The following days passed under a strange tension.
Evan and Hugo went back to the gym.
Not every day.
Not long enough to pretend they had truly become part of the place.
But enough that they were no longer just strangers lingering outside the entrance.
They brought what they could. Carried boxes. Moved water. Helped whenever someone told them where they could be useful.
And when there was a little time left, they watched the others.
Those who trained.
Those who already seemed to understand certain things.
Those who were living with a few steps' head start.
It did not make them stronger.
Not yet.
But it at least showed them how far behind they really were.
And the more the days passed, the more another fear began to grow.
Not the fear of the ship.
Not the fear of the empty streets.
The fear of the next duel.
It lingered in the air.
In the silences.
In the glances that sometimes drifted toward the sky for too long.
No one knew when it would come back.
But now everyone knew that it would.
***
On the night of the third duel, Evan had fallen asleep fully dressed.
Not out of strategy.
Out of exhaustion.
His mother's phone rested near his pillow. His own beside it. The city's light barely filtered through the curtains.
He had been sleeping badly for days.
Real sleep never came.
Only brief drops into darkness, filled with waking, jolts, and broken dreams.
That night, he dreamed of the timer.
Not of the whole box.
Just red numbers hanging in the void.
15:00
Then nothing.
Then the pain came.
Violent.
Sudden.
Like an icy blade driven straight into his skull.
Evan opened his eyes with his hands already flying to his head.
"No…"
He did not have time to sit up fully.
The bedroom reeled.
The bed.
The wall.
The ceiling.
His mother's phone.
Everything warped into a trembling blur.
And the world disappeared.
***
When he opened his eyes again, the white was already there.
The floor beneath his hands.
The light with no source.
The perfect walls.
The box.
This time, his body did not need even a second to understand.
The nausea rose immediately.
His breathing locked up.
He pushed himself halfway upright too quickly, then looked up.
A woman was standing on the other side of the box.
In her thirties, maybe a little older.
Hair tied back in haste. Drawn face. Heavy shadows beneath her eyes. A light jacket zipped all the way to the neck. At first glance, she did not look strong.
But she did not look lost either.
Her face barely tightened when it met Evan's.
As if she recognized the place immediately.
As if she no longer expected anything else from life except this kind of fall.
A sharp beep rang out.
The red numbers appeared.
15:00
Evan felt his stomach tighten.
The voice echoed through the room.
Still the same.
Still just as calm.
Still just as unbearable.
"Welcome."
"Two human subjects confirmed."
"Beginning trial."
Evan was barely listening already.
He knew what came next.
He knew the rules.
He knew the box.
He knew the fear.
The woman across from him did not take her eyes off the timer.
Then the voice delivered the essential line anyway, word for word, as if none of it had already ruined millions of lives.
"If no death is recorded before the time limit expires, one subject will be eliminated at random."
Silence fell again.
The timer kept moving.
14:31
14:30
The woman spoke first.
Her voice was low. Tired. Not trembling.
"I'm not going to fight."
Evan stayed still.
"If we do nothing," he said, "they're going to choose."
"I know."
She lifted her eyes to him.
He was struck by something strange.
She did not look resigned.
She looked decided.
"Then let them choose," she added.
Evan felt his throat tighten.
"You can't decide that for me."
The woman lowered her gaze slightly.
"And I can't decide to kill someone just to go home."
The timer kept falling.
13:58
13:57
Neither of them moved.
But the duel had already begun.
Not in their bodies.
In their choices.
Evan immediately felt what the situation brought back in him.
The first duel.
Marc.
The fifty-fifty.
The red beam.
Chance leaving him alive when he had chosen nothing.
Then he thought of the second duel.
Of his arms.
Of the other man's throat.
And he understood that the woman facing him was standing exactly where he could no longer go back.
"Maybe we can wait a little," he said anyway.
The woman shook her head.
"No."
"No what?"
"No as in... I won't do anything. If you want to come at me, come. If you want to wait, wait."
She paused very briefly.
"But I won't touch you."
Evan stared at her hands.
She said it like someone stating a rule to themselves.
Not to convince him.
Because she had already chosen.
The timer dropped below thirteen minutes.
Then below twelve.
The silence of the box was worse than in the first duel.
Because this time, Evan knew exactly what the sentence contained:
one of you will be eliminated at random.
He had already seen what that looked like.
The woman stayed near the wall, without trying to attack, without speaking again.
At times, she glanced at the timer.
At times, at Evan.
Not with hatred.
Not with pure fear.
More with that sad wariness people have when they know they are going to be forced to disagree about something irreversible.
"You ever let chance decide before?" Evan asked after a while.
She gave the slightest nod.
"Yes."
"And you came back."
"Yes."
The word fell without pride.
Like a fault no one had seen.
"So you want to do it again?"
She let out a very brief laugh.
Empty.
"I don't want to do any of it again. But I don't want to do the rest either."
The timer read:
10:22
10:21
Evan felt impatience mixing with fear.
It was worse than an aggressive opponent.
At least in a direct fight, things were clear.
Here, the woman was forcing something dirtier on him.
Choose between:
attacking her himself
or handing his life back to chance
She stepped back slightly when he took a step forward.
Not in panic.
Just to keep the distance.
"Don't do this," she said.
Evan stopped.
"Do what?"
"Start believing it'll be easier if you're the one who decides."
Their eyes held for a few seconds.
The timer kept moving.
09:41
09:40
"Maybe you're right," Evan said.
His own voice sounded strange to him.
