Page 129 of The Commons

Oh God.

One has to be real.

But what if none is real?

I don’t know what to do.

How would I even help this child?

What if these are all illusions?

I only have 1 minute, and 30 seconds left.

My heart starts caving into doubt, and my mind is tangled in a thousand uncertain thoughts. And just as I think it can’t get any worse, I see water filling up the test tubes.

Where is the water coming from?

I suppose from underground? I don’t know… I just know I have to do something! But I have no clue what. I guess I have to pick one child to sprint to and try and catch.

To make matters worse, all three of them are crying.

This is traumatic.

They literally all look the same. Brown eyes, curly hair, same length, freckles on the side of their nose, same blue shoes, everything the freakinnnn same! Urgh!

The water is about to overflow, so I look intently at each child again, eyes darting into their soul, trying to pierce into their core, trying to sense which one is more human than the other… but they seem human. What the heck am I supposed to do?

I try to calculate the probability of which would be real based on the logic of mathematics, but after every complicated calculation, my brain just diverges into confusion. And I go back to second guessing myself with Commons ideology, knowing that they would think of doing the least expected thing, that was both expected so not to be expected by the expectant, and thereby be unexpected. See, so confusing! I simply make no sense.

I look to see the time is up, and the children are about to fall to their death.

I have no other choice but to go with my initial instincts and get out of my own head. Not everything can be solved with the mind. I just decide to go with the test tube that first caught my eyes—The third one. I run to it just as the other two tubes overflow and the children slip off.

Thud… Crash…

I hear frantic movements and screams, so I immediately turn to the side, eyes squinting, but I see—Nothing.

No one.

I look at my hands in the same instant and I see—No one.

No child.

It was all an illusion to distract me.

Urghhhh! Screw The Commons!

I am relieved at least. But I now have less than one minute to complete this Obstruct or Levon will be burnt to ashes, and that will be my grief-stricken reality.

I look forward to see there are no other doors. The only thing I spot in the distant edge is a murky brown swirl of water and mud with ripples rising to the surface. That seems to be my only clue. I can stay in this room and be stuck here forever, but I cannot go back since the door I came from is a one-way door. My only option left is to jump into this mud-filled watery substance.

I gulp in dread. I don’t know what lurks underneath. My hands begin to shake. I don’t know if I am about to be eaten by a crocodile or something even worse. This time, if there is a carnivore underneath, my fate will be death for sure. I will be stuck underground with no escape. If I jump in, there is no coming back up.

Biting my teeth, I try to stop my thoughts and talk to myself…

If you have overcome a test before, it cannot overcome you again.

If there is a crocodile and I am stuck… and I die, then… I know that I died trying.