I was faced with a dilemma. Following the trial’s rules, I would have to give the small girl in front of me two of whatever arbitrary resource that represented health in this place. To do so, however, I would have to take back what I had given the old man earlier… Despite the vitality he had regained from that, he didn’t look all that healthy. Not healthy enough to make me think he had any life force to spare, anyway.

Despite this, I had already made my choice. Perhaps the fact that I had a little sister of my own pushed my bias in a certain direction, but I felt no regret at what I was about to do. Even from a practical standpoint, the value of a child’s life was simply higher than that of an older person. At least, I thought so. While I couldn’t ask the old man the same question, I felt reasonably confident that he would’ve sacrificed his own life force for the sake of the little girl, if he only had the chance to.

Determined, I dragged myself over to the unconscious body, accepting the ‘Take 1?’ prompt.

Ding! 1 gained. Are you happy?

Instantly, the addicting feeling of regaining energy filled my body, allowing me to stand up shakily. When I looked down to assess the old man’s state, I realised that the system wasn’t in a forgiving mood. The drain had put too much stress on his body, making him cough violently, his raspy breath worsening even further. It was a painful, slow death. Feeling a sense of guilt over causing this issue, I forced myself to watch him in his final moments. While my mind told me that the system had made this person in my mind for the sole purpose of this trial, a part of me didn’t believe that. Not truly.

Perhaps… If I had only left the old man alone from the start, he would still be alive… It was difficult to prove this, though, as the system loved creating the illusion of choice when there actually wasn’t one. How much agency had I had so far? How much of this person’s death was the system’s fault? How much was it my own?

I couldn’t help but shake my head in response to the system’s repetitive question.

I distracted myself from this haunting thought by heading over to the little girl and hurriedly giving her two units of the life force I had gathered. The energy left me like a waterfall, knocking me back to the ground as I collapsed under my own weight. As I had returned back to minus three, the starvation and pain had returned in full force. The feeling of being on the edge between life and death was usually an exhilarating, if frightening experience, the rush of it all keeping one on full alert. Now, however, I felt none of that. My body refused to grant me that feeling, instead allowing me to wallow in my own misery.

Ding! 2 lost. Are you sad?

The girl recovered a bit, trading her sickness for that of fitful sleep. Where she had been malnourished before, her frame now resembled that of any other child on the street. Not overly healthy, perhaps, but she had been fed enough. I didn’t expect her to wake up, but as long as she stabilised, the trade would have been worth it. I shook my head, assured that my efforts had succeeded, but stilled when the system went a step further.

Take 2?

‘No, system. I don’t think so.’ I thought to myself, attempting to ignore my own state as best as I could. What was the system going to try this time? Was it going to make me choose between this poor child and a friend? A family member? At this point, it’s cruelty had become expected, predictable, even.

As I looked around, keeping an eye out for the next system prompt, I heard the little girl cough violently. I whipped around, attempting to see the cause of her issue, but found nothing. Nothing system related, anyway. While her body hadn’t returned to the state that I had found her in, it was clear that something else was wrong. Had she fallen ill?

More bouts of coughing followed, a pained look appearing on the child’s face. The prompt above her momentarily became unintelligible, before stabilising again.

Take 1?

It had gone down from 2 to 1. She had lost some of her vitality, and things were only getting worse. She was going to die, despite the efforts I had gone to, to prevent it. Despite the old man’s sacrifice, if I could even call it that.

What did the system expect me to do? To cut my losses and take what I could? To retrieve what I had given her without remorse? Perhaps that is what I should’ve done… but when I looked at her face, which so closely resembled that of my own sister… I couldn’t. If this was what was expected of me, I’d rather not participate at all.

The proverbial clock ticked down to zero… causing the girl’s body to still. The system prompt disappeared. I had failed.

From that point on, time seemed to pass at a faster rate. I wasn’t paying much attention to it anymore, you see. As if to mock me, the system had followed up that horrific experience by a series of ‘Gain 1?’ prompts, bringing me back to full health and even allowing me to go beyond it to reach +4. My strength now surpassed that of any unawakened, on top of improving my sense and reflexes. In a way, it felt like all my stats had been raised by four dozen each.

After the seventh ‘Gain 1’ prompt, the one that had gotten me to that final value, the system tried to throw me another curve ball. A middle-aged lady appeared near me with a ‘give 1’ prompt floating above her head. I considered it for a moment and eventually decided that I had enough points to spare to give her one. She recovered slightly, but my newfound optimism was quickly dashed when a few shadowy figures had appeared in the distance.

