‘That guy is a real headache… he did not even had on a dress and yet he talked about us dressing up and to not dirt around….’

  ‘Let’s see now..’ I thought looking at the other three while trying not to act smug or give away that I was awake a lot earlier than them. I had no idea if they even noticed or were too focused on evacuating to care, but I sure didn’t want for them to start questioning.

  While standing there I could notice that they were quite shaken by what happened. After all awaking in an unknown place was already bad enough but awaking and feeling like your inside want to revert itself out? That add more bad to the already obviously awful situation. The appearance of a talking skeleton that could manipulate their bodies and then disappear into nothingness?

  ‘That’s an overkill show if I have ever seen one.’

  Luckily, when they started to talk they did not pull me in their conversation… most like because that what they normally do, they always considered me as a retarded, so asking me to understand and explain something they didn’t was an impossible event on and by itself.

  The conversation went on and on, through muttering and babbling, accusation and stupid ideas that would see them dead if the speech of the skeleton had… any bone in it.

  But we still were in the circles room. They didn’t seem to intend to get out of there…

  ‘Do they?’

  Even after the skeleton said that the way around here is touching the blue line and simply ask? It would not even be a rebus, it was plainly stated.

  ‘Quite odd seen the situation and the story of the test. Wouldn’t finding our way out of there be a quite effective test?’

  Personally, I thought it was some kind of hidden switch or a password thing… but the only thing you have to say is “out” to get out and probably “in” to get in… it’s even shorter than what I used earlier…

  “Duke, Duke? Hey you fucking DUNCE!”

  “Eh?! What?!” I answered jumping in scare at the sudden shouting. ‘darn I got distracted. What were they saying?’

  “We asked if you understood what was going on here.” asked Massimiliano with a doubtful expression while looking at me like I was some poor retarded.

  “Eh? Understood what? What happened? It’s about the skeleton? When I saw him my body froze and I freaked out so much that I did not listened a lot to what he said!” I told them.

  “Then why did you put on the necklace?” asked Nando with as much perplexity.

  “Eh? Necklace? What neck… oh the one you put around your neck? I put it on because you did but I didn’t really get what it is for….” I said before realizing that he misnamed the medallion or that someone of them could be using my “ignorance” to force me to take it out and let myself get killed. Even if, honestly it came out a bit more excessive than I planned… half-planned… wanted to hint at. Its always hard not get angry or nervous around him, especially when he is pressing down of you and I’m just 1,65 in height so… yeah. Big difference.

  “Then you should take it…” started Nando with that face he always do when he is mounting up to saying his bullshitting and mockery for a big, and evil, prank at my expenses.

  “And never take it out...” blabbered Daniele loud enough to stop the lanky man. But it was unclear if he said it to me or if he was saying it to stop things before escalated.

  Just the fact that after only a few minutes to get their composure back the first thing Nando - probably as he did not have the chances to end - came up with was to try convince me to take it off gave a quite clear idea of his personality and priorities.

  “Aside that, we should not take it out and it somehow help us with something… so in the doubt I will take it, like you did.” I ended realizing that after all Nando was really rotten with malice to the bone for even trying to put me at risk in such a situation. Even in case if I’ll take it out and move around without it challenging the “luck”, as the skeleton called it. I had earlier done just that and survived so I had already some modicum of distrust on our host.

  “… but now, how do we get out of here?” asked Daniele to no one.

  ‘…. this fuckers are hopeless….’

  Almost half an hour later we “found out” how to get out when Massimiliano leaned over the wall and asked “What the skeleton did to get out?” while touching the blue line and got teleported out as a result.

  Uncertain if I was surprised of what happened next. That made the other two freak out and starting to punch the wall where he was, screaming all the while like scared chimps. Sending “calls” and messages with their shit covered phones if he was okay and to answer… it didn’t work. Apparently phones didn’t work there.

  Actually, make it the three of us… I had to fake it too after all. But I was tired already of it.

  Things were getting dumber and dumber and I was starting to think that somehow the circle that teleported us here had some malfunction or something that left their brain back at the abandoned factory such was the absurdity of the scene.

