When Lin Yan woke up, he found himself surrounded by white walls, with black water rising past his ankles. A lamp hung from the ceiling, swaying once every 114 seconds. There was only one line on the wall: Don’t let your shadow touch the water.
Someone didn’t believe it. The moment they bent down, their shadow skimmed the water’s surface, and they were dragged into the black depths before they could even finish screaming. The water went still again, as if nothing had happened.
Lin Yan was a psychological counselor, used to observing people. He counted nine swings of the lamp before it paused for two seconds. He also noticed something beneath the water: a human shape, curled up, occasionally rolling over. Whenever someone disappeared, it let out a bubble, as if taking a breath.
A star no one else could see hung above his head. He didn’t know what it was, only that he gained another one each time he cleared a trial.
Then he saw a “senior” whose face was half human and half constellation totem. The other person said, “You’re not clearing trials. You’re applying for a job. The winners stay behind as constellations. The losers are forgotten while still alive.”
Worse still, Lin Yan found that he could no longer remember his fiancée’s face. He remembered that her surname was Ji, and that she wore something cold around her wrist, but he couldn’t recall what she looked like. With every trial he cleared, her face grew a little more indistinct.
Twenty-eight constellations, seven trials per cycle. The winners stayed forever, while the losers slowly vanished from reality. Lin Yan planned to find that face again, then overturn the game.
Being trapped isn’t frightening. What’s frightening is forgetting who you are.
