The moment did not announce itself.
There was no sound.
No light.
No clear signal.
Just… an absence.
I realized it because Amad's breathing beside me had changed. Not faster. Not slower. Different. As if his breath no longer passed through the same place.
I turned my head.
He was still there.
But not with us.
His gaze was fixed on the empty space just above the white floor. Not lost. Not panicked. Empty. As if something had closed behind his eyes.
"Amad?"
No response.
Bintou moved immediately. She placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him lightly. Too lightly to be an attack. Too firmly to be comfort.
"Hey. Look at me."
Nothing.
Ayyi watched without moving. His eyes shifted from Amad's posture to the distance between us, then to the floor, then to the surrounding space. His brow tightened.
"He's still here," he said.
"But he's no longer perceiving the same place."
A cold sensation crawled up my spine.
"What do you mean, not the same place?"
Ayyi inhaled slowly, as if testing the air himself before answering.
"I mean the space no longer treats us as a group."
Bintou clenched her jaw.
"Great."
That was when the floor vibrated.
Not a shock.
Not an attack.
A modulation.
As if the surface beneath our feet had been tuned to another frequency.
I stepped back without thinking.
And that step… did not land on the same ground.
The texture had changed. Still white. Still smooth. But denser. As if the space beneath my foot had decided to exist differently.
"Stop," Ayyi said.
Too late.
The white folded.
Not around us.
Between us.
An invisible line passed slowly through the middle of the group. I felt it before I saw it. A pressure in my chest. Resistance in the air. A silent refusal.
Bintou tried to cross it with a sharp step.
Her foot struck something.
Not a wall.
A limit.
She recoiled instantly, startled, furious.
"Fuck—"
She punched forward with all her strength.
Her fist stopped dead, as if it had hit a flexible but immovable surface. The impact forced her back a step.
"That's not possible…"
I reached out as well.
The air resisted.
Not cold.
Not hard.
Resistant.
As if space itself was saying no.
Amad moved.
He stood up slowly.
And crossed the line.
No resistance.
No reaction.
He walked straight ahead, moving away, his steps perfectly steady, as if the ground was normal on his side. The farther he went, the more his body seemed… coherent. Less tired. More precise.
"AMAD!" Bintou shouted.
He didn't turn.
A dull panic rose in my throat. Not explosive. Slippery. Insidious.
"He can't hear us anymore…" I whispered.
Ayyi clenched his fists.
"No. He can hear us."
He paused.
"But what we're saying no longer exists in his space."
Bintou turned on him, eyes burning.
"Are you going to stop talking like this is an equation and do something?!"
Ayyi met her gaze. Not cold. Not harsh. Clear.
"If I make the wrong choice now, we make the separation worse."
The sentence struck us both.
Because it implied a truth no one wanted to say.
The separation was already happening.
I looked around.
The space behind Amad stretched. Not visually. Internally. The farther he walked, the more alone he became. Not abandoned. Structurally isolated.
Bintou hit the limit again.
"AMAD, DAMN IT!"
Her voice broke on the last word.
And that was when something changed.
Not in him.
In her.
I felt the tension in her body shift. Her breathing quickened. Her shoulders tightened. Not fatigue. Contained rage.
The floor vibrated on her side.
Only on her side.
A thin crack appeared at her feet. Not a break. A dark line, almost invisible, following the exact position of her heels.
I stepped back instinctively.
"Bintou…" I said softly.
She was already barely hearing me.
She stared at the limit. Challenged it. Hated it.
"We don't separate," she said in a low, shaking voice.
"Not yet. Not like this."
She raised her fist a third time.
But this time, it wasn't a strike.
It was a refusal.
The space reacted.
The limit pulsed.
A silent wave passed through the area, and I was thrown backward without violence, as if I had been removed from one plane and placed into another.
I fell.
The floor caught me.
And when I opened my eyes…
Bintou was gone.
So was Amad.
So was Ayyi.
The white had changed.