  So while punching REALLY softly the wall I screamed “How did he get Out?” while marking on the “out” word and, as I guessed it would, the magic in the place recognized it as the right command and an instant later I was out in the corridor… where Massimiliano was acting in the very neanderthal way the other two were doing on the other side while, apparently trying, to get back in.

  ‘Really? Are you seriously that dumb?’

  First, we were not supposed to stay in there once left alone… even when I liked the place very much… before they started to ruin it with their puke, piss and actual shits at least. Second, the skeleton said we did not have permission to get back in and activate the portal… so why the fuck he wanted to get back in?

  Suddenly he seemed to realize he wasn’t alone anymore as he turned around and just almost run me over in his haste to get face to face with me

  “How did you get out?” he asked me in surprise and apparent fear. Didn’t took a genius to realize he was spooking himself with who know which imagines… or he just hated being separated from his pack of chimps.

  ‘Ever admitting them to be on the level of chimps… which the chimps themselves would likely find derogatory to be compared to these three, how the hell can you act in such a way?’

  Honestly, I was feeling insulted to be caught with them… all while belatedly ignoring that I had been working with them for the last years while being unable to find a better job with actual human beings… that was as much derogatory, if not even worse, as comparing them to animals… and guess the animals in question would think and likely be smarter than them.

  ‘Anyway… what did he asked again?’ I thought while standing and looking emptily at him. ‘Oh right!’

  “I’ve no idea! How did YOU get out?” I asked him back.

  “I’m not sure, I think that I said something that worked as a password and the next moment I was out, what is happening here? What is all… of this?” he asked indicating the corridor, which was if not really common in style at least it was somehow more understandable than a black skeleton that have magic powers and read minds.

  I didn’t even need to come up with a comeback as a moment later both Nando and Daniele appeared in the corridor, they must have “found out” their way to us.

  That gave start to another session of chimping, ahem… of discussions.

  How did you get out, what is this place, how do we get back home, some comments about not having finished the work… like, who the hell could think about that in this situation?

  Apparently, Daniele. Great job making your priorities straight!

  Surely they will be interested into getting a move on so they could get out of their soiled pants and barf covered shirts… right?

  “Blablablablablablablabla….”

  ‘Or maybe not.’

  After another good while of talking, they seemed to get to a consensus on how did they got out and what evidently they had to do to get in and out of more rooms and how ask directions.

  Which was what they did as now we were walking toward the place the skeleton called a dormitory so to take a shower and get something clean to wear while still repeating again and again the same things… like they always do.

  Among other thing, they returned to the point that phones did not work and seemed mighty upset by it.

  ‘What a surprise, we are in a place that seem absolutely alien, kidnapped by a magical talking skeleton, and they are surprised that phones do not work…’

  But not everything they said was useless, by the way they were saying things, it seemed that they did not hear it when the skeleton thanked me for noticing it’s posture or when he insisted for me to put the medallion on least I saw my luck end… which thinking back I should have suspected because no one commented what it said to me when I faked to put the thing on… and no one contested when I said that I did it only because I saw them doing it. Showing those words were uniquely for me. Which, seen the apparent character of the skeleton, appeared an odd decision seen how he flaunted his control and shut up whoever seemed willing to contest his words.

  ‘So he can not only read minds, but he can communicate that way too… which is understandable, being the same kind of mind magic… but it’s strange that they are not mentioning things that I myself did not hear… so… I’m the only one with whom it.. he… it talked directly with?’

  That was when we reached our destination as the red signs stopped on a particular door or access and flashed for a bit before letting the gem go back to its sky blue color, making the entire thing even more odd seen how I found myself back in what I’m calling the summoning room when I got out instead of the corridor.

  Only a bit of fumbling to decide who would go first. Because obviously now was the time that death would start raining on us… one at a time appeared in a new place, if spartanly decorated.

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  This was similar to the precedent as the walls were of the same color and likely material as everything else with the line of blue crystal like material circumventing the entire room but differently from the perfectly circular summoning room, this one was very much oblong with a line of beds on one of the long sides and a number of wardrobes on the opposite side.

  That was all. There were nothing else. No chair and tables, no nightstand near the beds.

