself.
About the way I always watched before acting.
Analyzed.
Delayed.
A question imposed itself—clear, brutal:
Do I observe because I understand…
or because I'm avoiding exposure?
My breath caught for a moment.
I hadn't spoken that thought.
And yet, the space around me tightened slightly.
Not to crush me.
To define me.
I felt something separating me from the others. Not physically. Structurally. As if each of us was now contained in a slightly different version of the same place.
Same Arena.
Same white.
But not the same angle.
I looked at Amad again.
He hadn't moved.
But his shoulders had sunk another centimeter.
And a cold concern settled in me:
If he stayed like that too long…
there would be nothing left to observe.
Bintou started moving again.
Not out of anger this time.
Out of silent defiance.
And the space… still didn't oppose her.
It recorded.
Ayyi closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, his gaze met mine.
He wasn't smiling.
He didn't look panicked.
He looked… lucid.
"We're being classified," he said simply.
The word landed.
Classified.
A tension rippled through the participants who heard it.
Not panic.
A late realization.
"By who?" someone asked.
Ayyi slowly shook his head.
"That's not the right question."
He observed the space.
"The real question is: according to what."
At that exact moment, I felt something shift again.
Not a rule.
Not a phrase.
But a sharper intention.
As if the Arena, satisfied with this silent phase of observation, had reached a sufficient certainty.
I understood then that this calm wasn't a pause.
It was a validation.
And that what came next…
would no longer ask us what to do.
But who we were willing to be when no excuse remained.
I breathed deeply.
And for the first time since arriving here, a certainty crossed me without ambiguity:
What followed
would no longer resemble a collective trial.
Because now,
the Arena knew exactly where to press.
I stayed still.
Not because I didn't know what to do.
But because, for the first time, I felt that moving would mean something precise.
The space around me felt more… personal. As if the white was no longer a shared expanse, but a surface adjusted to my presence. Not hostile. Not protective either. Adapted.
I slowly extended my hand in front of me.
It touched nothing.
But the sensation wasn't emptiness.
It was like passing my hand through a zone that had already been measured.
I pulled my arm back.
And I knew.
We weren't separated.
We were superimposed.
Same Arena.
Same instant.
But different layers of perception, slightly offset from one another. Close enough to see. Too far apart to truly touch.
I looked at Bintou.
I could see her moving.
But I felt that if I stepped toward her, I wouldn't reach her position.
Not really.
She wasn't elsewhere.
She was… in another reading of the same place.
The thought froze me.
Because it implied something far more disturbing:
The Arena was no longer a space.
It was a shared mental structure, capable of containing all of us without ever placing us in exactly the same position.
And that structure had just begun to close.
I felt pressure behind my eyes.
Not pain.
A gentle constraint.
As if something were adjusting the sharpness of my awareness.
Around me, some participants seemed to slow down. Their movements grew uncertain, as if they'd lost an invisible reference. Others, on the contrary, became more precise.
Too precise.
A man now walked in a straight line, his steps perfectly regular. No hesitation. No visible emotion. His gaze was fixed, almost empty.
He was moving well.
Too well.
I understood he had found a logic… and locked himself inside it.
The Arena didn't punish him.
It let him reduce himself.
Amad, meanwhile, was breathing more slowly. Too slowly. His chest rose with artificial regularity. I could feel him drifting—not spatially, but inwardly.
He was becoming comfortable.
And here, comfort was a disguised surrender.
I wanted to speak to him.
Once again, I stopped.
Not out of fear.
Out of understanding.
Every interaction had become an interference.
Speaking to Amad now would influence his trajectory. And the Arena would record both the intention and the effect.
I clenched my teeth.
That was the final trap.
Not the trial.
Not the pain.
The silent responsibility of every choice.
Ayyi turned slightly toward me. Not fully. Just enough for me to know he still perceived me.
Or rather… my axis.
"We're no longer synchronized," he said softly.
His voice reached me without echo.
Without distortion.
Direct.
"But we're still readable."
I nodded imperceptibly.
I understood.
The next stage would not be announced.
It would not be collective.
It would emerge differently for each of us, based on what the Arena had already understood.
And this time…
There would be no phrase.
No ambiguous rule.
No warning.
Only an intimate confrontation.
Tailored.
Precise.
Inevitable.
I felt the space densify around me.
Not violently.
Definitively.
And a thought, clear as certainty, imposed itself without effort:
The next thing I would encounter
would not be an obstacle.
It would be an answer.
To something I had never spoken out loud.