As I drifted between the realms of consciousness and unconsciousness, it didn't even feel like I was alive, but one of my senses managed to wake me up.

I smelled food, and the scent was really strong too. That meant it had to be really close. If it had been any further, I probably wouldn't have bothered, but now my reasoning didn't matter. I was hungry and there was food nearby. Whether I wanted to eat or not didn't matter. My survival instinct triumphed.

I managed to discern that there was a table near me and reached up. I took a hold of something cold that turned out to be water. Then I opened my mouth causing my dry lips to get ripped, and poured the water into my mouth, drinking as fast as humanly possible. After drinking all the water, I grabbed something steaming hot from the table, pulled it down, and began feasting on it.

It was like I was an animal. I didn't care for my surroundings or hygiene. All I cared for was the food I shoved into my mouth and the liquid I swallowed.

It wasn't until twenty minutes after I started the feast, that I noticed where I was.

'I made it,' I thought with a shocked expression and laid down.

I breathed in and with an almost crestfallen tone I said, "I survived."

I had really no thoughts on my survival. There was surely a part of me that wished against it. A part that wanted all the suffering to end. A part that had given up on the future. However, there was also a part of me that opposed all those feelings and was relieved when I got a stomach full of food again.

The part that liked my stomach to be full had always driven me, but today upon waking up, I noticed that those parts had started to balance out.

Those parts clashed and neutralized each other almost completely, leaving me with just a little bias that led me into the future.

***

My time in the preparation room consisted of me spacing out on one of the couches, eating and sleeping.

And when I felt like my strength had returned, I walked expressionlessly into the tunnel that would lead me to the next ruin.

This time things in the tunnel worked in an abnormally normal way. I walked to the door, opened it, and entered the ruin.

The ruin was dark. Not in the sense that there was something horrendous there. It was just simple darkness. Normally the fear of the unknown might have kicked in, but I was calm and collected. More so than usually.

I sat down casually and waited for something to happen, but no matter how long I waited for, nothing happened.

Hours upon hours went by, and I started to wonder if I was supposed to go somewhere. I got up and walked a little just to be met with a wall. I then tried going into all kinds of directions, thinking the ruin might be some sort of maze, but I was met by walls no matter which direction I walked in.

Figuring that I wasn't supposed to go anywhere, I sat back down and began recalling the ruins before for any kinds of ideas on how to proceed.

Every single one of them had threatened my life in some way up until this point, but some were less dangerous than others. There had never been one that tried to catch me by surprise and kill me. They all gave me some time to react to the dangers, so I wasn't all that worried about getting stabbed in the back suddenly. I still kept my guard up, however. There was a first time for everything after all.

Since nothing had happened yet, I was sure that this dark room would be the place where I spent my time in this ruin.

Maybe the room would start getting smaller or start morphing, but I didn't think an exit would appear, so I didn't have to keep focusing on finding changes like that.

'Hmm, what about the oxygen?' I thought.

It was possible there was a finite amount of oxygen in this room and that I was to stay in the room for a fixed amount of time. That way I would have to breathe in a way that consumes the minimal amount of oxygen.

I started to get a little worried as I thought that I may have messed up figuring something like this out only after being in the room for hours.

'No, it can't be. If there was a finite amount of oxygen in this room, I would have felt the effects of it by now,' I thought reassuring myself.

I then kept thinking of other things.

I knocked on the floor of the dark room in the hopes of discovering something, but there was no sound. I decided to summon my dagger and tried to stab and cut the floor, but to no effect.

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I was starting to run out of ideas.

This was eerily similar to the second ruin that tried to get my to commit suicide, but this time there was nobody who talked to me.

What was the point of this.

While thinking that I simply sat, observing my surroundings in case there were any changes.

There were none.

I felt helpless.

There was really no way for me to affect things like this. Just like with my sleeping. It didn't matter how strong I was when I could easily die to something like starvation in a place like this.

I couldn't really understand what the point of all this was. Was there someone watching me? The Creator? Is he still alive? Does he know me? Was I handpicked or was I summoned here on random? Was there any purpose to me being here? Why can't I affect the direction my life goes in? Just why won't I be set free? There's always someone or something controlling me. I can never just walk away.

No, I could have walked away at that time.

After I escaped from the facility, I could have found a farm somewhere and go live there. Or I could have simply gone into some forest and lived like an animal.

Why did I try to make money? What was it that I wanted to buy? I already had freedom, so it couldn't be that.

What did I want to buy?! Why did I throw away a life dictated by me? Did I want to buy a plane? Or a house? Did I want to secure an unlimited supply of food? Did I want to drive around in a sport car?

I buried my face in my hands, 'I could have escaped.'

'This time I'm going to do it. But first, I need to escape. That's right. I'll do anything.'

I raised my head and looked up like there was someone there, "Can you hear me?! I'll do anything, so give me a challenge! I want out if this place! You hear me?!"

I yelled as loudly as I could, but there was no answer.

Maybe he didn't care about me. If that was the case, why didn't he just kill me.

'If he doesn't care, then why keep me here?' I thought as I imagined a violent outburst.

I really wanted to throw things around and break what I can, but I had no energy. All of it had been depleted with my yelling.

It was all useless anyway.

I went back to having my head buried in my hands and thought about a life I could have lived. I thought about all the ways it could have gone wrong. Knowing that my mistake could have been the best choice in some scenarios helped me cope.

It was all nature. I was just a part of nature and nature didn't care if I existed or not. It was that simple. All my efforts didn't matter if I wasn't lucky enough for nature to give me a break from my suffering.

That was how my life would always be. Controlled by something beyond my grasp.

'It's all so...' I tried to think of the correct word to describe it, but nothing came to mind.

***

Days passed, while I played around with my dagger.

I cut myself a few times after I started doing all sorts of tricks with it, but even the biggest cuts that I had received while doing it had healed completely a long time ago.

For some reason I felt no hunger or thirst. I was a little drowsy, but my attempts on getting sleep had all failed. My hands were getting so tired that I dropped the dagger, and even though I intended on picking it up, I gave up upon noticing that my dagger had gone further than I could reach from my current position.

I cancelled the summoning of my dagger and laid down on my back deciding to wait until I could summon it again. I started counting the seconds, but quickly gave up after forgetting what number I was on. I then forgot completely about the dagger and stayed completely still in the quiet space.

That was until I saw something appear in the darkness from the corner of my eye. I got up into a sitting position and looked around with the most mindfulness I could muster. Then I saw something that made open my eyes fully.

In the utterly dark space, I could clearly see a young boy with gray eyes and black hair styled into a middle part standing in front of me.

Being unable to comprehend the situation made forming words feel impossible, so I ended up just making some pointless sounds.

The boy ignored the sounds I made and focused on observing me.

Then he looked into my eyes with clear disgust as he said, "You look pathetic."