The smoky people had my body shape, roughly. They raced over to us and threw themselves at me and the old lady, attempting to attack us barehanded.

With my improved stats, I was matching them blow for blow. However, I lacked just that little bit extra that I needed to defeat them quickly. There were four of them. They overwhelmed me. The woman died, her vitality lost, while I needed a few more minutes to dispatch the attackers.

Clearly, I had been in no position to give the lady any vitality. If I had kept it for myself, she would have still been alive. Yet another death to add to the tally.

The system continued to torment me as time went on, snubbing my efforts however it could. Whenever I gave some vitality to any of the sleeping people, it would then find a way to make my efforts futile. It would give me just enough vitality to survive, but not enough to share. It wanted me to keep everything for myself, wanted me to believe that that was the only way to survive. At some point, I had started to believe it. My vitality was looking better than ever, but with more and more sleeping people appearing as time went on, I always lacked the means to help them all. I wanted to help those that needed it most desperately, but what if I needed the vitality myself? What if someone that needed it more suddenly appeared when I had none left to give?

Like this, I continued to make excuses. I continued to explain away my fear, my desperation and, in hindsight, my greed.

Eventually, sleeping people could be seen from horizon to horizon, dead bodies strewn between them. Their faces blurred in my own mind, I ignored their wordless pleas. As long as I ignored them, I felt nothing. As long as I didn’t need to hear their raspy breath or see their shaking bodies, I would be fine… Right?

Time continued to pass. I had stacked up my vitality into the thousands by now. I needed to! After all, the shadow men had grown to match my strength! I needed to keep growing while the system let me, otherwise everybody else would die, including me. Sure, I could easily hand out a bit of vitality to the people laying down on the ground, but that would only be a token effort, as there were thousands of them. I didn’t have enough for everybody and it wouldn’t be fair to give to only a few. Besides, they weren’t really people. Not like me, anyway. The system had made them up. That’s right. That’s right!

More time passed. I had grown further, I think. Unfortunately, the shadow men had grown too. In both number and strength. The battle seemed endless… I was becoming desperate and had started taking wherever the system let me, causing the deaths of many fake people. I needed the vitality to keep up. It’s true! I needed it! If I stopped growing, I would die. As would everyone else, of course. I had to keep growing if I wanted to… If I wanted to…

Hold on… what did I want again? Wh- where was I? Who…

Ah.

Right.

This wasn’t what I wanted. Not at all.

In a rare period of soberness, I realised that this wasn’t working. Time had continued to pass, yet nothing had changed. Not truly. It was time for a change of my own.

A thought came to me, an idea that seemed so foolish. Yet so rewarding.

I pranced throughout the endless white space, heading from person to person. Instead of thinking about it too deeply, I simply handed out my vitality wherever I could. An old person, then a young person, then a young old person and an old young person. Wherever I found living sleepers hidden between the dead ones, I gave them some life force, five at a time when necessary.

Wherever I went, the sleepers slept a little more soundly. Their breathing returned to normal. The malnourished ones were fed, the sick ones were healed and the weak ones were strengthened. I didn’t remember their faces, didn’t even stop to see them most times, but I knew that I was doing a good thing. Where before there had only been death, now there was life, too!

Eventually, I ran out of vitality. There were people ahead. People I had yet to share with, people I had yet to give back to. It felt like a personal failure, despite the fact that I had expected this exact situation.

The shadow men returned. Thousands of them darkened the horizons all around me. The charged, their footsteps creating a thunderous roar. When they reached me, I didn’t have the power to resist. A single touch was all it took to end it, I suppose.

As I ‘died’, the world stilled. All the shadows disappeared. I felt oddly at peace, now. I had left myself enough vitality to breathe easy, as selfish as that sounded. Quite a waste, in hindsight…

Suddenly, some bodies around me shook. Then, the same happened in the distance. Wordlessly, people began to rise from the body piles. I didn’t recognise them, but as they opened their eyes, they seemed to recognise me. They smiled. These were the people that I had saved!

I- I hadn’t managed to save all of them. But seeing their smiling faces, I realised… that it was enough.

Ding! 7843 lost! Are you sad?

I shook my head, my vision darkening, my mind departing to the endless void.