"But I'm not letting this box decide for me again."
This time, the woman truly stiffened.
Not because he had moved.
Because of what he had just said.
She understood.
And he understood that she understood.
He took a second step.
She backed away at once.
A third.
The same movement.
She was not trying to hit him. Only to keep space between them.
To survive another way.
The problem was that her other way could still kill Evan.
"Stop," she said more sharply.
He did not answer.
The timer was falling.
08:12
08:11
The white around them seemed to be closing in.
The woman began moving along the wall, still keeping her distance.
Evan followed.
Not quickly.
Not yet.
They were almost circling each other in the box, as if she were trying to wear down time and his patience.
"You think that'll make you different?" she suddenly threw at him. "That it'll be cleaner if it's a decision?"
Evan felt something rise in his chest.
Not pure anger.
Something lower.
More exhausted.
"No," he said. "But at least it won't be a machine."
The timer already showed:
06:37
06:36
The woman kept her eyes on him.
The more time passed, the faster she moved back whenever he advanced.
She did not attack.
But she fled.
Not with big panicked movements.
With the nervous energy of someone refusing to be approached.
Evan understood then that if nothing changed, she would probably keep this up until the end.
And at the end, chance would come back.
The thought sent such a brutal chill through him that it almost hurt his stomach.
He thought of Marc.
Of that red dot on his forehead.
Of that tenth of a second in which an entire life was decided before it even had time to protest.
Then he moved all at once.
The woman shifted immediately.
He followed.
She sped up, stayed close to the wall, changed direction at the last second.
Their footsteps cracked against the white floor.
Nothing like a real fight.
More like a dirty chase in a space too small.
Evan made a first grab.
Missed.
The woman slipped away by jerking backward.
"No!" she let out.
He came again.
This time, he caught her sleeve.
She yanked hard, tore herself free, but nearly lost her balance.
Evan felt his heart pounding faster.
The timer:
04:58
04:57
There was not enough time left.
Not enough time to hesitate.
The woman backed away again.
Almost hit the wall behind her.
"Stop!" she shouted. "Stop!"
But he was no longer really hearing her voice.
Only the time.
Only the seconds.
Only that monstrous certainty:
if you let her hold out, you're tossing your life on a coin again.
He lunged at her.
Not cleanly.
Not like someone who knew how to fight.
Like someone who no longer had enough margin left to think.
The woman twisted aside at the last moment, but not enough.
Her shoulder hit Evan's chest.
He caught her arm.
She struggled immediately.
Their bodies slammed into the white wall in a hard collision.
The woman pushed with her legs to break free.
Evan, carried by his own momentum, shoved her away with both hands to keep her at a distance.
Too hard.
Far too hard.
Her head snapped back.
A sharp sound rang against the wall.
Not loud.
Not spectacular.
Just wrong.
Her body folded slightly, then dropped.
She slid down the wall and collapsed onto the floor.
Evan froze.
The timer kept moving.
04:31
04:30
The woman did not move.
He stepped back.
Then another.
"No…"
His voice was barely audible.
He waited.
One second.
Two.
Three.
No movement.
Her eyes remained open, but empty.
A thin line of blood appeared near her hair, almost invisible on the white floor.
At last, the voice echoed through the room.
"Death confirmed."
"Trial complete."
"Return of surviving subjects scheduled at the end of the allotted time."
Evan lowered his eyes at once.
As if hearing the sentence made everything more real.
This time, there had been no shared panic to blur it all.
No initial attack forcing him to respond.
No strangling in a reflex of pure survival.
This time, a part of him had moved forward.
Chosen.
Decided not to wait.
And that was maybe worse.
He let himself slide down against the opposite wall.
His legs were shaking.
So were his hands.
He looked at the woman lying on the floor for a moment, then turned his eyes away too quickly.
He wanted to tell himself it had been an accident.
And in a way, it had.
But it had not been chance.
Not really.
The timer kept falling.
04:03
04:02
The body eventually dissolved like the others.
Slowly.
Without a trace.
Leaving nothing behind but white.
And that was almost more unbearable than the blood.
The box erased everything.
The gestures.
The voices.
The faces.
As if the dead had existed only to feed the second before them.
Evan stayed alone until the end.
With the silence.
With the timer.
With the thought that kept coming back again and again:
she hadn't even tried to kill me.
And yet she was dead.
Because he had refused chance.
The world vanished at 00:00.
***
When Evan came back to his room, he dropped down onto the edge of the bed without even realizing it.
The dark.
The wall.
The window.
His mother's phone on the mattress, right beside him.
Everything was there.
Exactly as before.
Except him.
Outside, the screams were already beginning to rise in the building and in the street.
Voices. Calls. Crying. Doors opened too quickly.
The third duel had just ended.
And somewhere in the city, other people were returning with the same face he had now.
Or not returning at all.
Evan raised a hand to his face.
Then to his chest.
Then looked at his hands.
They were not dirty.
No trace.
Just like in the box.
But he could still feel the impact of the wall in his palms.
The sharp sound.
The body falling.
He slowly lowered his head.
In the first duel, he had survived because of chance.
In the second, he had survived in panic.
In the third, he had survived because he had refused to wait.
The thought crushed him all at once.
Not because it made him stronger.
Because it showed him how quickly he was already changing.
In the hallway, someone was shouting a name.
Farther down, a door slammed.
Evan took his mother's phone into his hand.
Then he remained there, in the darkness of his room, listening to the world realize for a third time that this nightmare was nowhere near ending.