The white was no longer empty.
It had taken time for me to realize it. How much time, I couldn't say. Time left no marks here. No clear fatigue, no measurable progression, just the unsettling sense that something had changed without warning, and that our minds had accepted it far too easily.
It wasn't visual.
It was a diffuse presence. A subtle shift in the air. An imbalance so faint it was almost imperceptible, yet strong enough to trigger an instinctive alarm deep in the body.
"Do you feel that?" Amad whispered.
His voice sounded more fragile than before, as if speaking here demanded an effort he couldn't afford.
Bintou nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving the space around us. Ayyi didn't answer right away. He was observing. Always.
Then he said, simply, "We're not alone anymore."
My stomach tightened.
I followed his gaze.
At first, I saw nothing. Then, as my eyes adjusted, shapes began to surface from the white. Not suddenly. Not like dramatic apparitions. More as if the space itself had finally agreed to reveal them, reluctantly.
Silhouettes.
Scattered.Disorganized.At distances impossible to judge.
People.
Students, mostly. Some standing. Some sitting. Others completely still, frozen in postures too rigid to be natural.
"Shit…" Amad breathed.
I recognized a few faces. People from the Academy. Not friends. Not complete strangers either. Figures passed in hallways, names never learned, peripheral existences.
They were here.
But something was wrong.
A girl sat directly on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. She stared at a single point ahead without blinking. For far too long. Her breathing was slow, steady, almost absent, as if she were rationing air.
A boy walked back and forth in a straight line. Three steps forward. Turn. Three steps back. Turn. He repeated the movement with mechanical precision, like he was following an instruction no one else could see.
Farther away, two people whispered to each other. I couldn't make out the words, only the murmur. Their expressions didn't match their gestures. One was smiling while the other trembled, as if their emotions were no longer synchronized.
Bintou clenched her fists."They're not… normal."
Ayyi barely nodded."Some of them are already affected."
"Affected by what?" Amad asked.
Ayyi didn't answer.
There was no answer yet. And for once, his silence wasn't reassuring. It wasn't calculation. It was a void.
We moved forward carefully.
Not pressed together, but close enough that no one could disappear without the others noticing. An uncomfortable middle ground dictated by instinct rather than conscious choice.
As we approached the others, I felt a strange pressure building in my chest. Not fear exactly. More like a dull apprehension. As if getting too close carried a risk I couldn't yet name. As if the space itself grew denser around certain silhouettes.
A girl suddenly lifted her head when she saw us.
Her eyes widened.
"You too?" she said too fast. "You're here too?"
Her voice trembled, but her gaze was disturbingly clear. Almost too clear. She stood abruptly, took a step toward us, then froze, as if something had caught her by the throat.
"How long has it been for you?" she asked.
Silence.
None of us knew how to answer.
Her face stiffened. For a brief second, I thought I saw something flicker behind her eyes. A tiny misalignment. Like part of her had just understood something terrible.
"Okay…" she murmured. "Okay, yeah. So time doesn't work the same."
She laughed. A dry, nervous laugh. Not joyful at all.
"Great. Just great."
Amad took a half step forward, instinctively."Hey… are you okay?"
She turned her head toward him too quickly."Okay?" she repeated, as if the word itself were absurd. "No. But I'm still here, so I guess that means I 'am.'"
Bintou exchanged a glance with me.
We were thinking the same thing. She's close to breaking.
And that was exactly when a scream tore through the space a few meters away.
"STOP LOOKING AT ME!"
Everyone flinched.
A boy stood alone, hands pressed against his head. His eyes darted wildly from point to point, frantic, like he was seeing things that weren't there.
"I KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING ME!" he screamed. "I KNOW IT'S NOT YOU!"
He stumbled backward, tripped, and dropped to his knees.
No one dared approach him.
Not out of cruelty.
Out of survival instinct.
Because something in his panic felt contagious. Not like a disease. Like an idea. A fear that could jump from one mind to another if you stared too long.
Ayyi murmured, "Watching for too long might be a mistake."
I swallowed."Watching what?"
He hesitated for a fraction of a second."The others. Or ourselves."
That chilled me more than I wanted to admit.
I looked away from the boy.
And I immediately understood I had done it too late.
A faint dizziness washed over me. Not physical. Mental. As if my thoughts had tripped over an invisible step. As if looking at him had brushed against something forbidden, even unintentionally.
Amad rubbed his arms."I hate this place. The more people there are, the less safe I feel."
