Chapter 15: Fourth Floor, Forward or Backward (2)
[Escape. Time remaining: 1 hour 58 minutes.]
There are moments in life when doubt seeps in. When every decision feels like it could ruin your life. It’s that hesitation before shading an answer on an exam’s OMR card[1], or the pause before responding to a job interviewer’s question, “Why did you apply to our company?”
And now, I found myself in one of those moments.
For the last twenty minutes, I had been sprinting downhill while a boulder chased me, echoing loudly and dangerously. With each stride, my uncertainty grew, gnawing at me.
Am I heading in the right direction?
The path had been eerily consistent for the entire time I ran. There was no shift in the gradient, no change to the stone walls or the floor beneath me. It was as if I was trapped in some kind of illusion.
Wait, could this actually be an illusion?
I realized that the sound of the boulder had remained consistent the entire time. The tremors hadn’t strengthened, and neither had the rumbling increased.
Could it be that my pace matches the boulder’s speed perfectly?