Time had passed. Urien opened his eyes. He was alive. While looking around the room he had noticed a bunch of medical equipment all around as well as the fact that he felt something on his neck. A noise could be heard coming from behind a wall, which had a door to its side. His guess was that he ended up in the Emergency Room. This was confirmed to him by the fact that a heart monitor was right next to him, measuring his heart beats and health status.

He didn’t have enough time to wander his eyes around the room as soon the noise of someone walking was becoming louder and louder to him. Through the door from which behind he heard noises: another masked person entered the room along with him. This person had a hoodie on, which had a pattern on its front side which depicted an x-ray scan of what would be your ribs and the bones you could see inside of your torso and arms as well. The mask this person had on looked like a plague-doctor mask, only it was long, and it went below the neck. Through the middle of the mask there was a line which looked like a long stitch. This person was holding an axe which had the initials J.W. on it. Urien didn’t have the energy to stand up and run from this madman, so he accepted his fate in the hospital bed he was in. Urien was wearing his mask, only this time there was a hole where the puzzle piece and neck cuts were. He felt pressure on his neck.

“Don’t worry. I am not going to hurt you.” – said the strange man with the axe. “What happened to me? Wasn’t I completing a TEST?” – Urien asked, with the little energy that he had inside of him.

“You… you completed the TEST. You were bleeding so much though – and you fainted. Then, John came running to me and him and I had to bring you up to here. Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine.”

“Is my… what is up with my neck? Did I break it?”

“You cut yourself open on the neck and I had to do a little operation on you. Thankfully, you fainted yourself, so we didn’t have to use that much anesthesia on you. The puzzle piece which was inside of you… Well, you wouldn’t remember, but, before you completed your eleventh LOOP… I was the one who put it in there. Then you went through the LOOP door, and you forgot all about the thing… Maybe you felt your neck itching? That was probably a dead giveaway as to what was happening but I’m sure you haven’t had the time to take your mask off and analyze what was going on…” – said the strange man to Urien.

That explains why he hadn’t noticed the puzzle piece earlier. “Since you would have figured it out by the time the TEST had started, John decided it was best to make it your second TEST and get it over with as soon as possible. One thing that I should probably tell you, as well: the reason we had to do the operation on you with your mask on is because I don’t have the right to see the Tester’s faces. That would… it could make it weird for everyone. John is the only one who can see the Testers faces, and even at that, it's just the one time you wake up and find him in the cafeteria... How’s the pain feeling? Are you any better?”

“I’m… okay. I could use a painkiller or two.” – this was all that Urien could mutter. All of a sudden, a worry hit him: have they found his improvised knife? The second the strange man turned his back to Urien so he could grab a painkiller for him, Urien checked his pockets, and sure enough, it was there. He was still wearing his bloody clothes, and the unprofessionalism made Urien sure that this whole place was not what it seemed to be when he first signed up for it. In this case, the fact that they didn’t check his pockets properly or dress him in new clothes was a good thing. They were about to destroy him and rebuild him a hundred times, just so they could get the results they want.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Depressive thoughts hit Urien, knowing that he and his memories were being played with… “To escape this place… It’s what I must do. I… I need to save people from coming over to here. But, if people get their memories erased when they come here, and what if, then they erase them again when they finish these TESTs (which would be the opposite of the promised idea that they merge all your memories back), no one will be able to escape… Everyone will be stuck here forever… And… what if then, after you know nothing about yourself, they just tell you that you’re a worker here, and then you just… become a part of the ones who torture the others…? I don’t think I’m the first one who had this idea, this idea to escape. But seeing as this place is still up and running… It means that no one is yet to be successful. I must… escape.”

“Here, take these” – said the strange man. As Urien was cooperating with what the man was saying, there were no problems, and the air felt a little bit less heavy than it was when he first woke up.

“Oh… sorry. I forgot to introduce myself: my name is John Woodfield. I am a worker for PROJECT: M.O., just like John, who you’ve met before me, is. Him and I are the two main people who run things here, in this building. I’m trained in medicine, and I work along with John so we can fulfill our job as easily as we can. You can call me Woodfield, since, calling us both John is ought to get confusing for you. Just forget that I have a first name. My name is Woodfield.”

“Oh… Great. Another John…” – said Urien. “Look. You passed the TEST, but that wasn’t the only way to pass, you know?”

“What do you mean?” – Urien was distraught at Woodfield’s claim.

“If you had read the rules of the TEST… It was specifically said that all you had to do was form the shape along the puzzle’s landscape. In truth, if you had removed the middle row of puzzle pieces, it would have clicked in perfectly, and you wouldn’t have had to cut yourself open. The puzzle piece would have been removed by me and you wouldn’t have caused yourself any pain. Here, look."

Woodfield brought the puzzle, which was at this point, in the room with them, in front of Urien. Sure enough, removing the middle row wouldn’t have caused any problem and the shape of the rectangle would still be visible. If it was a square, for example, removing the middle row would have caused unequal sides of the shape. But, taking into consideration that it was a rectangle, removing the middle would have kept it as a rectangle, just shorter on the two horizontal lines. Still, this counts as a passed TEST.

“You’re telling me that I didn’t have to do any of this?”

“Read the rules, here. No where does it say that you must use all of the puzzle pieces.” – Woodfield handed over the paper to Urien, so he could see it and read it for himself. The paper had the rules written out, the same ones that John had read out to him. It was exactly as Woodfield had told him: cutting his neck open was not the only way to pass the TEST.

“Can you walk? I can let you take a walk around the building, outside. Some fresh air would do some good to your tired self.”

“I… I can walk. Let me outside.”