Our second visit to the plaza was much quicker than our first arrival. We didn't venture far enough to make the way back too long. And we already had a sense of familiarity with the scenery and didn't dawdle.

  Surprisingly despite not being gone for long, there were some changes already. The lookouts that were present when we left were missing. And, the work at the Pillar had stopped.

  The atmosphere had taken a hit as well. People were quieter as a whole and looked scared, packed in tighter groups.

  We came closer to the nearest group.

  "What's going on?" I asked.

  People looked at us with gloomy looks.

  "There was an attack," a young woman answered. Her eyes were red with tears. "A ghoul killed someone. There was so much blood," her voice cracked with the emotions. "And there was so much screaming."

  Kenny looked uneasily at me, the imagery of the creature and the horrendous screams of its victims popping out from recent memory as fast as it did for me, no doubt.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Did you know them?" He asked in a gentle tone.

  "No, it was just so awful," she was starting to tear up again. "It just attacked, and more people got hurt, and all we could do was to run around screaming." Tears started to drop down her cheeks.

  "This 'ghoul,' the same thing as the one Victor brought earlier?" I asked.

  "Probably, I don't know," she answered. "It just started eating the poor guy on the spot. It ate him alive," she shuddered. "It was the worst thing I've ever seen. I can't stop hearing it."

  "Nobody tried to help? The cop?" I asked.

  "People threw stuff at it, but nobody even came close," she said. "Officer Douglas is working on a solution."

  "What can he even do? Arrest it?" Another person gave off a humorless chuckle. "Now nobody wants to look out for those things, and nobody is building the ramp," he snarled. "Everyone is so afraid that they think there is another one in the Pillar—that it will jump them the moment they look away," he finished accusingly.

  "Why won't you keep working at it?" I asked.

  "What, and do all the work by myself?" He snapped.

  I didn't see him contribute earlier when things were calmer, but I chose not to comment on it. That would be hypocritical of me.

  We walked away, and I looked around, trying to find a good place to rest. There probably wasn't any safer place around either way, and we were dead on our feet at that point. We could've been up for a whole day already, but it was impossible to tell without a clock or any view of the sky.

  We decided on the right colonnade that ran alongside the city square and placed ourselves smack in the middle of it, a reasonable distance away from the other groups while still inside their perimeter.

  "Oof," Kenny sighed as he dropped to the ground. "Finally."

  I sat there, head laid in my hands, eyes shut. The events of the day were playing out in my mind. So much was unclear, but what was important at that moment was to relax, catch my breath, and be ready for the next day.

  ***

  I sat there, contemplating my next move, making plans for tomorrow, and finally, I was relaxed enough to lay down and try to catch some sleep.

  Minutes passed by. I heard Kenny's measured breaths and the quiet movements of more distant people, but I couldn't fall asleep.

  Kenny started turning once in a while, more people talked and moved, and there was always some small thing that kept me awake. I couldn't doze off even for a moment, just laying there fully awake with my eyes closed.

  At some point, Kenny got up and walked away. Was he waiting for me to fall asleep to go away?

  I kept trying to doze off, but with the day's stress, it was unsurprising that I would fail to find peace.

  Eventually, Kenny returned.

  "Nate?" He called out.

  I thought for a moment about ignoring him, but I didn't have much hope of falling asleep anytime soon.

  "Yeah," I answer, waiting for him.

  "I didn't eat," Kenny said leadingly.

  "I don't think anyone here did," I agreed.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  "I didn't drink either," he said.

  "We can go to the river tomorrow," I soothed him.

  Why was he complaining now?

  "No, I mean, I don't even want to eat or drink," he said. "Do you?"

  Now that he mentioned it, I didn't notice any sense of hunger or thirst. After all this time and all the activity we had to do today, I expected to be parched.

  Three days or so was the amount of time a person could survive without water, or at least that was what I knew from popular TV shows. I didn't check it with some doctor or anything.

  "I swallowed some water accidentally earlier, but it shouldn't be enough, I don't think," I replied. "What do you reckon?"

  Kenny had an intense expression. The last time he looked like this was when he discovered we were underground. I was really hoping for a less unorthodox conclusion from him this time.

  "I didn't eat or drink all day, and I didn't even pee for a whole day. I don't think you need a medical degree to know that's not normal," he said. "And I can't sleep. Nobody can, I asked around."

  "Nobody can sleep?" I asked. "From the stress?"

  "Not one person managed to fall asleep even once, even for a minute," he said.

