There is red text placed boldly on the wall saying ‘WAITING ROOM, WAIT.’ And then an arrow pointing to chairs, I look down at Zee who is shaking a bit and pat his back. The room is fully white, the walls are made of the roof and the roof is made of the floor, all a white glossy perfect material.

I’m suddenly not covered in blood, I feel weirdly clean everywhere.

I usher Zee to sit on the chairs, not really wanting to disobey whatever power may be in here, this is incredibly strange. I sit in a chair by the corner and Zee sits right beside me, hanging off one of the chair arms towards me.

“Are you okay Zee?”

He doesn’t speak, I think he is a bit mad at me for being so pushy and screechy.

“Sorry…” I say softly towards him, I can’t explain but it feels like I’m calm here. Right after that one year dream I felt incredibly on edge, like I had a giant fan blowing me off a roof and I had to balance on my tippy toes to not fall off into a pit of anger, but here I feel fine.

“Next.” Me and Zee are called to stand up, the green cushioned chairs squeak as we move, there is now a reception desk in the middle of the room, where a blonde haired girl with freckles sits tapping at her computer.

I walk over, “uhm hey.”

She snaps her fingers “I do the talking.” She types for a few seconds as I nod, “what floor were you on?”

I think for a moment.

“Floor zero… so close to escaping… can you send us back?” This is a far reach of a lie but I’m hoping it works.

She looks directly at me, her blue eyes are magnificent, just overall beauty, her accent is a bit confusing but it sounds like she is from Greece.

“Oh so you’re a liar?” She looks back at the computer and types.

“No I’m not lying, Zee tell her, what floor zero looked like.”

Zee looks over at me, “zero… elevator, beep, vrmmmm, makes up.” He does the whole elevator thing again. Embarrassing me severely.

“Well I’m convinced.” The woman speaks sarcastically, “elevators usually don’t stay on the same floor, so tell me, what floor were you on?”

I step forward and lean over the reception desk, “why don’t you tell me why we are here?”

“You caused an issue, I’m trying to figure out what you did.” She swivels her chair to lean in close enough so that I can see her pores.

“Did you make this place?” I should be angry right now but I’m not, this place is so calming.

“No? I just work here, information gatherer. So tell me, what. Floor.”

“293, a trap floor, someone called it that at least.”

She types for a few seconds, “ah, Alice right?” She stands up and goes to a printer “forgive me but our file on you is incredibly small.” Something prints out, a small contract. “Sign here.” She points at the bottom ‘sign’ box.

I read it, it states that I will forget the time I spent here after the rewards have been used up, I have collected 65 reward tokens over my time here and I can use them in the game room, it also includes that I’ll have to explain the way I got here so the higher-ups can fix the issue. Once my time here is spent we will be sent back to the floor we were on, in a safe position.

“What is this?” Is all I can say.

“What is what?” She seems genuinely confused, tapping at the paper.

“So did someone make this place?”

“I don’t know. I’m just as confused as you are.” She shrugs “sign.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I grab a pencil from a holder, “what if I don’t sign it?”

“You’ll be here forever? Feel free.” She leans back in the chair with a posture that will definitely become an issue in years to come.

“What about Zee?”

She gets up and leans down “oh? Uh, let me check his file, he’s a natural born correct?” She types on the computer.

“Natural born?”

“Someone born here, through pregnancy. You know his mother or father?”

I click my tongue, “no clue.”

She types for a few more moments, her eyes scanning the screen, “no file, you don’t exist Zee, isn’t that cool? That means no contract for you.”

Zee steps back a bit, “mom… is Erida…”

The girl at the desk seems confused and types at the computer again, “right, well, okay. Which child?”

“Zee...”

“26th... okay.” She goes to the printer and creates a contract, its in a language I’ve never seen before.

He signs it quickly and it burns in front of us, I then sign mine, it does the same burning process.

“Great, walk into that green door over there into the game room, and when you are ready you can tell me how you got here and leave. Please remember injury is on you and food is not included, have fun.” She waves as I stagger to the door, all this calmness has made my ankle completely numb, it’s not even painful.