  No windows, which was obvious seen given the theme, but there wasn’t even a recognizable light which begged the question of from where the lighting came.

  But the answer was likely Magic, so that was it.

  At that point everyone had taken position in front of a wardrobe to take a look of the dresses we where supposed to wear.

  It came out they where some kind of Taoist dress.

  ‘Great…. I did not dislike Chinese novels… but in not one of those was written exactly how it was supposed to be put on something like this!’

  “What is this shit?”

  “Are this some kind of costumes??”

  “Aren’t these dresses for women???”

  “……………”

  For once, I couldn’t blame them, the old dress code in China was… quite peculiar, and while not uncomfortable at all, by novel and manga testimony at least, - so not the most coherent kind - the process to put them on in the right way was a bit complicated.

  “This navigator must be bugged or given a wrong turn. Where is the males dormitory?” asked Massimiliano to the blue line after inciting us out to find the real place.

  Once out, he asked again and a series of dots appeared on it indicating the room we just came out of and when he got nearer the line disappeared and the blue point became red and started to blink.

  I seriously doubted it was but when I tried to open my mouth to contest all it gained was insults and shout to shut up.

  A number of attempts later… we still ended there.

  “Not a change uh?” said Massimiliano dejected after having done this for six time by different places along the corridor as if that would have changed the result.

  We got back in then.

  “It seem we are forced to wear this things…” said Nando dejectedly once back inside while grabbing the garb from the nearest wardrobe.

  “Yeah. So it seem” answered Daniele, who looked a lot less fear stricken but still not in the mood to do more then go with the other two flows.

  “… and sleep all in the same room…” continued Nando with a bitter tone and some anger in it… all while looking at me as if the sole idea was enough to ruin his life.

  ‘What the fuck did I have even done to you for hating me so much?’ I mentally questioned not getting why he so naturally hated me aside from the fact that my father wasn’t Italian, a point he more than hinted at a few time in the past.

  Honestly I was starting to think that he had a bone to chew with my dad over something in the past and now was taking it out on me… wasn’t that it was really unlikely and he was known to extremely racist with some delusion of supremacy.

  “I hope no one here snore while sleeping!” he practically growled while especially looking in my direction.

  “No, I don’t.” answered Daniele in no time and with such a fervor he seemed insulted that the other even thought it.

  “I actually do. Heavily, says my woman, like a tractor or a chainsaw.” admitted Massimiliano like it was something to be proud of instead.

  “I just breath a bit heavily, it’s not even a snore, it’s more like I have a weight on my chest while sleeping.” I admitted, having some of a heavy breathing didn’t seem so bad when one admitted so openly to snore like a tractor and Nando admitted once that he too snored heavily.

  “Then I will be sleeping on one side, Massimiliano on the opposite side and Daniele can sleep where he want.” said Nando with an authoritarian tone.

  ‘Hey, when the fuck you have become the boss here?’ I mentally questioned again, I knew better than to say something that not only no one would care about, but risked to get me another round of unjustified mistreatment.

  So faking I didn’t care I simply took a bed on the other side of the room… near the tractor man and far from Nando.

  “What are you doing Dunce?” asked Nando.

  “What I’m doing? Taking a bed?” I asked making him notice the obvious with a very passive demeanor. The man was clearly trying to affirm authority for some reason and I didn’t want to get a bigger target on my back than he was already willing to give.

  It wasn’t even that big of a deal. There were six beds in the rooms, so taking out the three they have already taken I could choose one of the three remaining… or better actually take one that is not immediately near one of the two tractors… but that didn’t seem to matter if the lanky asshole had a say in it.

  “Absolutely not, if you sleep here and wake me up with your snore or if you start to fart I will make you see hell!” shouted Nando angrily already charging me like he was ready to give me a beating right then and there.

  ‘Really, what the fuck did I to you?… and why I didn’t enjoyed it more while doing it?’

  “Then where should I be sleeping?” I asked him bewildered that he really intended to act in such a way.

  “You can sleep in the corridor, in the refectory, in the bathroom, you can even sleep inside the toilet for what I care, but NOT HERE!” he screamed now completely out of it.

