Had Halo been trapped here in isolation, it would have been nothing short of a waking nightmare.
Yet the knowledge that fourteen people, perhaps more, were caught in the same predicament offered him a strange sense of relief. Terror lost some of its edge when shared.
"Each of you is cursed…"
Halo frowned upon hearing Clever's choice of words. Yet, he patiently waited for more, and surprisingly, so were his mates.
"It was your sins that dragged you here. No matter how holy you pretend to be, nothing can change that."
Clever's expression grew lazier. "…for the next four weeks, I will be teaching you what you must know if you wish to live even a single day longer in this world."
Halo let out a heavy sigh. 'What exactly is this world?'
The moment he completed his thought, it was as though his colleagues read his mind. A voice, more vibrant than Clever's, echoed between the white walls.
"What is the Lost World? And how exactly did we get here?"
Clever fell quiet for a beat, his expression suggesting he was measuring his words carefully to avoid saying too much.
"This is a land of monsters, where men and beasts are the same.
And I swear to you, even in your deepest nightmare, you've never known horrors as gentle as these."
Quiet discussions broke out around them, but Halo wasn't content with Clever's sparse answer. He craved additional details.
"You were brought here by the God's Call… dragged into a realm governed by gods and their malicious system."
"Gods?!"
"Is this a joke?"
While the crowd kept murmuring, a gentleman around Halo's age stood up. He was slightly taller than Halo and bore deep red hair and a cocky smile. His expression defied their dire situation.
"I am Theron Rebury," he said with a confident yet enthusiastic tone. "Since our situation is unavoidable, I'd like to know."
"Is there magic and supernatural abilities?"
Clever smirked. "Yes… but I wish those mattered."
Halo watched with growing suspicion as Theron maintained his bright expression, his optimism seeming to spread to those nearby.
While his two companions remained visibly distressed, Theron had clearly resigned himself to whatever awaited them. But his whole demeanor felt off to Halo.
However, something else entirely held Halo captive: Clever's words, "I wish those mattered."
If there were gods and magic, then why would Clever wish for such a thing? How cursed was the Lost World? And worse, it seemed as though no one else had caught that.
The questions were endless: would they truly return to reality? While Halo had nobody to go home to, he found himself thinking about everyone else's families dealing with their unexplained disappearance.
Enough time had passed to cause real alarm. Were his companions so dazzled by the prospect of magical abilities that they overlooked these glaring issues?
As he thought everyone was too consumed by Theron's charms, too charmed to care, Seraphim rose to her feet once more.
Her tone was as aggressive as before, and her abrupt movement made her presence unmistakable.
"Seriously? You can laugh and chatter at a time like this? Don't you care if we're trapped here forever?" She scoffed.
The room grew quiet once more, which brought a soft smile to Halo's face. Alas, the perfect girl he knew had shown why she was perfect. But his expression dropped instantly upon a single thought.
Clever turned to Seraphim, finally wearing an expression of relief, though his daunting demeanor never vanished.
"Yes, you will…" The words sparked authentic hope that seemed to lift everyone's spirits.
But Halo, caught in the maze of his own anxious thoughts, missed the moment of reassurance entirely.
'So this world spares no one. If Seraph is here, then even the purest among us is still a sinner.'
The instant he returned from his mental spiral, Clever's voice broke through to him. The words still held hope, but that gentle, reassuring quality from before had noticeably faded.
"There is one thing though…" Clever said with a smirk, watching as the smiles on everyone's faces shifted.
"You won't remember a thing about this world once you return to the real one. That doesn't mean you won't go back.
"You will… once you survive these four weeks, but before long, you'll find yourself here again.
"And from then on, whether you return will depend solely on you." Clever shrugged.
Halo slipped back into contemplation, grateful that his time here had an endpoint. Yet if they could actually go back, why did Clever keep emphasizing the inevitability of their predicament?
Settling his elbows on the desk, he propped his chin against his fists in thought. He'd never been particularly sharp intellectually, yet even he could detect the gaps in Clever's words.
They were supposed to forget everything about the Lost World once back in reality…
His encounters with the others confirmed they all retained perfect recollection of their real-world existence.
