After that day, life went on like normal for everyone. But for Kaya, it was unknowingly the beginning of a downward spiral. A leakage in an already faulty battery.

It was already a draining task for Kaya got to keep up appearances and suppress any negative emotions and thoughts about the past from coming up, but now with the hologram questionnaire, one more burden had fallen on Kaya.

New questions.

Questions that brought new thoughts entirely.

Thoughts about his life brought up new worries that he hadn’t even thought about.

With each passing day, there would be another hologram that questioned Kaya’s entire life’s choices. And, honestly, each day Kaya became less and less certain about the path he was following in his life. A path that had been carved since childhood, a plan that Kaya followed without question.

What he once thought was a plan for his perfect life, a life being completely unbothered, began to look more like a pointless life altogether.

Cracks started to appear in Kaya’s ‘perfect’ life.

As the days passed and the questions from the hologram questionnaire became more thought-inducing, it was becoming harder to maintain his perfect image in school each passing day.

He was still able to keep up appearances though, but that came at a price. A heavy one. Before school, after school, on the weekends, and even now, at the time when kids Kaya’s age should be happiest in life, summer vacation, Kaya was completely broken both mentally and physically.

The questionnaire was chipping away at him mentally, and the consequences of that manifested physically. Any hint of Kaya’s already paltry emotion had now completely vanished, leaving behind a truly empty body.

He couldn’t even find comfort in anything anymore, not by being alone, not by sleeping, and not even by reading the novels that brought him the closest to happiness in his life before.

Now, with a truly empty body and nothing to refuel his battery anymore, Kaya just silently let it deplete as he functioned on the last of his dangerously empty reserves.

Energy that wasn’t even enough to keep up with the most simple of tasks like eating, sleeping, or just anything that required effort or thoughts.

Kaya didn’t even know that he was out of food, his last meal already having been a few days ago. If he wasn’t so lifeless, his eyes would have portrayed annoyance as he opened the fridge door and saw the cold empty shelves.

But instead, Kaya just slumped past the fridge, slid into a random pair of shoes, and opened the front door. As Kaya looked outside, tears started to form in his eyes. Not because of an emotional response though, just tears as a reflex from the sun hitting his sensitive eyes which hadn’t seen anything but the darkness for weeks.

Trudging his way to the closest convenience store, an all too familiar sight appeared in front of him. This already being the 300th day that this happened, Kaya didn’t even react and answered it in autopilot mode.

[Q: 300 - If you suddenly changed from today onwards, knowing that it could either improve or worsen, would you?]

[Yes] ; [No]

[Q: 300.1 - Why?]

[Open answer]

At this point, Kaya had so many questions resulting in an open answer that he wasn’t surprised by that anymore. Not that he had the energy or emotion to be surprised by it at the moment.

But for some reason, this question felt different and strangely personal, more so than all the previous questions. Even the lifeless Kaya could discern this difference.

Instead of a long question, combining multiple aspects from previous questions, this one was just a simple [Why?].

It was such an open question that Kaya could write a whole book for his reasons, but instead, he gave the shortest answer possible, almost as short as the question.

[Because I don’t care anymore.]

This short answer conveyed everything that Kaya had come to realize after being asked something that questioned his life, his existence, and his reasons for living every single day. He knew that if something didn’t change soon, life wasn’t worth living anymore.

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And, even though Kaya knew exactly how he could change his life for the better, he just couldn’t set a single step toward it. Something was holding him back, both mentally and physically. He just couldn’t change.

“So, if something, someone suddenly changed who I was from today onwards, I would take it without a second thought even knowing that it could also worsen my life. Because nothing can go below zero and everything can end with death!” Kaya shouted from the top of his lungs, surprising even himself.

For some reason, this brought up a lot of emotions that he thought had long been lost.

“SO, YES!!!” Kaya suddenly screamed even louder, his head tilting towards the sky.

As soon as Kaya screamed that, his vision suddenly went black.

‘What?’ Kaya thought confused. ‘Why did it suddenly go dark?’

Kaya was sure he wasn’t dreaming, and he was pretty sure didn’t faint as he was looking up at the sky just a moment ago with the most energy he had in a while, and he still had his thoughts accompanying him.

There was a good second of silence before Kaya’s body randomly shuddered. He got a strange feeling as he continued staring into the darkness that just appeared.