  That was strange. Not as strange as being kidnapped and let loose in a haunted, lost ancient city underground, but still surprising. How do you make a whole population sleepless? Something in the air?

  "So, what are you thinking?" I asked him. I sure didn't have an explanation for any of this.

  "People are saying an experiment by the government. Or aliens," Kenny said. "Some people said we are probably in a virtual world like the Matrix. Someone even suggested that we all died, and this is the afterlife," he listed off, every possibility sounding less sure as he went on.

  "Any of the options has with a way back home?" I asked, coming to a sitting position.

  He just shrugged.

  I took my time thinking things over. A situation this absurd could only be explained by something of roughly equally ridiculous bearing. That was my read on things, at least. The law of conservation of absurdity, if you will.

  "Whatever it is, we are not dead," I concluded.

  Kenny just looked at me questioningly.

  "We are not dead," I repeated," I don't know about the aliens and the other stuff, but I am sure about this one."

  Kenny remained quiet.

  "Everything we do, every decision we make, we have to assume that we can survive," I added. "Without hope, we don't stand a chance."

  We remained silent for a while. I tried to entertain the far-fetched possibilities Kenny presented, but ultimately they only held value for me if they provided some kind of advantage.

  Believing that we had already died held no advantage whatsoever.

  If we were part of a government experiment or, interchangeably, an alien experiment, we could be kept alive longer if we provided the necessary results. But what results were they seeking? The only objective I could think of was to test how long a random sample of people would survive. But how could I incentivize those theoretical scientists to intervene on my behalf? Seeing me live or die would satisfy them either way.

  What if aliens use this setup as an entertaining reality show? Would acting more appealing and exciting make them want to help us stay alive longer? That's a real thing I could do to impact the situation.

  Or were we inside a computer simulation? Should we have access to the system, could we open a help ticket? Contact an administrator? Open a console? How would that work? A hand gesture or verbal command?

  I explained to Kenny that I intended to test his simulation theory so he won't be alarmed. Instead of treating me like a madman, he supported the idea and joined me.

  "Escape, Logout, Logoff, Shutdown, Quit, Exit, Settings, Properties, Help, Command, Terminal, Console, System…" We tried every command we could remember, every gesture that could be used with a touchscreen or a VR headset.

  We went at it for a while, but eventually, we had to conclude that none of them worked.

  It was a long shot anyway, so back to the drawing board we went.

  Kenny perked up and started lifting his shirt, showing his back.

  "Hey Nate, do you see anything on my back?"

  I looked closely. "No, you have a red spot from leaning on the column, but nothing else jumps out."

  "I had a big birthmark there," Kenny proclaimed triumphantly. "I should've checked sooner when I realized my eyesight was fixed."

  I started checking myself, too, birthmarks, scars, and moles. Every imperfection or irregularity I could remember. I had a sinking feeling when I corroborated him. Some things remained the same; others disappeared entirely or were slightly different in a way I couldn't pinpoint.

  Discovering that I was somehow changed against my will was a horrible feeling. I felt violated. My body was tweaked and twisted without me even noticing it.

  It didn't have any rhyme or reason to it either. Sometimes the larger mole was removed, and sometimes the smaller scar. It wasn't restricted to time either. Even a wisdom tooth that just started to come out disappeared entirely.

  "How long for this kind of dental work to completely heal?" I asked. "Several days? Weeks?"

  Kenny nodded uncertainly.

  "It just doesn't make sense," I continued. "Can you imagine the number of surgeries and time needed for all of it? And for what? Just to mess with our heads?"

  We sat thinking. What else could we test? What other things that seemed impossible needed to be checked now? Something so obvious that we won't question it, but it was somehow different now?

  "It's the more visible things that remained," Kenny remarked. "For me, at least. I don't think anything changed on my hands, but my back or anywhere I won't usually notice is fair game."

  He was right. How could it help us? It didn't narrow down the possibilities of our situation, and I couldn't see how to take advantage of it.

  We were idle for hours, and while we couldn't sleep, eventually, I felt rested enough, at least physically. Of course, we were still stressed and mentally exhausted from all the happenings, but if only physical activity was required, we could probably repeat today's feats.

  Kenny went to look for someone to barter his silver tray, and I just stayed put, trying to come up with a plan. I wondered if we would start losing weight if we went without food or water for long enough or if we would be able to sleep eventually, even if it would be less frequent. Many of those things could be answered by surviving long enough, but I wasn't sure I would like the answers.