The same light without a source.
But the space was narrower. Lower. As if the invisible ceiling had drawn closer.
I pushed myself up with difficulty.
My body felt… adjusted. Not weaker. Not stronger. Adjusted to a specific solitude.
"Ayyi?" I called.
My voice echoed.
But it returned altered.
Not as an echo.
As an intention.
That's when I understood something fundamental.
I wasn't alone because the others had disappeared.
I was alone because the space had assigned me this solitude.
A thought imposed itself, clear and brutal:
Here, no one gets lost by accident.
You are placed where something must give.
Pressure formed behind my temples.
Not pain.
Focus.
As if everything unnecessary had just been removed.
I thought of Amad. Of his exhaustion. Of his habit of carrying others.
I thought of Bintou. Of her anger. Of her refusal to retreat.
I thought of Ayyi. Of his need to understand before acting.
And I realized, with a shiver:
The separation was not a punishment.
It was an exposure.
The space had not broken the group.
It had isolated what each of us used to endure.
A sound resonated.
Not a voice.
A movement.
Something was shifting in the white.
I turned slowly.
A silhouette formed.
Not sharp.
Not blurred.
Familiar.
It didn't have my face.
Not exactly.
But it had my posture when I stay silent for too long.
It stopped a few meters away.
And for the first time since my arrival here, a sentence formed clearly in the space.
Not imposed.
Offered.
You can keep analyzing.
Or you can stay.
I understood it wasn't a threat.
It was a choice.
And while I faced that decision…
The others, somewhere else in the same impossible white, were making theirs.
The separation was complete.
And nothing, absolutely nothing, guaranteed that we would return unchanged.
I remained still.
Not because I was afraid to move.
But because movement no longer meant the same thing.
The space around me no longer responded as before. Each breath felt recalibrated, as if the air entered with a precise intention, then left differently. I wasn't cold. I wasn't warm. But I knew, clearly, that my body was no longer on neutral ground.
The silhouette did not move.
It didn't approach.
It didn't retreat.
It existed at the exact distance where words begin without sound.
I realized something strange.
I didn't want to run.
Not because I felt safe.
But because the space left me no blind spot.
Everything I usually did to avoid things—analyze, observe, deflect—was useless here. Every attempt to step back mentally came straight back to me, as if thought itself bounced off an invisible surface.
I closed my eyes for a second.
When I opened them, the silhouette had changed.
Not in shape.
In posture.
It stood exactly as I do when I think too long before speaking. Slightly leaning forward. Shoulders low. Present, but never frontal.
A soft pressure formed behind my temples.
Not pain.
An insistent invitation.
I understood the space wasn't asking me to act.
It was asking me to stop postponing.
I thought of Amad.
Of the way he stays standing when others collapse.
Of the exhaustion he never admits.
I thought of Bintou.
Of anger as her only language when fear becomes too dense.
I thought of Ayyi.
Of his clarity.
Of his chosen solitude.
And for the first time, a thought crossed my mind without a filter:
What do I do when no one is watching?
The silhouette tilted its head slightly.
My stomach tightened.
Not panic.
Recognition.
I understood then that the thing in front of me wasn't here to fight me.
Or judge me.
It was here to prevent me from hiding behind my own reasoning.
A sentence formed, not in the air, but in the structure of the moment itself:
You observe because you're afraid to get involved.
I wanted to protest.
Respond.
Nuance.
But nothing came out.
Because it was true.
I took a deeper breath than the others.
And for the first time since I arrived here, I did something deliberately simple.
I took a step forward.
Not toward the silhouette.
Toward the space between us.
The pressure eased slightly.
As if something had accepted that minimal movement.
I didn't know what would happen next.
I didn't know where the others were.
I didn't even know if time still existed the same way.
But I knew one thing.
The Arena had not separated me from the others to punish me.
It had isolated me to prevent me from lying to myself.
And whatever came next…
I would no longer be able to pretend I didn't know.