‘Is it even darkness?’ Kaya had assumed that everything went black as he suddenly couldn’t see anymore, but it wasn’t really that. It didn’t feel like darkness. ‘It’s more like complete nothingness…’

It was only a few moments later that Kaya came to the realization that not only his vision had gone. He also couldn’t hear the bustling streets anymore, he couldn’t smell the air and most of all, he couldn’t feel anything anymore.

The only thing that was left was his consciousness in this empty space.

For a second, Kaya’s thoughts went silent and when it did, Kaya suddenly had no sense of time anymore. He felt like just a few seconds had passed, but he wasn’t entirely sure. For all he knew a few hours could have already passed just like the passing of time in dreams.

‘This is kind of… nice, peaceful.’

‘Did I die?’

As soon as Kaya thought that, something suddenly appeared in the nothingness. In front of Kaya’s emptiness, another hologram appeared.

This hologram looked different from the usual questionnaire holograms though. Not only was it grey instead of blue, but there also wasn’t another question written on it. Instead, it read: ‘Results?’

[Questionnaire results]

[Honesty: 100%]

[Congratulations Kaya. You are one of the few humans on earth that has achieved a 100% honesty score.]

‘What is this…’ Kaya thought, not even having processed that his senses suddenly disappeared yet, much less the supposed results that were in front of him now.

Kaya stared at it for a second in confusion, but then moved on quickly, curious about the rest of the results.

‘I guess I did answer everything honestly.’

[Purity 100%]

[Congratulations Kaya. You are one of the purest human beings on earth. You bring pure kindness and happiness wherever you go.]

‘… Where is this going?’ Kaya thought, with a strangely strong feeling of anticipation as he read further.

[Final score: 15.365 points]

[Congratulations Kaya. You have achieved a score of 15.365 points on the questionnaire.]

‘Is that high..? What does it even mean to get a score on a questionnaire? All questions were personal and opinions from our own point of view…’

As soon as Kaya had read these three messages from the hologram and finished his thoughts about them, the hologram disappeared and was instantly replaced by another one.

The hologram that was now before Kaya was an angelic golden color, emitting a soft radiant glow from it.

In the middle of it, three words read.

[Embodiment of Purity]

As soon as Kaya read this, three more holograms popped up. The first and last one being of the same radiant golden color and the middle one being a deep dark red.

[Reward - You have been the light for many people, bringing happiness to others. Now it is time to return this blessing. To bring you peace of mind, you will receive a pure mind, unwavering to anything that wants to pollute it.]

[Cost - Others still need you, in the future even more than now. As destined from the moment you were named, you will remain the bearer of pain for others. This will be your curse.]

[Accolade - As you are blessed, the gods can’t stand for demons to shackle you and have bestowed upon you the same as your mind, a body unwavering to anything that wants to pollute it, a perfect eternal body and a new uncursed name, Nora.]

Having read these three holograms, Kaya was even more confused than he was after reading the supposed results.

‘Is this supposed to be a joke..?’

Kaya couldn’t believe what he had just read, it was almost comically unbelievable. Things going on about gods and being bestowed a pure mind and eternal body, Kaya just couldn’t come to terms with anything that he had just read.

Even though this whole hologram questionnaire had already been something unbelievable, what rewards had just allegedly been bestowed upon him were an even harder thing to believe. Impossibly so.

He couldn’t help but sneer at it sarcastically, but as he did, he didn’t hear any sound, neither did he feel his expression change, and then the golden hologram disappeared again like it had never been there in the first place.

Once again Kaya was left alone in the emptiness.

‘Why am I still in this senseless state?’

Kaya thought a lot about why this was, but no matter how much he thought about it, he didn’t remotely come close to a conclusion. He didn’t even have a good hypothesis. There were just too many questions and too few answers.

He was pretty certain that he was brought to this ‘space’ or ‘state of mind’ for these results and rewards to be announced. That was the only concrete fact he knew of. But why was it that when the holograms disappeared that he did not leave this emptiness?

‘Maybe I have to wait a little bit.’

But after Kaya had been waiting for what he thought to be quite a while, literally nothing changed. He was still in this emptiness, completely senseless.

Eventually, Kaya just went silent after a single thought popped up.

‘Thinking about it more won’t change anything. Let’s just get some rest.’