It’s the same as last time, a circle with words. It starts spinning, making a ticking sound every time it passes a word.

After a few minutes it stops, it certainly felt like hours. The part where it ended doesn’t have any words on it, I wonder what that means.

Punishment chosen.

Not even the system names it. Does this mean the punishment is nothing?

The circle disappears, nothing else seems to happen.

Hmm, maybe I should look around to see what changed. I try to take a step forward, but something stops me.

I can’t move anywhere, it’s as if I’m surrounded by walls.

Footsteps approach, I can hear them, can’t see them though. It’s a real soft sound, so it should be far away.

Just a tap tap, every second. Getting louder and louder. It’s a creepy sound, ugh. I shiver, every tap increases the speed of my heartbeat. My heartbeat raises its volume, as if it’s trying to compete with the footsteps.

The worst thing about this is that I don’t know what the punishment is and when it’s over. I guess that’s why it didn’t show which punishment it is.

My mind just blanks out trying to block out everything.

----------------------------------------

I’m not sure how much time passed, it feels like hours. The footsteps are really close now, and I hear rough breathing outside the ‘wall’. My back feels sweaty and goosebumps fill my arms.

Suddenly the steps stop. The breathing is still there, so whoever is there hasn’t left.

I hear a loud crack, not sure where it comes from. A line of light appears on the left side of the wall, as it becomes bigger a hand slides in. Nope, I’m not doing this. I shut my eyes close and wish whatever that thing is disappears.

I feel something touch my shoulder. My knees just give up and I fall.

“Hey, are you alright?” A surprisingly sweet voice asks, it sounds familiar.

It’s a trick, don’t look.

The thing on my shoulder moves towards my back, pushing me forward into something warm and soft.

----------------------------------------

I’m not sure what happened, I might have passed out. When I opened my eyes I was back in my bedroom, it was dark as well. Is it night already? Who knows.

Did something just move? Or am I making things up? I’m getting goosebumps from this, I don’t like night time. That shadow clearly moved, look, it’s moving again. It’s waving around, not even hiding its movement.

It’s probably a tree. Doesn’t make it better, it should stop moving. These are things that don’t happen at day time.

Just keep your eyes closed, you’ll be fine. Oh who am I kidding, I can’t close my eyes.

The rest of the night passes with me being tense about everything. Daylight comes through my window, making the whole room visible again. No monsters anywhere, great. I’m extremely tired now, should’ve gone to sleep instead.

----------------------------------------

I fell asleep, and now ‘dad’ woke me up again.

It’s a terrible life, I don’t want any of this. But back in the weird growling monster we go.

Wait, this isn’t that school place? Where are we going? I’m never getting in this monster again, can’t trust ‘dad’ with anything.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

----------------------------------------

This place, it’s big. Really big. Bigger than anything I’ve seen before. It’s also tall, and it doesn’t fall.

Every wall around me is white, they didn’t skip the floor either. It looks odd, it’s not the yellowish white, but pure white. ‘Dad’ leads me through some halls, everything looks the same here. How does he even know the way?

At some point the white walls were replaced with light blue, the floor with light yellow.

This world has some weird places, is this normal?

Anyway, ‘dad’ sits down on a chair and does nothing after. We’re waiting? For what?

Oh well, there’s a dollhouse near the chairs. I guess they dump a lot of kids here to keep them busy.

There’s a mirror on a wall nearby, it’s a lot better than the ones I saw in the other world. The weird growling monster that brought us here has three of those mirrors. The only odd thing about this mirror is that it’s curved, everything looks wider in the mirror. Why would they make something like that? Isn’t that a waste of a perfectly good mirror?

A woman walks in and calls out to ‘dad’. If I listened I might have heard what my ‘dad’ is called, but I don’t want to listen to anyone.

‘Dad’ pushes my back into a room, he doesn’t go in himself. He should stop pushing me, I have my own legs.

The woman heads into the room and closes the door, ‘dad’ apparently stays out.

She sits on a chair behind a table. There’s a weird flat square standing on the table, it looks like that weird thing Sophie had, but bigger.

There’s a flat rectangle on the table, in front of the flat square. All kinds of symbols are on little squares in the flat rectangle.

“You tell me everything, you don’t need to hide it from me.” The woman says.

As if it’s that easy, who do you think would trust you like that?

“Did anyone hurt you? Did they touch you on places you don’t like?” Ugh, any touch is something I don’t like. You know what, I’m not even going to listen to her. It’s a waste of time, let’s stare at clouds.

I need a way to stop my ears so they won’t work. That would make this easier. Well, you know what. I’m done with this. I’m leaving, good luck weird woman. Back to the door it is.

‘Dad’ looks quite surprised to see me walk out. Oh well, not my problem. The only problem I had was that it’s hard to open a door with my height, but a little jump does wonders.

We came from the left, right? Then that’s where I’m going. ‘Dad’ quickly stands up and stops me. No, I’m done. I do a dodge and run past him.

Somehow I manage to find the exit. I followed the crowd, and luckily they were headed the same way as I was.

Now then, where should I go. Nothing here is familiar, so that makes it hard. Let’s go right this time, there’s nowhere to go anyway.

I think I’m far enough now, so I stop running. This whole place is surrounded by tall buildings and weird monsters. The monsters growl past me on black road, the people seem to walk on grey road.

No one would want to walk in front of a monster anyway, that would hurt a lot.

This place is busier than the main road on my previous world, it’s not even close. My town could only be reached by either walking in the forest or by boat or ship. Carriages thus weren’t used a lot. Compared to the monster carriages here, they are everywhere. Thousands line up, waiting for who knows what.

It’s really interesting, there’s glass walls around. You can see everything inside, all the people doing whatever people do.

This building has a lot of clothes on racks, and many people are touching the clothes. They do things like holding a shirt in front of themselves, I wonder what that’s good for.

A voice starts talking behind me. “What are you doing here? Are you alone?” This voice sounds familiar.

No, I’m ignoring it, I don’t want more punishment. Two hands grab me below my arms, up I go… Why are people set on making me fly?

I can guess who it is… I’m being hold in an awkward way, flying in the air with hands underneath my arms.

Oh, now we’re moving. The hands go back, taking me with them. After some weird movements and shuffles she turns me around. Of course it’s Sophie. Who else would lift me like that.

I’ll look away, back to whatever those people were doing. I did notice that Sophie isn’t alone, she seems to be with two other girls her age.

“Meanie, don’t ignore me.” Sophie turns me around again. I’m not going to change my mind on this, you were the reason I was punished.

“What are you looking at?” You know what, I’ll put my hands in front of my ears. I somehow can’t ignore her voice. While I’m at it, let’s close my eyes too.

Something pulls one of my hands away. “Running away from your problems won’t work.”

Am I running away? I’m just preventing bad stuff.

“So, why are you out here alone?”

Don’t do this. I don’t want you near me, let me go.

“Wanna do something fun?”

I’m not listening. I’m not… Please…

“Let’s go then.”

Why… Why are you doing this...