We walk into the game room, greeted by 4 different coloured doors, each one having a word on it ‘mind, body, soul and faith.’

In this room there is a token dispensing machine and a vending machine, it has a common area with seats and desks, much like a small cafeteria.

Zee walks over to the token machine and it presses a button, it says his balance is 0.

“That’s okay…” I press the button and withdraw my 65 tokens, apparently they accrue depending on how much you suffer. The coins are little metallic gold ones, pretty heavy.

I hand him 30 and he goes straight to the vending machine which was full of full coarse meals, his face painted with excitement, it makes sense my cooking is absolutely horrible.

The selections were all the big ones, all of humanities best hits. I get some Chicago style pizza because it seemed the most nutritious to share with Zee, set me back 5 tokens.

I grabbed some water cups and filled them with the water dispenser, cool.

“What’s?” He points at the thing we are eating at the table as we settle in.

“Pizza.”

“Pizza is good.” He smiles as he takes a slice and practically swallows it whole.

“Slow.” I show myself eating slowly, this is some proper real food and I’m not going to disrespect it.

“Slow.” He repeats and eats at a reasonable pace.

While he is eating I look through my bag and take out the marbles, specifically the one the man said would heal me.

I stare at it while moving it between my fingers, eventually I just decide to swallow it down with some tap water in my plastic cup. What’s the worst that could happen?

Nothing happened, oh. I just shrug and eat more pizza, Zee watched this whole thing play out and doesn’t seem to care too much. Actually he seems a lot more quiet than usual, he normally tries to talk and learn English, but currently, nothing.

I feel a faint tingling in my fingers, like my blood pressure is spiking, my body jerks a bit and muscles keep moving without my will. Pins and needles cover my whole body and I fall backwards.

“Alice!” Zee runs over to be beside me, I suddenly feel fine.

“It’s okay…” I look at my finger, it looks normal but feels incredibly strange, I feel like I have little creatures inside of me fixing me. I stand up and feel great, “okay, let’s check out these things.” I smile as I make my way to the 4 weirdly coloured doors.

I know this world is messed up and most things just want to torture me, but with this calmness wafting over me I feel like I’m unstoppable, it’s really nice here.

Body, mind and soul cost 20 to get in, the faith door costs 30.

I’m going in mind… I think? Actually no, mind might bring back that balcony, I don’t know if these doors are positive or not, the nice food could be a misdirection…

“I’m going into the body door.” Safest option, at worse it’ll just physically torture me hopefully, I’m fine with that.

Zee chooses the faith door for whatever reason, I don’t know what it could include. I put each token in separately, it clinks after every single one like an arcade machine.

After 20 I hear a soft click and I can turn the handle on the door, great, this is so strange.

I look over at Zee who is still inserting coins, “maybe wait until I get back? Just to see if it’s safe?” I say, he doesn’t seem to understand and continues to put in coins.

Whatever, I walk into the dark room the door leads into, it slams behind me harshly.

“Okay? You going to torture me now?” I yell, there’s no echo so this room can’t be that big.

A tv lights up, a cute cartoon character with a high pitched voice speaks, it’s a weird blue human thing on a CTR screen.

“Heya! Welcome to body! This is where you can finally test your limits for rewards… but first! Let’s check if you’re cheating!”

Suddenly my backpack gets deleted, the weight displacement almost making me fall over.

“It seems like you have a Gieia orb activated in your body! That is cheating! Do you accept these terms?”

I walk towards the screen which now shows an ‘agreement.’ It says ‘survive 10 minutes and have Gieia orb active for life (weaker). Challenge (HARD). Lose penalty: left arm GONE.’

Do I just tap yes? I feel like this is a no brainer, having that healing thing constantly activated? Is this some stupid joke? That’s objectively a great idea. Losing my left arm would suck, but I’d just get it back after death.

The main issue is, this probably isn’t real, a trick, that calm feeling I had before is seeping out of me into the other room, I might’ve just fucked myself.

I tap yes. The blue mascot comes back.

“Yay! You have accepted the challenge! The game room has begun, prepare yourself!”

The walls flash white.