  I looked around searching the eyes of the others, hoping for someone to stand and make reasons of the situation.

  Massimiliano clearly did not care one bit, while Daniele simply looked away not saying anything.

  Clearly I was even less welcomed than I thought. And I already thought very little of them from the get go but this was another thing altogether.

  “… fine!… if that is how you gonna make it then I’m out!” I said once clear none would come in help on this one and after getting one of the dresses from a wardrobe I got out of the room only to start immediately cursing.

  “… earlier I should have simply moved against the wall and whisper Out instead of putting up such a show, I would have used my time better than to stay with these reproachful vermin…. Just fucking great! Now I have probably little more than ten hours to get ready with I’ve a lot of sleep to take back if I want to be in any condition to … and no place where to rest… unless I take the mattress out here… if something like that it’s even possible, that is….” I said while feeling like shit even after having known that they were not better than trash at the best of times… but at least a minimum of humanity!

  Giving up I started moving, after all it wasn’t like I could do a whole lot there.

  Then I realized I had no idea where a bathroom was as I didn’t see any other “door” in the dormitory, so it was probable the rooms were either single function or there was a trick to access the bathroom if there was one annexed to the dormitory.

  Having no better plan I turned to the wall and touching the blue line I whispered.

  “Hey blue line… sorry, ehm…” the situation was making me quite flustered not knowing what I could do at that point. I felt quite lost at that moment.

  “.. you know… the other thrown me out of the dormitory… they don’t want me to sleep with them… I have yet to shower and change so... there is…You know… somewhere else I can sleep or at least clean in?” I asked it, feeling more like I was crying in my mother apron after a bully shoved me than an adult asking direction for the nearest toilet.

  As before, a line of red dot appeared… directing toward the room I just left.

  “So there is nowhere else other than the dormitory room is it?” I whispered dejected.

  A moment later the 2 meter line of read dots started blinking and became instead a straight red line on both side of the walls directing me over the dormitory room to some other place down the corridor.

  “What… but… right now I wasn’t touching the blue line…” I said surprised… I was just talking to myself.

  In the end, before one of the others could come out and notice the strange phenomenon I started following feeling curiosity win over the fear and worry of why the blue line suddenly acted in a way that the skeleton didn’t mention.

  I walker for a long while, longer than the distance between the room of the summoning circle and the dormitory actually.

  The corridor was not straight and it had quite a number of bents and more than once I was certain that not only I was getting back from where I came but I even felt that right now, I should be passing through places where I passed earlier and saw only solid walls… in other words, it was like the corridor was either passing through rooms, walls or other corridors… and yet… there wasn’t any intersection, ever, only the corridor continuing without an end in sight.

  “This is so strange…” I whispered to myself to fill the oppressive silence.

  “First I come out of the portal room when I should have not able to, even less survive out of it if the words of the skeleton are to be trusted, then I came out of the toilet only to find myself not in the corridor but back in the portal room, which was lucky because I was unsure to be able to find it again except in case the skeleton itself waited outside, indicating with it’s presence the right “door”… and unlucky, because I wanted to get out of the toilet and simply go exploring… this place look a bit oppressive with the infinite wall of… rock I guess? Like I’m underground… or inside an asteroid. How cool would that be?”

  The only answer was the silence and more walking.

  “And now… this… the skeleton said that by asking you directions you would create a line of red dots of two meters on one of the walls… but now…” I said locking at the entire corridor.

  “Both blue line are almost completely red for as far as I can see… moreover….” I said stopping.

  As if alarmed by my stopping the red line started to pulsate.

  “Almost like you are urging me to… no, like you are encouraging me to not loose hope?” I asked it but it but the strange decoration only continued to pulsate, not dissimilarly to a beating heart.

  After maybe another ten minutes or more of walking, I could see the end of the red line.

  The corridor continued on, but the red lines stopped at the height of a single crystal on the right wall while the left one went back completely to its blue color.

  ‘Well, it is the right wall from the directions I came from, if I came from the other…’

  I started loosing myself only to be called to reality by the pulsating line.

