The silence had never truly settled. It was simply that we had stopped hearing it. In a place like this, even the absence of sound felt dangerous, as if something were listening just beyond the smooth, artificial air. Ayyi stood motionless in front of the symbol carved into the wall, watching it as though he expected it to move again. Bintou slowly circled us, her steps heavy against the strangely hollow floor. As for Amad, he was breathing too fast, like every extra second inside this place was costing him a piece of his stability.
I still couldn't erase the silhouette I had glimpsed earlier. It had my shape. My posture. That same lack of expression I never realized I could wear. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe the light was distorting things. But nothing here followed logic. Nothing reflected anything. No shadows. No reference points. Just a perfect, artificial brightness, as if the Arena were imitating the idea of a space without ever creating a real one.
"We need to move," Ayyi said.
His voice crossed the room like a scalpel. He never wasted words. If he spoke, it meant he had already reached a conclusion. Bintou stopped immediately. Amad lifted his head as if someone had just given him a vital order. I waited. When Ayyi observed in silence for too long, it was rarely good news.
"Move where?" I asked. The question sounded foolish in a place without doors or horizons, but someone had to ask it.
Ayyi stepped toward the center of the room. "The Arena isn't static. It reacts." He closed his eyes briefly. "The floor changed. The resonance isn't the same as it was a minute ago."
"You mean it's listening to us?" Amad asked, uneasily. "Because I really don't like that."
"I don't know if it listens," Ayyi replied. "But it responds."
I had no desire to imagine what a place that responded might imply. If something was observing us, it meant there was a purpose. And purpose meant a plan.
A tremor passed through the floor. Not quite a quake. More like a breath. Bintou stepped back, ready to strike whatever might emerge from the white. Ayyi raised a hand, not to command her, but to prevent a reckless reaction. "Look," he said.
The wall where the symbol had appeared earlier began to deform. At first, I thought it was an optical illusion caused by the strange light. But the surface was truly stretching, like fabric being pulled from the other side. A thin black line appeared, sharp as a scratch, then slowly widened. Too slowly. As if the Arena wanted us to fully understand its intention.
"No. No, no, no," Amad said as he backed away. "I'm not going in there."
"If it's the exit, we don't really have a choice," Bintou said.
"Or maybe that's exactly what it wants," I murmured.
The fissure pulsed. A barely perceptible rhythm. Not a heartbeat. Something imitating the idea of one.
"It's not a door," Ayyi said as he approached, stopping about a meter away. "It's an invitation."
"An invitation to what?" Bintou asked.
He took a moment before answering. "To understand the first rule."
The mental pressure struck without warning. A sentence formed inside my mind like a burning nail.
To move forward, you must confess what you hide.
I lost my breath. I felt Amad's panic, Bintou's anger, Ayyi's icy focus. This thing wasn't speaking to us. It was entering us, bypassing language and settling directly into thought.
The fissure opened wider, and a silhouette began to emerge. At first it was blurry, then sharp. When its features became clear, my heart stopped for half a second.
It had my height. My posture. And when it raised its face, I saw my own eyes staring back at me. But they were empty. No light. No doubt. No trace of me.
The room seemed to shrink around me.
"Leymane, don't move," Bintou said as she stepped slightly forward, ready to protect me from something I still didn't understand. The silhouette didn't even look at her. Its attention was entirely fixed on me.
Ayyi watched without blinking. I knew he was analyzing everything, the angle of the shoulders, the breathing, the micro-movements, the way the fissure behind it pulsed. Yet even he looked uncertain. That was probably the most unsettling part.
Amad couldn't even raise his eyes.
The Shadow took a step forward. Not threatening. Mimicking. A perfect copy of the way I would approach someone. My muscles tensed.
"You lied."
It was my voice. Exactly. But stripped of warmth.
I stepped back instinctively. "I don't know what you're talking about." It was a lie, and even I could hear it.
"The Arena reacts to what we hide," Ayyi said. "That's not your double. It's your confession, shaped from everything you refuse to face."
The Shadow tilted its head. A gesture I often used when I didn't want to show what I felt. It mirrored me in everything I tried to control.
"Leymane…" Amad said, his voice breaking.
There was no escape. The Arena wasn't asking for an explanation. It demanded the truth. Mine. The one I had buried for years until I barely remembered its shape.
"You lied. And you're still lying," the Shadow repeated.
I couldn't breathe properly. The walls felt closer. My thoughts blurred. My secrets stood in front of me, given form.
"Speak."
The word didn't come from it alone. It came from everywhere.
The floor shook violently, like a threat.
I couldn't step back anymore.
"I'm afraid," I whispered.
"Afraid of what?" Bintou asked.
Ayyi placed a hand on her arm. "Don't interrupt. The Arena wants a precise confession, not a discussion."
The Shadow stared at me. A thin crack spread across its face, as if my hesitation were distorting it.
And then the words came. The ones I had refused to acknowledge for too long.
"I'm afraid of being invisible when things truly matter. I'm afraid people only see me when I analyze something, and never when I simply exist."
It was done. An irreversible confession.
The Shadow closed its eyes, then opened them again. They were no longer completely empty. It stepped back as the fissure behind it widened.
"It worked," Ayyi said quietly.
I didn't even have time to breathe. The floor trembled again, stronger, deeper.
The Arena wasn't finished with us.