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The White Room was nothing like the labyrinth.
It was... empty. No corridors. No traps. Just four white walls, stretching endlessly in every direction. The ceiling was too high to see. The air was too still.
Ninety-eight Vectors stood scattered across the space, their faces pale against the stark backdrop. The silence pressed down, heavier than anything the labyrinth had conjured.
Riley's gaze swept the room—searching.
Jade stood near the far corner, alone.
He looked... wrong.
His shoulders were hunched. His eyes fixed on some distant point, unfocused. The sarcasm, the wit. All of it was gone. Like something had been hollowed out of him overnight.
Riley started toward him—
"Don't."
Leilani's voice was barely above a whisper. Riley froze.
"Not yet," she murmured. "He's not ready to talk."
A low hum filled the room—deep, resonant. The kind of sound you didn't hear so much as feel in your bones.
The PA flickered on. Lisette's voice echoed through the white void.
"The human mind is the most fragile weapon in existence. Break it... and you break everything."
The hum grew louder, reverberating through the walls like the room itself was alive.
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"Welcome to Trial 03."
Riley's pulse quickened. Around the room, Vectors shifted uneasily, glancing at each other, eyes darting to the walls like they expected them to close in at any second.
"Your objective is survival. There are no instructions. No time limits. There is only the reality."
One Vector stormed the wall, fists slamming against the blank white panels. 'There's nothing here!' he roared. The lights flickered. When they returned, he was gone.
No scream. No movement. No sign or warning.
Just gone. Is this what "removal," actually meant?
The PA announced swiftly. "97 vectors remain."
By the second hour, the whispers started.
By the third, people began to forget how long they'd been standing there.
By the fourth, they stopped trusting their own memories.
The White Room never changed.
It just waited.
Riley's mind began to crack along the edges. He caught himself trying to count the tiles on the floor only to realize there were no tiles. Only seamless white stretching on forever.
Jade stayed in his corner.
Leilani's nails dug into her palms until they bled.
Luna sat with her head down, lips moving soundlessly—muttering prayers or curses. Maybe both.
Riley scanned the shrinking group again. Kai wasn't among them.
Every few minutes, the lights flickered. Every time they returned, another Vector was gone.
No one saw them disappear.
No one asked where they went.
The room pressed harder against their minds with every passing second—grinding down thought, memory, identity. Tenzashi didn't need weapons or torture chambers.
All they needed was time.
Riley clenched his fists until his nails cut into his palms. Stay sharp. Stay awake.
He glanced at Leilani—her chest rising and falling too fast, sweat slicking her temples. He glanced at Jade, still frozen, still hollow.
The PA crackled back to life.
"Truth is not something given. It is something taken."
The lights flickered.
Five more Vectors vanished.
The room was getting smaller.
Atleast that's what it seemed like.
Riley's breath caught in his throat.
He looked at Leilani. He saw the flicker of panic in her eyes.
"It's not real," he muttered. "They're trying to break us."
Her gaze locked onto his. For a moment, something solid passed between them—clarity in the madness.
Then the moment was gone.
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The hum filled the silence again—low and steady.
A pressure building behind their skulls.
Jade's whisper cut through the static, barely loud enough to hear.
"They're watching us."
No one answered.
Because they all knew it was true.
By the seventh hour, the first Vector broke.
A girl—maybe sixteen—sank to her knees, hands clawing at her own face like she could tear herself out of her own mind. She screamed once.
Then she was gone.
No flicker. No warning.
Just... erased.
Riley's throat locked. His heart pounded against his ribs.
He glanced at Leilani, then Luna, then Jade—all still there.
But for how long?
His mind kept circling the same question—over and over.
What happens when there's no one left?
The PA crackled again.
"The weak will break. The strong will break slower."
The lights flickered.
Three more Vectors gone.
Riley squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the hum, the whispers, the silence pressing in from every angle.
Stay awake. Stay awake. Stay awake.
His pulse drummed in his ears.
He opened his eyes—and found Jade staring at him from across the room.
For the first time all day... Jade was smiling.
He couldn't hear what he said, but he saw the movement of his mouth.
"This is nothing.."