Night in the tower doesn't feel like night.
No windows. No stars. No sense of time.
Only the faint hum of wires, the rare flicker of a screen, and someone else's breath in the darkness.
Some sleep. Others pretend. But most just lie there, listening — to the sounds, and to themselves.
I didn't sleep.
> "Sometimes the system doesn't set the traps. It waits for you to set them for yourself."
That phrase kept spinning in my mind like a spell. Not from the rules — from life.
"Not sleeping?" — a voice beside me. Mina.
"And you?"
She shrugged, sitting down next to me. We leaned against the cold concrete wall, watching a shadow slide across the floor — just a trick of light, but the anxiety was ready to explode.
"You're quiet a lot," she said suddenly. "Think it makes you unpredictable?"
"Silence isn't a mask. It's protection."
"From who?"
I looked at her.
"From everyone."
They say something happened on the second floor. One of the 2-C students was poisoned — supposedly from spoiled food. The version we received felt too polished.
> "Sanitation breach detected on the second floor. Decision: one penalty point to Class 2-C."
Too easy.
"They want us to relax," I told Aoi. "But if a mistake happens on our floor next — they'll level us down too."
"You think they staged it? So the punishment escalates next time?"
I nodded.
"This is gradual pressure. The tower teaches: fear isn't always loud. Sometimes… it's systemic."
At lunch, Toru — one of our strongest guys — snapped. Someone from Class 2-B refused his request for help via the system. He urgently needed a part to fix the distributor, but Class 2-B supposedly 'didn't receive' the request.
Toru wanted to accuse. To yell.
"Stop," I said. "That's exactly what they're counting on. We don't need to find someone to blame. We need to understand who received the info. Who distorted it."
I sat at the terminal. No requests logged.
"You know what this means?" I asked Aoi.
"That Class 2-B didn't betray us?"
"That someone between our floors… is intercepting signals. And maybe filtering what we're allowed to know."
—
> "You are entering a phase of psychological overload. Control will now be tested individually. The next message will be sent to floor leaders only."
A private message popped up:
> "Takumi: one of your classmates has received a new mission. Their goal — to destabilize your internal balance. You won't know who it is. But if you don't identify them within 24 hours — you will lose points for your class. And not only that."
I felt my chest tighten.
They weren't attacking us directly. They were building chaos from within. Slowly. Drop by drop.
I closed my eyes.
"First comes silence. Then distrust. Then fear."
This wasn't a tower.
It was a labyrinth.
Built inside each of us.