The world vanished all at once.
When Evan opened his eyes again, he was already falling.
His shoulder slammed against the white floor, and a sharp pain shot through his arm. He rolled sideways at once and pushed himself halfway up, breathless, both hands pressed against the ground.
White.
The floor.
The walls.
The ceiling.
The light with no source.
The box.
His heart started pounding so hard that for a second he thought he was going to throw up.
There was no need to look around.
No need to hear the voice.
No need to see the timer.
He already knew.
"No…"
The word came out on its own, strangled.
Then he looked up.
A man was standing on the other side of the box.
Younger than Marc.
Maybe late twenties.
Thin face. A few days' worth of beard. A dark purple bruise already marked his left cheekbone, as if he had gotten hurt between the two duels. He was breathing fast, too fast, but there was nothing lost in his eyes.
They knew.
Both of them.
A sharp beep rang out.
The red numbers appeared.
15:00
Evan felt his stomach knot immediately.
14:59
14:58
The voice echoed through the room.
Still just as clear.
Still just as cold.
"Welcome."
"Two human subjects confirmed."
"Beginning trial."
Evan did not take his eyes off the other man.
He was barely listening anymore.
He already knew what came next.
And yet hearing it a second time chilled his blood even more.
"Rules:"
"One-on-one confrontation."
"Time limit: fifteen minutes."
"Victory condition: death of the opponent."
"If no death is recorded before the time limit expires, one subject will be eliminated at random."
"No outside objects have been authorized."
"Any attempt to escape is impossible."
"Please act freely."
Silence fell again.
The timer kept moving.
14:31
14:30
The man across from him ran his tongue over his dry lips.
Then he said in a hoarse voice,
"I'm not waiting this time."
Evan felt his whole body tense.
"Wait—"
The other man did not let him finish.
He came fast.
Not like a trained fighter.
Like someone who had already thought too much before coming in here.
Like someone who had sworn not to let chance decide for him again.
Evan backed away at once, nearly stumbling. The man threw himself at him without technique, with nothing but all the fear a human body could hold. His shoulder slammed into Evan's chest. They both lurched sideways and crashed onto the floor.
The impact knocked the air out of Evan.
A hand grabbed his collar.
The other reached for his throat.
Evan shoved back as best he could, on instinct, his arms shaking. His opponent was breathing so hard that spit almost flew from his mouth when he spoke.
"No— no— no—!"
He was throwing bad punches. Too fast. Too close.
One hit Evan's cheek.
Another clipped his ear.
The third missed and slammed into the floor.
Evan twisted half free, rolled to the side, tried to get up.
The man jumped on him from behind at once.
His fingers closed on Evan's sweatshirt.
They both went down again.
The back of Evan's head struck the white floor.
His vision blurred for half a second.
He heard his own breathing turn animal.
The other man's arm came around his neck.
Pressure.
Not a full choke yet.
But enough to send panic surging through him in an instant.
Evan thrashed violently. His heels slipped on the floor. He grabbed a wrist, tried to pull it away, failed. The man clung to him with the desperate energy of someone who no longer had anything human left to save but his own life.
"Stop moving!" the other man shouted in a cracked voice. "Stop moving!"
As if that meant anything.
As if either of them could do otherwise.
The arm around Evan's neck tightened.
This time, he felt the lack of air for real.
A brief burn.
Then a terrible one.
His heart slammed harder.
The white of the box seemed to pulse around him.
He thought of Marc.
Of the red beam.
Of his mother.
And something in him gave way.
Not a decision.
A reflex dirtier than that.
He drove his elbow backward as hard as he could.
Once.
Nothing.
A second time.
A muffled sound behind him.
A third, lower.
The grip loosened just enough.
Evan twisted around violently, almost without understanding how, and shoved the man away with all his strength.
They rolled again.
Half rose.
Fell again.
The fight was nothing like a fight.
It was two panicked bodies trying to keep the other from existing long enough to die in their place.
The man threw himself at him again.
This time, Evan got his arms up too late and took the hit full in the chest. He staggered back until he hit the wall. His back slammed hard against it. The other man lunged for his throat with both hands.
Evan fought back.
Their arms trembled.
Their faces were only inches apart.
The man was almost crying.
Not from sadness.
From terror.
"I can't…" he gasped. "I can't do this again…"
Evan did not answer.
He had no air for that.
He grabbed blindly for whatever he could.
A wrist.
A sleeve.
A shoulder.
Then his hand found the man's throat.
Without thinking, he shoved.
The other man tried to break free, but slipped halfway against him. They crashed to the floor again, and in the movement Evan ended up on top, both forearms pressing down across the top of the man's throat against the white floor.
The other man started struggling at once.
His legs slammed against the ground.
His hands clutched at Evan's sleeves.
His nails searched for skin.
Evan felt one finger rake his neck.
He pressed harder.
Not because he knew what he was doing.
Because if he let go, he was absolutely certain the other man would start again.
The face beneath him turned red.
Then slowly shifted to a more frightening color.
The man tried to speak.
No clear sound came out.
