Arc 1 - Fill Up These Empty Spaces.

1 - 1. The Strength to Take the First Step.

Nyx lets out a disappointed, frustrated little sigh and then slowly slumps back down onto the floor. Same cave. Same floor. Same dripping sound that could drive anyone insane. Same sopping feeling in the air, on her clothes and skin, and on the walls themselves. Same, same, same - She’s sick of it. It’s a dripping tedium of melancholy and a terrible anticlimax after a somewhat embarrassing resolution.

If the rain inside the cave was a little lighter and the drops a little less heavy, then she could have enjoyed peacefully floating across the water. With the way things were, however, any time an oversized drop of water dripped onto her face and splashed into her closed eyelids, she wanted to throw out a string of expletives.

The human body wasn’t made for this. Sleeping on the stone floor in damp clothing, Nyx’s common sense was muttering that she’d get sick… But she hadn’t. Time had continued to turn and she had continued to lie there, the heavy feeling in her body growing heavier and heavier.

She had trudged into the water only a few hours ago, gingerly attempting to pry off a sharp piece of rock from the wall. That hadn’t worked. Despite yanking and pulling with all her strength, the sharp earth did not break or chip. When she had slipped and her palm ran across the jagged tip, she hissed and instinctively applied pressure to her hand. Nothing. No blood, no wound, not even the hint of red lines on her skin that would accompany a scrape like that.

Now, she turns her hands back and forth in front of her eyes. Her fingernails are perfectly trimmed, as if defiant to the passage of time, and she gingerly presses her index finger down onto the soft skin on the back of her left hand. A little harder, a little harder… Nyx presses in with more and more intensity, but there are still no marks or wounds, only the dullest sensation of pain. Her eyes slowly shift from her palm to the sharp rock by the wall, then back to her hand as nausea slowly builds in her stomach. Gulping, she shakes her head and shifts further back from the water.

Nyx shifts her attention onto the strip of fabric around her neck, tugging at it with tightly furrowed eyebrows. Her lips form a thin line as she bites the inside of her mouth, shifting her fingers back and forth until she gets the right angle. Pressing her fingernails together, she closes her eyes and begins to rub her nails back and forth across the choker from either side. It annoys her enough that she repeats the action again and again, relying purely on her spite for the fabric.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a hint of a fray on the cloth forms after even twenty minutes. Her eyes droop as she lets out a grunt and flops onto her back, then rolls back and forth across the stone platform. Kicking and hitting her fists on the ground, she bites her lower lip hard and wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve, then rolls right off the platform into the water.

Floating face down in the water, Nyx only turns over when her breath begins to give out. Wiping her dripping bangs out of her face, she trudges through the chest-deep water and makes for the wall one more time.

How many times have I tried this? It feels hopeless, hopeless enough that she has to wipe her eyes with her sopping sleeves again before her hands grope at the wall, searching for a way out.

Free will is not to be trifled with.

Nyx grits her teeth and scrapes her fingers against every inch of wall she can find. Free will is not to be trifled with, so why was she stuck here? She had a human’s common sense. Being born somewhere, growing up somewhere, living a normal and average life somewhere, her common sense was built on all those things. Her eyebrows tighten, forming a deep wrinkle between them. Nyx’s fingers claw and clasp against the rock face as she thumps her head against the wall. The room spins around her as one hand clamps over her mouth, eyes squeezing shut. There’s nothing in her stomach anyway, so even as she heaves involuntarily, Nyx smiles spitefully at the wall in front of her.

After a few minutes, she stands back up and leans her back against the cold stone. Tilting her head back and staring at the ceiling, Nyx lets out a long ‘pffffff’ sound through her lips. This place felt like it was trying to tell her something. With no entrances or exits, the setting whispered in her ear, “You are alone. There is no way in or out, so you cannot escape.”

But that wasn’t true. It isn’t true.

It was impossible. Nyx smiles wickedly, performing her one-woman routine of false bravado. She has had common sense to guide her, common sense that she has defied every day she sits alone in this place. Perhaps all of that was just her mind playing tricks on her, she reasons, and perhaps the common sense of human beings doesn’t apply to someone like her. That doesn’t matter.

Someone put her in here. Someone with a sandpaper voice. Nyx smiles wryly, unable to remember just what was said, only that there was something. Whether it was a month ago or a year ago or ten years ago, someone had to have put her in here or built this place around her. She thumps her fist against the wall, sick of this sham, and stares into the room as if she can provoke a reaction with her gaze.

[ Game Start. ]

[ You will be sent back here if you lose. ]

[ You will be sent back here if you die. ]

[ You will be sent back here if you lose. ]

[ You will be sent back here if you die. ]

A single sentence floats in front of her in warning, a single word flickering between two options repeatedly. Lose. Die. How very subtle. She scoffs, rolling her head to the side as water begins to flow upwards in miniature waterspouts. As gravity appears to reverse around her and the pool of water flows past her face, Nyx rolls her eyes. To call this a game only felt like it was showing off just how perverse and untrustworthy the designer was.

Game start? Liar. The game has already begun.