No one disagreed.
Because it was true.
Being alone was terrifying.
But being many here was worse.
We kept moving.
That's when we came across a small group of four or five students, gathered like a makeshift unit. Their faces were closed, tense. They watched us approach the way you watch strangers in a corridor that's too narrow.
A girl, probably their leader, raised a hand sharply."Stop. Where are you from?"
Bintou was about to answer, but Ayyi spoke first."Same place as you. The Academy."
The girl narrowed her eyes."Okay. And what have you done?"
Amad frowned."Nothing. We just got here."
One of the boys in the group let out a humorless laugh."That's what everyone says at first."
The tone wasn't openly aggressive. Not quite. But there was an automatic suspicion in it, one that came far too quickly to be natural.
Bintou crossed her arms."What are you accusing us of?"
The girl sighed. For a brief moment, her gaze slid past us, like she was checking something behind our backs."I'm not accusing you. I'm checking."
"Checking what?" I asked.
She looked at me, then shrugged."Who breaks first. Who talks too much. Who looks too long. Who pretends to be calm."
Amad stared at her, shocked."But… we should help each other."
"We do," she replied flatly. "In our own way."
Then she took a step back, as if the conversation had reached its limit."Don't stay too close. You'll understand."
She turned away.
The group followed her without a word.
Amad stood frozen for a second."What's wrong with them?"
Bintou exhaled."What's wrong is that they've already been through something here. And they don't want to carry us with them."
Ayyi watched the group fade into the white, thoughtful."Or they've learned that staying together has a cost."
A shiver ran down my spine.
The sentence fit this place far too well.
We walked on. And I noticed something even more disturbing. Some people didn't seem to see us at all. Or rather, they looked at us, but their eyes passed right through, as if our presence failed to register.
A boy sat alone, strangely calm. He wasn't shaking. He wasn't panicking. He looked… functional.
Without realizing it, I stepped closer.
He raised his head and smiled.
A polite smile. Correct. Almost normal.
"Hi," he said softly. "Are you okay?"
I hesitated.
It sounded like a human sentence. Ordinary. But it rang false, like a line repeated too many times.
"Do you know where we are?" I asked.
He blinked once."We're here."
"Here where?"
His smile didn't change."Here."
My stomach tightened.
"Do you remember your name?" Amad asked from behind me, cautious.
The boy thought for half a second. Not long."Yes."
"What is it?"
The boy smiled again."Yes."
Bintou stepped back immediately."Okay. No. We're leaving."
Ayyi gently caught her arm to steady her, but his eyes were fixed on the boy, as if he'd just spotted a flaw in reality.
The boy watched us leave without moving, his smile perfectly intact.
I didn't know why, but I had the distinct feeling he had already lost something.
Not his memory entirely.Not his speech.
Something subtler.
The ability to answer meaningfully.
I rubbed the back of my neck, uneasy.
And then, without warning, a thought struck me.
I tried to remember the face of the girl who had stopped us earlier… and I couldn't.
I knew she existed. I knew we had spoken to her. I could describe her posture, her voice, her gaze. But the moment I tried to reconstruct her features, it slipped away.
Like water.
I blinked, irritated, and tried again.
Nothing.
My heart began to race.
It wasn't a clear loss. Not a violent gap. Just a frustrating impossibility, as if my mind refused to store certain details.
I turned to Ayyi."Can you remember the girl's face? The one from the group?"
He looked at me for a second too long."Yes."
Then, more quietly, he added,"And no."
Bintou stared at him."What does that even mean?"
Ayyi inhaled."It means I know she had a face… but if I try to picture it, it blurs."
Amad went pale."You're kidding."
No one answered.
Because it wasn't a joke.
A cold truth settled in my stomach.
This place wasn't just containing us.
It was already changing how we held onto the world.
Bintou clenched her teeth, and for the first time, her anger looked like fear."It's starting."
Amad swallowed."What's starting?"
Ayyi didn't hesitate."The price."
The word fell between us like a stone.
I looked around.
The scattered silhouettes. The averted gazes. The people too calm, too broken, too empty. The boy who answered "yes" instead of giving his name. The man who couldn't stand being observed. The groups already forming like tribes under pressure.
And I understood, slowly and painfully, that the Arena hadn't gathered us to save us.
It had gathered us to test us.
To observe us.
To wear us down.
And among all these faces, some had already lost something.
Without anyone knowing what.
Not yet.