did not step back.
I did not move forward either.
The white around me had stopped closing in.
It no longer pressed.
It no longer pushed.
It waited — not for a gesture, but for an orientation.
As if now, the slightest intention was enough to shift the lines.
I breathed slowly.
Air in.
Air out.
Normal.
Too normal.
I could still sense the others, but their presence had become diffuse.
Amad, Bintou, Ayyi — they existed within my awareness without being anchored to it. Not absent. Offset.
As if we were still in the same place, but no longer in the same rhythm.
A voice broke the silence.
"Hey."
I turned my head.
Bintou.
She had stopped a few meters away. Not facing me directly. Slightly angled.
Her posture was tense, but controlled. Her hands open, as if forcing herself not to clench her fists.
"You feel it too?" she asked.
I took a second before answering.
"What exactly?"
She exhaled, irritated.
"The fact that…" She searched for her words. "That nothing responds the way it used to."
I nodded slowly.
"Yes."
That single word seemed to hit her harder than a long explanation.
She ran a hand over the back of her neck.
"I feel like we missed something," she said. "Something important."
I looked at her properly this time.
"Or that we passed it."
She frowned.
"Is that supposed to reassure me?"
"No."
Silence settled between us.
Not empty.
Charged.
A step sounded behind me.
Amad.
He had come closer without me noticing. His face was calm — almost too calm.
His eyes, though, looked tired. Not physically. Internally.
"You're talking like we still have a choice," he said.
Bintou turned toward him.
"You say that because you've decided to stop fighting."
He didn't answer right away.
Then, calmly:
"I say that because I stopped believing that fighting still means anything here."
I felt immediate tension ripple through the space.
Not violent.
A subtle adjustment.
As if the Arena had just taken note of that sentence with particular attention.
Ayyi stepped closer.
He didn't stand near me, nor near the others.
He positioned himself in between, exactly where the lines seemed to cross without ever touching.
"Be careful what you say," he murmured.
Amad let out a short, humorless laugh.
"You really think it still changes anything?"
Ayyi looked straight at him.
"Yes."
A pause.
"It changes who you become while you're saying it."
Something vibrated behind my temples.
Not pain.
Confirmation.
The white in front of us shifted.
Very slightly.
A zone stood out. Not an opening. Not a door.
A change in density — like a deeper layer inside an otherwise uniform space.
Bintou noticed it too.
"You see that?"
I nodded.
Amad narrowed his eyes.
"It looks like… a passage."
Ayyi slowly shook his head.
"No."
He inhaled.
"A threshold."
The word settled with a strange weight.
Threshold.
Something you cross without always knowing what you leave behind.
I instinctively took a step toward it.
The ground reacted.
Not by adjusting.
By resisting.
Very slightly.
Just enough to make me stop.
I felt Ayyi's gaze on me.
"It's not collective," he said.
Bintou clenched her jaw.
"Of course it isn't."
Amad studied the zone with new focus.
"And if we refuse?"
No one answered.
Because the question didn't demand an immediate reply.
The white around us felt quieter than before.
As if everything that needed to be evaluated already had been.
Then I realized something unsettling.
That zone didn't draw everyone.
It didn't call me with an external force.
It matched.
Me.
My heart beat a little faster.
Bintou looked at me.
"Tell me you're seeing something we're not."
I didn't lie.
"I think so."
She exhaled slowly.
"Great."
Amad looked away.
"So it's you."
I stared at him.
"What does that mean?"
He shrugged.
"That the Arena picked its next problem."
The words went through me like cold.
Ayyi took a step closer.
"It's not a choice."
He looked straight into my eyes.
"It's a consequence."
I understood then.
That threshold wasn't there to test my strength.
Or my courage.
It was there to see whether I was ready to stop hiding behind observation.
I took another step.
The resistance increased slightly.
The white seemed to tighten around that specific zone, like a muscle being used for the first time.
Bintou raised her voice.
"Wait."
I turned.
She was looking at me seriously now, without irony.
"If you cross… do you come back?"
I didn't need long to answer.
"I don't know."
She nodded.
"Then do it properly."
Amad said nothing.
But I saw his jaw tighten.
Ayyi closed his eyes briefly.
"Don't try to understand what comes after," he said softly. "Or you won't make it."
I focused again on the threshold.
The white vibrated faintly.
Not like a threat.
Like recognition.
I took a deep breath.
And I stepped forward.
This time, the ground gave way.
Not violently.
It absorbed me.
A strange sensation ran through me — not pain, not loss.
A loss of reference.
As if every coordinate I used to locate myself had just been taken offline.
Behind me, I felt something close.
Not a wall.
An impossibility.
I knew, without turning around, that I wouldn't be able to cross this threshold in reverse.
The white changed.
Still uniform.
But oriented.
As if, for the first time, the space ahead had a clear direction.
A voice resonated.
Not around me.
Inside me.
Without words.
A pure sensation:
Now, act.
I understood what the Arena had been waiting for all along.
Not performance.
Not demonstration.
But a movement no longer dictated by the fear of being wrong.
I clenched my fists.
And I moved forward.
Behind me, I felt the others drift away — not physically, but narratively.
As if their stories continued elsewhere, while mine had just shifted registers.
The white ahead opened just enough.
And I knew that what came next would no longer be a reading.
Nor an observation.
But a direct answer.
To me.