  “Is this the one? You sure it isn’t a prank and when I get in I will found myself in the dormitory with those three?” I asked it with a bit of worry in my heart and with twisted guts. A fter the sleepless night, the half morning of shitty work, the awful experience I had in the toilet and the long walk to the dormitory and then here I was not sure I could take to be pranked even from the magic equivalent of a car navigator.

  “I don’t think I really have the energies to ran out of the room before Nando start hitting me.” I said with gut wrenching worry. In between all, I was exhausted. If the older, and bigger, man charged I was unsure I even had the energy or the promptness of reflexes to defend or run.

  But the light on the door simply blinked with more strength. As if inciting into trusting it

  “Okay, I will trust you, no pranks okay?” I told the light then touched it.

  “Okay, I…. can I come in?” I asked, had no idea why now I asked in such a polite way, but, felt it was the right thing to do instead of saying simply In.

  The wall disappeared and I found myself in a spacious room.

  A room with, mercifully only one bed.

  What I found myself in is a spacious room, not as large as the dormitory one but still quite bigger than my single room hole of an apartment and the color of walls, floor and ceiling was the very same dark red of the rest of this place, with the blue line that ran through it in the same way, all around it, at 1,80 meter over the ground and no corners anywhere but… here the similarities ends.

  At the center of it is a solitary bed, but a bit different from the ones in the dormitory as it was both somehow larger and longer… or maybe that is just the my imagination and instead its the very same model and is my mind that gives it a more imposing appearance.

  The same could be true for the wardrobe as it looked identical just, maybe a bit larger, but the real similarities ended there. The room wasn’t as spacious as the dormitory, maybe it was 2\3 or at best 3\4 of it, but with only one bed and wardrobe, the free space was so much more that my one room apartment could have been stayed in here five if not even six times.

  More over on the other side of the bed was a large desk, so large that I could lye on it almost two times over as it was very spacious and enriched with drawers under the plane with unassuming handles that yet gave the impression of being more utilitarian than decorations. But it didn’t end there and on the two sides of it two big bookshelves tall almost as me with five rows of empty space and each ending just enough under the blue line to leave it visible even once filled with books, all ten of them were actually empty but it was no brainier what was their purpose. The same from the small drawer on the side of the bed with another drawer and a rectangular locket under it.

  “Wow… this is incredible! It’s five, no, maybe even six times where I live…” I said astonished, it was really okay for me to stay here? I could barely start to think how better was my living quarters opposed from where my co-workers kicked me out.

  “Hey” I said touching the nearer point of the blue line, “It’s really alright for me to stay here?”

  For a moment the line in all it’s length pulsated red before returning blue.

  “Seen how the red is the color that you used to bring me here… red mean yes?” I asked it.

  It pulsated red again.

  “Then… what color is a No?” I asked it.

  The entire line became white before returning blue.

  “I understand, red is yes, white is no” I said smiling to the blue line “thank you! If it wasn’t for you I would have to sleep in the corridor… not even sure if those assholes would have let me take a mattress with me… I’m really grateful, this is the nicest thing someone did for me… well maybe you are more of a thing than a person… being a luminescent blue line embedded in a wall… but I’m still grateful for your help.” I blabbered to him, her, its. The emotion flowing in my chest much less tinted of the anger and hatred I had felt in the last few years and more toward a feeling of gratitude.

  ‘If behind the blue line there is a person then it is likely not the skeleton or its creator but someone else. Should see if I can find him or her and thank them properly if I have the chance.’

  Then I remembered that I probably only have no less than ten hours before the start of the test and I had still to washed, eaten and slept. Especially the last quite a while.

  “Ehm… I know that I’ve already asked a lot but… can you guide me to somewhere I can wash myself?” I asked it hoping that it wouldn’t flash white… or that I had to walk for another twenty-five\thirty minutes only to get back to the dormitory.

  A red dot appeared on the blue line, followed by another and another, than faster and faster others appeared until they stopped on another blue crystal\door…. This one not the one I came from but another near the head of the bed.

  “Am I seeing things or there are two doors in this room?” I whispered unable to trust my eyes.

  ‘No way! Could it be?’

  The blue line did actually divided creating the effect of a red circle that contained a blue dot at its center on the later one.

  “In?”