His own clear thinking supported this observation. The amnesia, then, would only affect what happened in this world.
But that still left questions unanswered. Where was the government warning about this monstrosity?
"Uhh… uhm…" a paranoid voice came from the left, snapping him out of his thoughts as he turned in its wake.
He found himself raising an eyebrow in puzzlement. The pair beside him looked ready to contribute something, especially the girl against the wall.
Her golden eyes studied the floor intently while her fingers fidgeted restlessly, words catching in her throat. Halo recognized shyness binding her like an invisible chain.
"My… uhm… my name is Aeliana. Uhm, call me, Aelia," she said, her tone barely audible as she struggled to maintain eye contact.
Then, the boy next to Halo hurried his words, bowing on each breath as though he was being forced to speak. "Liam… I am Liam."
Annoyance crept under Halo's skin, erasing all traces of his previous bewilderment while he considered making an introduction.
Following a moment's hesitation, he exhaled in resignation.
"I am Halo."
The instant he finished speaking, an oppressive quiet descended, causing Halo to desperately look around for some distraction from the uncomfortable atmosphere. He cursed himself for opening his mouth.
"Uh… I think…" Aelia's eyes stayed fixed on the floor.
"I think no one will ever know we've disappeared. And… and maybe no one in the real world even knows this place exists.
"Because no matter how strong people become here, they never remember anything once they go back."
'Uhm… okay?' Halo wasn't expecting anything meaningful out of what Aelia said, but the more they settled with him, the more they began to make sense.
"And, and… I think this is nothing but a game to the gods." The moment Aelia finished speaking, she turned to the wall once more, while Liam remained quietly seated as though he didn't hear a word Aelia said.
But Halo found himself unconcerned with Aelia and Liam's shortcomings.
Aelia had reached some kind of realization, and her natural shyness couldn't prevent her from speaking up about it.
For the first time, Halo felt like he was beginning to understand their situation.
They'd been pulled here by the God's Call, selected according to divine preference rather than any earthly criteria.
If the government had known, it would have intervened before the summoning.
Since return remained possible, time likely worked in one of two ways:
Either it stopped completely, letting them reenter their original timeline seamlessly, or it moved forward while erasing their existence entirely, with the gods repairing any inconsistencies when they returned.
It was all just a game to the divine beings.
"Yes. When you return to the real world, every wound you get here will still be there," Clever said with a shrug.
"Only… there'll be silly excuses for why they happened. And somehow, they'll make sense to you, because you'll remember them perfectly."
Halo smirked. He realized Clever's conversation with the others had gone on longer than he'd thought, but he was actually glad about it now. Aelia was right.
This raised troubling questions for Halo: what sin had marked him as worthy of a god's personal fascination?
And though they were divine, surely manipulating reality on this scale came with a price. How much power did they actually possess?
"Alright, that's enough for today. We're done." Clever said, his demeanor turning grim like before.
"We have much more to face, but for now… it's enough that we understand each other better."
He paused for a moment and began gathering sheets off the podium, "But the real work starts tomorrow. For now, write down your names, fill out the form, and take a tour so you can meet the remaining staff."
"Wait…" Theron hurried his words before rising to his feet. "We're all like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… so when do we awaken already? We need our superpowers."
Theron turned to the room. "What do you think?" He asked with a smile, assuming a casual shrug.
Clever stared at everyone, especially Theron, as they all bought into his exaggerations, shaking his head with a disappointed look.
Clever let out a sigh. "The awakening will come when your stay ends. After that… well, you do you."
A suspicious frown crossed Halo's face as he observed the others' cheerful expressions, all of them rising to follow Clever's instructions about the forms.
He should have felt the same optimism since returning home remained possible, but even though analytical thinking had never been his strength, certain details demanded his attention.
If this really was nothing more than the gods' plaything, then benefits as remarkable as gaining supernatural powers and earning safe passage home felt suspiciously generous. Some kind of catch was inevitable.
The situation was inescapable, and though he hadn't witnessed much yet, that truth was clear enough.
His mind would be his most valuable asset here, and despite never having been pushed to use it seriously before, he had no choice but to start now… even if it required learning how to think analytically from scratch.