"Woods?" Asked Sam.

"Yes, my darling?" Answered Woods.

"Do you remember that place where everyone pretended there was that thing that we couldn't see but everyone insisted was there?" Millions of miles from where they stood, the force of gravity shoved so many atoms together, their protons blushed with pleasure and new elements were made.

"Can you be more specific, please?" Asked Woods.

"They had built a bunch of things and everyone had great costumes..." The energy released from squishing so many red faced atoms together took days to reach the surface of the sun but only minutes to reach the planet Sam was trying to remind Woods of the city-state they had wandered into.

"The play?" Asked Woods, uncertainly.

"Yeah! The one people got really upset if you said it was a play!" The light mostly bounced off or got a little lost as heat but some of it was folded into sugars and other interesting shapes.

"I remember! I'm still not sure if I was meant to be the audience or an actor. Still, it was nice to play a game with so many people. That was fun. We joined a gym, if I remember rightly."

"An army."

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"That's right, someone said if we didn't go kill people, they'd kill us." Woods smiled, muscles driven by sunlight wrapped around molecules being explosively unspun by other molecules bouncing about their blood. "The songs and exercise and group showers were fun."

"I kept waiting to see how serious they were about the whole thing," laughed Sam, "I thought, no way they really meant for us to go about killing other people."

"I think that's why they wanted us to pretend the other people were monsters."

"Why would that be any better?"

"I don't know. It was quite a strange place. Still, it was nice to have all the uncertainty shouted at, the whole complex world boiled down into a little world where everyone could feel like they were part of something big!"

"Well, anyway, they want us to come back." Sunshine is tricky to capture in a jar but every day little things tie up the waves and rip other tiny things apart.

"Oh, no thank you. I didn't like the battle. Way too many eyes being gouged out and organs flying around. I've nothing against what a person has on the inside but I am not for any exposure of those insides outside a proper operating theater."

"They say that we are still part of the play and if we don't go back and do terrible things to the people pretending to be the other... whatchacallit... the others... you know?"

"Yeah, the monsters."

"Right, if we don't go do monstrous things to other people, they will do monstrous things to us." Sam said.

"Well, tell them we aren't playing. No one who is forced to play can play."

"I did. They told me that's why we are being given a choice."

"Oh good, I like choices. I choose to leave." Said Woods.

"We can't leave?"

"Why not?"

"It's a culdesac."

"What is?"

"This universe."

"It's one way?"

"Yep. Anyone can come in but no one can get out."

"Well, they said it would happen eventually."

"So, should we fight or die?"

"On second thought, I don't like it. Let's leave."