Only a short, horrible gurgle.
And then Evan felt what he was doing.
His arms began to shake.
"Stop…" he whispered, not even knowing who he was talking to.
To himself.
To the other man.
To the box.
To the aliens.
To anything that still might have stopped what was happening.
But nothing stopped.
The man kept struggling.
Less and less.
Then weaker.
Then almost not at all.
Evan kept pressing for a second too long.
Maybe two.
When he finally let go, he recoiled at once as if he had just touched something burning.
The man remained on the floor.
Eyes open.
Mouth half parted.
His chest was no longer moving.
Evan dragged himself backward on his hands, unable to take his eyes off the body.
"No…"
His voice was shaking so badly he could barely hear it himself.
"No, no…"
The timer still read:
11:46
11:45
Too much time.
Far too much.
The silence of the box had returned.
But this time, it had nothing to do with the silence of the first duel.
This time, someone had died before the end.
And Evan knew exactly how much pressure his arms had used.
He knew exactly when he could have let go.
At last, the voice rang out.
"Death confirmed."
"Trial complete."
"Return of surviving subjects scheduled at the end of the allotted time."
Evan lowered his eyes at once.
As if he refused to let that voice see what he had done.
As if that changed anything.
He stayed there, sitting against the wall, several meters away from the body.
His lungs were still filling too fast. His throat hurt. His cheek throbbed. His skull ached where it had hit the floor.
But nothing hurt as much as his arms.
They had almost no strength left now.
And yet, a few seconds earlier, they had been enough.
The timer did not stop.
11:44
11:43
No.
He blinked.
Time was still moving.
Of course it was.
There were almost twelve minutes left for him to endure alone in the box with the body.
The world was not going to take him back right away.
He had to wait.
Again.
That thought made him want to scream.
But no sound came out.
After a while—he had no idea how long—the man on the floor began to dissolve.
Like Marc.
No blood.
No trace.
His outline blurred, broke apart, then vanished.
The floor became perfectly white again.
Perfectly empty.
As if nothing had happened.
And then Evan felt the most unbearable sensation since the tournament had begun.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Unreality.
As if the world wanted to erase even the very idea of death just so it could start over again afterward.
He slowly drew his knees up against himself.
Lowered his head.
And waited.
Several times, he thought he could still hear the other man breathing.
Several times, he looked up, certain he was about to see him come back.
Each time, there was only white.
At one point, he put his hands out in front of him and stared at them.
They were still trembling.
Nothing on them.
No mark.
And yet he felt as though they no longer fully belonged to him.
Time finally passed.
Slowly.
Cruelly.
When the timer at last reached 00:00, the light flickered.
Then the floor seemed to disappear beneath him.
And everything vanished.
***
Evan reappeared in his living room.
He dropped to his knees beside the couch, both hands on the floor, breath cut short.
The return was so brutal that it took him several seconds to understand where he was.
The television was still talking.
The window.
The half-open curtain.
The table.
The glass in the sink.
His mother's phone, still clenched in his hand.
Outside, screams were already rising from the building and the street.
Not the same ones as the first time.
This time, they had shape.
Knowledge.
Recognized terror.
Evan remained bent toward the floor, unable to stand right away.
His throat was burning.
He raised one hand to it. His fingers found skin already tender, almost painful.
The other man had really choked him.
So it had not been a nightmare.
He did not even know why that thought crossed his mind.
Everything was real.
Too real.
A noise exploded in the hallway.
A door thrown open.
Fast footsteps.
Someone crying.
Then a voice, clearer than the others, just outside his apartment door:
"Evan!"
Hugo.
Evan jerked his head up.
He tried to answer, but his voice broke.
"Yeah…"
The handle turned.
Then stopped.
Of course.
The door was locked.
"Evan!" Hugo called again from the other side. "You there?"
This time, Evan managed to get to his feet enough to reach the entrance.
Every step felt strange, as if he were still crossing a piece of the white box stuck to the real world.
At last, he opened the door.
Hugo was standing there, all the color drained from his face, his eyes wide with a fear Evan knew far too well now.
His gaze dropped immediately to the reddened skin on Evan's neck.
Then lifted back to his eyes.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then Hugo asked, in a voice much too low,
"Did you have to…?"
Evan felt his stomach tighten.
He understood the rest of the sentence perfectly without needing to hear it.
Did you have to do it?
Did you kill someone?
He lowered his eyes.
And that single movement was answer enough.
Hugo said nothing more.
Out in the hallway, elsewhere in the building, people were still screaming. Others were calling names. A woman kept repeating that she had known, she had known, they were all going to die.
But between Evan and Hugo, there was only silence.
A different kind of silence from all the others.
Heavier.
Dirtier.
Because it no longer spoke only of what they had suffered.
It spoke of what they might have had to do to come back.
Evan felt his throat tighten again.
Not because of the fight.
Because of this.
Hugo's look.
The fact that from now on, he was no longer only a survivor chosen by chance.
He was also someone who knew how far his arms could go when there was no other way out.
And deep down, that idea terrified him even more than the box.