His gaze was lost in the ground. Only a bag and some orbs lay scattered, mixed with blood—his own blood.

Abhijit was gone. Alonso sensed it the instant it happened, the moment his stage progress updated. He had taken the only thing Abhijit left behind—his orb. The 0.100% increase in his stage progress was a painful reminder of how this place seemed to reward killing among its participants.

Kneeling, bloodied, Alonso knew the worms were still coming. But his arm was weak, his strength fading.

“Al…”

“Al…nso.”

The voice in his head was faint. He wanted to rest. It hurt—everything hurt, an unbearable pain coursing through his body. He was so tired. He just wanted to rest.

“Alonso…”

“Alonso!”

Let me… let me rest. Just a little…

“ALONSO!!!”

His blade moved instinctively in a curved slash.

Three worms were blocked at the same time.

Alonso leaned back, and as he fell, he used his one good leg to propel himself backward. Twisting his torso mid-fall, he shifted his weight to avoid the next attack, his body rolling fluidly across the ground.

He was awake.

Pushing himself upright, Alonso started running, not caring about the bag, the orbs, or anything else. He forced his injured leg to move, each step sending sharp pain shooting through his body. But he couldn’t stop—he wouldn’t allow himself to stop.

The worms kept coming, mostly two at a time, but he deflected them as he ran, not bothering to kill or collect. He just kept moving, running, pushing his body to the brink of collapse.

He tore through the jungle, dodging trees with an agility that defied his battered condition. His speed was relentless, and despite the agony, he kept going. Every time a worm got close, he slashed or deflected it, not missing a step, as he sprinted through the dense undergrowth, driven by a single, desperate instinct to survive.

Worms lunged—he deflected them with quick, efficient strikes, not slowing down. The rhythm was brutal: step, slash, deflect, repeat. His muscles burned, his vision narrowed, but he couldn’t stop.

Another worm appeared—he slashed it aside without thought, his movements automatic. The pain in his leg was constant, each step a jolt of agony, but his body pushed through it, refusing to give in. The trees rushed past, their branches clawing at him as he barreled through the dense foliage.

His mind was blank, driven only by the need to survive. He couldn’t think, couldn’t process—just react. A worm attacked from the side; his sword moved on its own, cutting it down. Another from above—he ducked, the blade flashing up to meet it. Each deflection, each strike, was precise, his body moving faster than it should, the mind no longer thinking.

The edge of the jungle came into view, the light of the beach beyond a faint beacon. He didn’t slow down. One more worm came at him —he deflected it with a single, fluid motion, not even pausing to see if it was fully dealt with.

The sand was underfoot. Alonso’s body gave out, his legs collapsing beneath him as he hit the ground. He felt the sand cool against his skin, the ocean a distant roar in his ears. The adrenaline that had kept him going faded all at once, leaving only exhaustion and pain in its wake.

His vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges. The last thing he felt was the cold sand against his face as everything went black.

***

His eyes fluttered open, vision blurred. This smell? Water, ocean? It was dark. Nighttime?

"AHHH!"

He tried to move, but pain shot through his entire body. What... why does it hurt so much? Where was he? How did he get here?

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He moved his hand forward, scraping through the cold, rough sand.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he rolled onto his side, facing the sky. It was... beautiful. Full of stars. So many stars. It was like he could see the entire galaxy in his eyes. So... so beautiful.

But the pain returned. He lifted his head and noticed his body was bloodied, covered in cuts and deep wounds. How was he even alive?

He let his head fall back again. The sky was a much more pleasant view than his half-dead body.

But then, the memories flooded back. The last moments were blurry, but he remembered enough. The long trek through the jungle, the bags, the orbs, and then... the four worms and Abhijit's death.

He had been trying to anticipate the next challenge, but he treated it too casually. He expected a warning or something. But the challenge had come suddenly. Abhijit had been slightly ahead, perhaps just by chance, and he had been the first to face it—and the one to die. It could have easily been him.

