Alexander noticed one more thing after examining the room he was in for a while. It was the steel door that stood on one wall of the room and felt like a heavy castle gate.

'A heavy door made of steel.'

After probing the door a bit, he did not find any locks inside.

'It's impossible to escape from here.'

Ignoring his suffering, he punched the door hard.

Argh!

Although his hand was painful enough to fill his eyes, the door hadn't even shaken.

'Let alone a child like me, even a punch from a strong adult is ineffective.'

What should he have done?

"The person who put me in here wants me to stay here and not go out. But if he bothered to imprison me here, why is he leaving me so helpless?"

He ignored his gushing stomach and sat where he was and began to think. His mind became clearer as he suppressed his water and hunger a little.

"If I had fallen into the hands of an organ mafia, I wouldn't have been crammed into such a shitty place. I would be anesthetized by anesthesia or various drugs and thrown into a clean room. Local gangs have no business with such primitive methods."

There was little possibility of such basements in the XXII century. Although they could not reach their technological targets, human beings managed to improve themselves in other areas. Such basements were impossible to find on Earth.

'Can I not be in the world?'

But he immediately rejected this question.

'Going to Elysium is not such a cheap thing. They wouldn't put up with that much effort just for someone like me."

If so, his life might be worth more than he thought.

'There must be another purpose for me to be crammed here.'

Elysium, a hundred years ago 3. It was a blessing offered to the world that was devastated by the impact of World War II. It was a continent connected by spatial passages of different sizes that opened in different parts of the Earth. The continent was so large that only 5% of it could be explored even after a hundred years.

At least that's what he saw and read on the news.

World War 3 was violent enough to destroy the civilization of that time. But the existence of Elysium gave mankind new opportunities and the possibility of transforming themselves from scratch into a higher civilization.

This high-level civilization had two sources.

The first was Elysium, which was incredibly rich, while the other was the high-level types of energy found in Elysium.

No technological tools could be used in Elysium. It was a unique continent where time stood still in the Middle Ages.

'Hm?'

When Alexander noticed a compartment open under the door in front of him, he suddenly lost attention. A plate was left from this compartment, which was only thirty centimeters wide.

"He must be the one who imprisoned me here. What does it give me? Food?'

Stolen novel; please report.

The faint smells filtering through the plate were so decent, that Alexander made his head spin. Although Alexander didn't know what was on the plate, he could tell that the things on the plate smelled very good. During his time there, he had not put anything in his mouth except a few glasses of water.

As such, these smells were seductive for him.

He picked up the plate and looked at the leftovers left in it. Inside was the broth in which the bones floated, and a handful of rice left in the broth. Moreover, they had more than one variety of vegetable puree with them.

It was definitely like garbage as its tastes mixed together, but it was a blessing considering the situation it was in.

He put aside his thoughts and carefully drank the broth. Although it had cooled down, it sounded so delicious that tears began to flow from his eyes. While crying, he took some of the rice and threw it in his mouth. After chewing until his jaw hurt, he plucked a little from the vegetable puree.

'Oh, damn.'

Tears flowed as he ate.

---

In the dark room, where his eyesight was of no use, Alexander was doing push-ups. It had been a long time since I had lost the perception of time. If it weren't for the leftovers given to each meal, he wouldn't even know how much time had passed.

Empty plates formed a hill behind him. In the narrow area where he was doing push-ups, there was nothing but a bowl of water half full.

About four months had passed.

Every day for four months, he did various things in this dark room so as not to lose his mind. He talked to himself, he took time, and he counted his breaths. Eventually, he got tired of all this and started training his body.

There was nothing to do here.

If he kept standing idly by, he could lose his mind. That's why Alexander made it his hobby to move and train himself. Even though his energy consumption was on the line, and even though he had cramps in his stomach from hunger, he continued to work non-stop – without breaking his discipline.

So he was able to last so long without losing his mind.

When he was about to finish the last stage of his daily training, the light that suddenly came to his eye forced him to close his eyes.

"Argh! Fuck! My eyes are burning."

The light burned his eyes.

He immediately stood up and shielded himself with his hand, waiting to get used to the light.

Light?

'Or not?'

Alexander carefully moved towards the light and noticed that the steel door had opened. The moss-covered stone corridor was lit by torches. The light he had been deprived of seeing for months was now in front of him, but Alexander was not delighted.

'1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6...'

More doors were opening into the hallway than he could count.

Moreover, they were all numbered.

Alexander was distracted as he stepped into the corridor. In such an unfamiliar environment was also impossible for him to be careless.

His first step into the hallway evoked strange emotions within him. The darkness he was used to was no longer around him, which made him feel uneasy.

Moreover, there was something else that made him uneasy.

'Why is no one coming out?'

Although all the doors had been opened, no one had come out.

After taking a few steps down the hallway, Alexander looked nervously through the first door he came across.

It was a 3x3m room like his. There was no light inside, and a child almost the same size as him was lying on the floor covered in blood.

Alexander took a deep breath and, without even looking back, approached the next door. He had already regretted the breath he took as he approached the door.

He was stunned by the smell of rotten flesh that overflowed from the door.

What was it that smelled so disgusting?

"Kurhh!"

A room of the same kind as his and the previous one, leftover food that has not been touched for a long time and had become food for insects; this cruel sight, along with insects continuing to breed on the corpse, made Alexander nauseous.

He had seen dead several times before, as this was nothing unusual in the place where he lived. But he'd never seen such a disgusting sight before.

The child lying on the ground could no longer be called a human being.

His skull was shattered. The larvae that came out of his eye made him look like he was covered with rice. His skin was rotten, and the rotten blood had left his body and dried on the ground.

'He committed suicide.'

Alexander overcame his fear, and stared at the corpse for a long time, reminding himself of a fact.

'If I had given up, I would have been like this.'

After sighing, he turned his head and continued to move down the hallway. His eyes were slowly getting used to the light, so he no longer had to block it in with his hand.

'You keep your sanity and survive.'

Although he was nearing the end of the corridor, he did not find the survivor. By now it had crossed more than twenty gates, but there was not even a survivor. Either they had all turned into rotten pieces of flesh, or they had become prey to insects.

'Or you go crazy and die.'

He was slowly realizing the facts.

"That was just the beginning. My kidnappers have very different goals, and those who don't keep up with those goals are dying."

Was he ready to go through all this suffering?

'I wouldn't have suffered so much if I hadn't been ready.'

He gritted his teeth and touched the wooden door at the end of the hallway.

"If I've come this far, I'll keep going. I'll keep going and I'll survive."