Jisung's words had scared me. I was trying to figure out if I felt any different from before, but I didn't.
I still wanted to leave this place and I still hated everything about this place. I definitely wasn't brainwashed yet.
I didn't want to torture Jisung, so I stayed silent and watched him fiddle with his piece of paper.
I really hated this place. It gave me anxiety. I had no idea how long I'd been here, what time of the day it was, anything. I was just here. The silence was also making me go mad. We could have heard a needle dropping to the floor. The only sound I heard was the faint sound from Jisung's fingers as he fiddled with his piece of paper.
Time passed, or maybe it didn't. I couldn't really say that time seemed to be passing by slowly, because I really didn't know. Anyone would go mad from being so unconscious of the time.
I had nothing to wait for and nothing to long for. Nor did I have anything to entertain myself with to at least enjoy the present I was in. It was like time stood still, except it didn't, and that's what was the hardest to process.
No wonder Jisung was so mentally unstable. Anyone would go mad living under those conditions. He must have been so lonely.
How would I ever get out of here. I was starting to understand Felix feeling of hopelessness. I saw no escape from this place. Jisung had for sure been here for long, longer than I could probably imagine.
"So... do you have any hobbies?" I asked the boy and looked at him, already sick of the silence.
He looked up from his piece of paper and into my eyes. "I do" he said, looking a bit too serious. "I like to rap and produce music" then I saw how his face changed and he looked terrified, as if he'd said something wrong. "I mean, I used to like that, but not anymore because rap music is bad for the society and rapping is an unnecessary hobby" he corrected himself.
It hurt my heart to see him look so terrified. I wanted to tell him it's okay, nobody's listening, he can say what he want, I won't snitch, but I knew it was to no help. He wasn't afraid of someone hearing him talk about bad stuff, it was his brainwashed persona he was scared of.
"What's good for the society?" I asked calmly.
He didn't seem to have any answer. He'd been taught not to talk about anything that's bad, but nobody had ever told him what was good and okay to do. "To live a life without anything bad" he said after a few seconds of thinking.
I nodded understandingly. "I see"
The truth was they didn't want us to be anything special. They just wanted obeying citizens that were all the same. For this to work everyone needed to have the same hobbies and the same interests, same values in life, the same life.
Silence lingered again in the room, until the door opened up and three men came in. In the front was a man who looked like a high positioned leader judging by his outfit while as the other two looked like guards.
Jisung stood up at the sight of them and did a salute. "Reporting to sergeant Yoon" he said.
Sergeant Yoon. My guess was probably quite correct
One of the guards went towards me. I felt my heart started to beat faster but his actions surprised me. He started unlocking the chains that had been tying down my hands and feet to the stretcher so I could move freely. When he was done he went back to stand behind the sergeant.
Sergeant Yoon looked at me as he spoke. "Stand up" he said.
I won't stand up at your order, I thought, but somehow I felt my body standing up.
An evil smirk of satisfaction spread over his face. I felt disgust, both because of his smirk and over myself for standing up at his command.
"Do a salute" he then said.
This man was pushing it now. My body really wanted to do a salute, but I was fighting it back. It was draining me on energy, but I wasn't doing it. "No" I managed to say at last.
I saw Jisung's suddenly terrified face looking at me. "You shouldn't..." he said but trailed off.
The sergeant looked surprised. "No?" He repeated what I'd said.
"That's right, I won't do as you say" I said, but after saying that I was on the verge of fainting from the exhaustion.
He looked at the two guards standing behind him. "Give her what she deserves" he said and turned around to leave the room while the two men came my way.
My brain was to tired to process everything that happened, but I'm pretty sure I took a bad beating. Everything was blurry and I felt a stinging pain in the stomach. Another hit and my right cheek heated up. It felt like someone had put it on fire. My whole body seems to hurt at last, but my eyesight became blurrier and darker with every punch.
At last I couldn't feel anything, nor see anything.
In the darkness I saw three hearts, just floating next to each other in the nothingness. The next second one of the hearts just poofed away. Two hearts were left. It had all looked like when you lose a life in an old video game.
I felt my stomach twisted and I felt uneasy. If I'd had any doubts about the location I was at before, they were all gone now. We were inside a game. A cruel and hard game that I had no idea how to escape.
***
I woke up in the elevator with the sun shining in my eyes from the small window inside it. Back here now... fun.
The doors opened up and I was about to restart the level when I heard a deep ass voice outside. "Back already" he said.
I went outside to where the boy was standing, waiting for me.
"Have you just been standing here, waiting for me to die, since I left?" I asked him with a frown.
"You think I have nothing better to do?" He asked and and looked at me with disbelief.
"I mean, yeah" I said and shrugged. "You're just stuck here anyway, what fun could you have?"
The disbelief over his face disappeared. For a second he looked blankly out in the air, then he gave me a glare. "The whole ground starts shaking every time someone arrives in the elevator, then it takes around a minute for them to wake up" Felix explained. "I knew you were coming back"
"Oh" I said.
Felix started walking back towards the building and I followed him closely behind.
"But Felix, you should really try to play the game" I said. Only half a second later I felt how I walked into something quite solid, my nose and forehead hitting his back and neck. "Yah" I said and took a step backwards. "Why did you stop so suddenly?"
He turned around and looked at me with a frown full of wonder. "How did you know my name?" He asked.
Right, I never got his name from himself. "Jisung told me" I answered him.
His face changed and his eyes grew wider. His expression softened a little and I didn't even knew that was possible. "You met Jisung?" He said.
"Yeah, the dude's a wreck, I felt so bad every time I saw him" I said.