He had grown conceited, treating the challenges as a game, as controlled environments meant to make them stronger. But the reality was a trial that tortured them into monsters.

"Don’t blame yourself now. It was hard to guess, and it was Abhijit who decided to walk ahead at that point. He was growing confident too."

"And if there was no Abhijit?"

"You would have survived those four worms. While you might not have deflected the fourth perfectly, you would have managed to limit it to a non-lethal wound and then retreated safely. In the end, Abhijit died because he was weak."

"If I had predicted the sudden increase in difficulty beforehand, perhaps..."

"Perhaps is an interesting word. You can make anything happen with a 'perhaps' before it. A couple of 'perhapses' here and there, and maybe there would never have been any wars, and mankind would live in peace, happily ever after. Or, just one tiny 'perhaps,' and humans would never have existed."

Alonso kept gazing at the night sky. The truth was, he made an error in judgment. The worms were designed to test detection, tracking, interpolation, and response. So why wouldn’t the worm area work the same way? The rate at which worms spawned per distance covered from the beach—detect, track, and interpolate that rate across the plateaued region—would suddenly jump back to the point where it should be at any moment, without warning. The plateaued region where the rate of attacks remained constant, that was the challenge.

The realization that he had underestimated the trial gnawed at him, but the overwhelming fatigue made it hard to care. He was alive, but just barely. His throat was dry, parched from the blood loss and the exertion. A desperate thirst clawed at him, and the hunger gnawed at his stomach like a beast. He needed to eat, to drink, to recover some of the strength that had been drained from him.

The memory of the nearby coconut trees surfaced in his mind, a faint glimmer of hope. If he could reach them, he might be able to stave off the weakness that threatened to drag him back into unconsciousness.

Using his sword as a crutch, he began to crawl across the sand, every movement a battle against the screaming pain in his muscles. His progress was slow, agonizingly so, but he pushed forward, refusing to give in to the darkness that loomed at the edges of his vision.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he reached the base of a coconut tree. He glanced up at the fruits hanging above, so close yet so far out of reach. He knew he couldn't climb the tree in his current state, so he did the only thing he could—he used his sword.

Gripping the hilt tightly, he swung at the coconuts, gritting his teeth as the blade made contact. It took several strikes, each one sending jolts of pain through his injured body, but eventually, a few coconuts broke free, tumbling down to the ground.

One of them struck him on the head with a dull thud, and he winced at the fresh pain that shot through his skull. But he didn't have the strength to care; the coconuts were within reach, and that was all that mattered.

With trembling hands, he grabbed one and struggled to cut it open, the sword slipping in his weakened grip. It took longer than it should have, but finally, he managed to crack it open, the cool, refreshing liquid inside spilling onto the sand.

He drank greedily, the coconut water soothing his parched throat and giving him a small burst of energy. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep him going.

He scooped out the soft flesh with his fingers, eating it voraciously, as if the coconut was his last lifeline. The sweet taste mixed with the salt from his own blood, but he barely noticed. All that mattered was quenching his thirst and filling the gnawing void in his stomach.

When the first coconut was empty, he reached for another, repeating the process with shaky hands. The pain in his body dulled slightly as he ate, the nutrients giving him just enough strength to keep moving.

Once he had consumed as much as he could, Alonso collapsed back onto the sand, lying flat on his back. The stars above blurred as he stared up at the sky, his body too exhausted to do anything more.

Abhijit’s face flashed in his mind, the moments they had shared replaying in fragments. The quiet talks, the occasional laugh, the shared struggle. And now… now Abhijit was gone.

They had been strangers, people who would probably never have met in the outside world, each with their own story, their own family, their own friends, their own life. Each had their fears, regrets, memories, and dreams. But now, only one of them carried it all on.

He felt a bit sad for Abhijit, regretting that he hadn’t taken the challenge more seriously. They could have trained for days, gathered orbs from the panthers and leeches, and grown stronger while ensuring they had enough food and water. But no… he had to push it.

He closed his eyes.

Dwelling on it won’t change a thing.

He fell asleep.