Felix didn't say anything but turned back around again and continued walking towards the building. "So he never got past the first level" he mumbled for himself with low voice.
"Are you not gonna help me save him from that place?" I asked and continued following him.
"You want to get stuck there rather than here? At least here we're not brainwashed and shit" he said without turning around to look at me.
So he did know what had happened to Jisung, he just didn't do anything because he was scared to end up like him. "Maybe we won't get stuck, if we never take risks we never get anywhere in life, we're already in hell, we can only go up from here, or stay in hell forever" I said, trying to motivate this dude who only knew what negativity was.
"There's no we in this, it's you and it's me, you go do whatever you want, I'm staying here" He said, not giving any fucks about what I was saying.
I sighed, still following his tracks. "I can tell from experience, this place is pretty much equally as bad as the first level, you really want to continue to live like this forever? Can you even call it life?" I continued.
He didn't say anything this time. We got inside the building and he laid down on the sofa. "I need your help" I said quietly, not sure if he would hear me. I couldn't rescue Jisung by myself, but if we were two it might be possible.
I saw no reaction so I decided to inspect the place. Cold and abandoned rooms were between the walls of the cylinder shaped building. I took the stairs up to the roof. I'd only been here to be pushed down by Felix. It was a cool view for sure. Quite extraordinary and not something you could find just anywhere. The purple fields reached as far as the eye could see and if you focused really hard at the horizon you could see the sky glitching where it met the flowers.
I looked down on the other side, into the building. A cupola of metal poles was the only roof it had. At the bottom I saw Felix still laying on the sofa, probably sleeping because his eyes were closed. Must make time pass faster... not that it mattered because he was just stuck here either way. It's not like he's waiting for something, except maybe his death.
Sudden anxiety hit me. His life was really so depressing, and now it was my life too. I couldn't take it. I was not going to wait around for death like him.
I headed down the stairs and back to where Felix was camping.
I saw a pink backpack with Dora the explorer print on the ground next to the sofa. I went closer to inspect it. Inside I found some random stuff and I really couldn't see any connections. A lighter and a rope, those are good things to have, but then there were random stuff like a plushy, a card deck, an opener, a piece of Lego and much more odd things. But this bag was certainly not normal, you see, all of those things should not be able to fit in this kid's backpack.
"Is this your backpack?" I asked him and picked it up so he could see it.
He opened his eyes and looked at it with a frown of disbelief. "You think I have a Dora the explorer backpack?" He asked.
"Well I don't know, maybe you do" I said back.
Felix glared at me. "I don't" he said and went back to resting his eyes.
"Then I'm taking this with me" I said and swung it over my shoulder. Maybe it could be to help, whenever I needed a piece of Lego or a plushie... or just a cool Dora backpack.
He opened his eyes again and sat up. "Where are you going?" He asked.
"Back there to save Jisung, and escape this place" I said and started walking towards the elevator.
"But that place is dangerous, you sure you want to try it again?" He asked. What is this? He sounded almost worried.
"Whats the point in living if this is your life?" I asked him. "In what way is death any worse than living here like you? You're just waiting for your death anyway, I'd rather just die now if this is the life I'm gonna live for the rest of my life" I said without turning around to face him, continuing towards the elevator.
Felix didn't say a word after that. I left the building and entered the elevator again.
Ten buttons but only one available to press.
I pushed the first button and waited for something to happen. Shortly afterwards the light went out. The travel was exactly the same as last time and I found myself back on some empty streets. Not entirely empty though, now I knew that.
This time I waited with stepping out. The doors were open, but I was thinking up a plan in my head before going out there this time. I needed to be fast and run to take cover somewhere. The place was quite spacious and open. It was easy for those armed people to find me here.
There was a smaller alley a bit ahead of me. If I could just run there fast enough I could take cover there. The alley was dark and narrow and I saw no people anywhere close it. In the distance I heard voices though, and that worried me.
I grabbed the straps of my backpack, taking a deep breath, in and out. I braced myself before I took off running. Sprinting as fast as I could towards the darkness.
"Over there!" I heard a voice yell.
Fuck.
They'd seen me, for sure.
I kept running as fast as I possibly could, to the dark alley and through it. I heard heavy footsteps behind me, but so far they were still far away. I took a turn at some point, hoping to shake them off, but they must have seen me. I continued running around, taking turns when I saw a darker and scarier alley.
At last I found myself back where I'd started. The elevator was gone but I recognized the place. I was exhausted and my legs were numb. I hadn't been running for very long, but I'd been running very fast, like my life depended on it, which it kind of did.
I had to stop for a second and catch my breath, but I saw the armed men were coming out from the alley I'd just come from.
I didn't give myself very long time to catch my breath. Only a few second and then it was back to running. My heart was beating really hard and my lungs hurt from breathing in the cold air while running for my life.
I was scanning for a place to hide but with no luck. The road was big and open, no smaller streets and no hiding places.
My legs were too tired to run as fast as I'd done before and my pace was slowing down. The armed men definitely had better stamina than me because they weren't slowing down. They were catching up with me with every step they took.
About 5 men with the same black clothes and armor, holding guns in their hands. They weren't firing yet though. They probably wanted me alive so they could brainwash me.
I'd realized I couldn't shake them off and was thinking about stopping so they could take me back to the place where Jisung was. I needed to get there either way so I could save him, but I was hoping it wouldn't be by ending up as his cell mate again.
At last they were only a few meter behind me. I stopped and turned around, expecting to be shot or taken down or whatever, but just as I saw one of them aim their gun at me, about to shoot, a blonde boy kicked him from behind, causing him to fall face first to the ground.