Hugo landed once again. He had already lost count of how many times he'd tried to find a way out by jumping as high as he could.
“Nothing,” he said, approaching María, who was resting with her knees drawn up against her chest near the creature whose flame showed no sign of going out. “Just darkness. Let me rest for a bit, and I'll try again in a few minutes.”
“No,” María said in a faint voice. “Stop. There is no way out.”
“I didn't think giving up like that was very much like you,” he remarked as he sat beside her. The room was cold and stank, but both discomforts disappeared beside the creature's fire. Fortunately, the flame didn't seem like it would go out anytime soon.
“You have to accept it, Hugo. This place was designed so that whoever entered would be trapped. It was supposed to be just me, but…”
“Wow, now you're even using my name? This really just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“Shut up. Useless squire.”
“That's better,” he laughed.
“Is this how you want to spend your final moments? With empty jokes and making fun of me?”
“I'm not making fun of you. But I do agree with the other part. If I'm going to die here, I might as well do it laughing.”
“Idiot.” María scoffed, but she had to struggle to keep herself from smiling.
“Anyway, we're not going to die here,” Hugo declared. “At any moment, Mica or Cat will figure everything out and get us out of the Dimension.”
“What makes you so sure? Ever since this started, you've been saying that your friends are still somewhere in the Tower and that they'll figure everything out. What makes you think they aren't just as bad off as we are?”
Hugo shrugged.
“I don't know. A hunch, I guess.”
“You really are an idiot,” she said, shifting around to turn her back to him and face the fire.
Several minutes passed like that, in silence, each of them paying attention only to their thoughts, the crackling flames, and the strange, unpleasant throbbing of the floor. When Hugo made as if to stand up and continue searching for a way out, María spoke almost in a whisper:
“Don't go. I don't want to be alone…”
Hugo stopped halfway through the motion and sat back down.
“I was just going to try again, in case…”
“I just wanted… I just wanted friends. I wanted to belong…”
Hugo was about to say something, but as had happened very few times in his life, he decided it wasn't the time to speak.
“I've always been alone. My parents just work. They come home very late, sometimes after I've already fallen asleep. I've never had any friends at school. Sarah… Sarah is my neighbor. She was the one who kept me company. She was the one who taught me everything I like. She… After all this started, I promised her I'd fight by her side, but then… Then she pushed me away. I don't remember what happened. My memories of those days fighting by her side are like a forest covered in fog. I remember that we founded the Adventurers' Group, though I don't remember who our companions were. I remember that we fought side by side, though I don't remember who our enemies were. I remember that something terrible happened, and then Sarah started avoiding me…”
As he listened to María, several memories came rushing back to Hugo as well. He saw himself playing with his brother, making up superhero stories and running around from one place to another. But he also saw his brother covered in blood after taking a brutal beating while trying to defend him and their mother. He saw himself kneeling before his brother's lifeless body after one of those many confrontations…
“I had never felt so alone in my life. All of that ended this morning, when Sarah spoke to me again, paid attention to me, told me that I was important to her. She appeared in my dreams and gave me detailed instructions on how to find you all. She told me she needed us… And now… I failed her. I ended up here, trapped, without accomplishing anything she asked me to do… I can't stop thinking that she was right to start ignoring me. To push me aside… I'm useless…”
Hugo thought about what to say, but he had no words that could make her feel better. He couldn't comfort her. But he could keep trying.
He placed a hand on her shoulder and then stood up.
“I'll find a way out, María,” he said. “And if there isn't one, I'll make one.”
Mica nervously descended the stairs to the ninetieth floor. Behind him, Rose kept talking and talking about their accomplishments and how they could make their way through the entire Tower without breaking a sweat. He was reaching the point of getting fed up.
Every time he mentioned one of his companions, Rose would change her expression to one of boredom and scold him for expecting something from others, for depending on them or whatever. Other than that, all he got from her was her smile and excessive positivity.
The previous challenge had been a riddle that required them to plot a stellar travel route to reach a specific planet. The constellations and planetary arrangement were unfamiliar to Mica, making it clear that the model wasn't trying to replicate the Solar System but rather one belonging to an entirely different star. However, the logic lay in the narration of the mechanical voice, which practically gave him the answer.
Now, standing before the door to the ninetieth floor, Mica was nearly dying of nervousness at the thought of what the Tower meant by a self-sacrifice challenge.
“Welcome to Challenge Ninety,” the narrator's voice greeted them as they entered the dark room, its dimensions impossible to determine due to the absence of visible walls. “The first stellar travelers set out as allies. Soon, corrupted by the harshness of the journey and blinded by the brilliance of their goal, many turned against one another, giving rise to the cruelest and most painful betrayals. In the same way, one champion in this room will have to select one of their allies and challenge them to a duel to the death.”
“To the death!?” Mica exclaimed, turning to look at Rose. She raised her hands and shook her head.
“I'm not planning to fight you, Mica, don't worry,” she said without losing the smile on her face, though her eyes told a different story.
“However,” the narrator continued, “for the decision to be truly painful, the choices will be limited to the people who are most important to the champion.”
Three screens rose out of nowhere in front of Mica.
“And that opponent does not necessarily have to be on this very floor.”
The screens lit up, and each displayed a different scene. On the first was Hugo, jumping around in a dark room with a huge bonfire in the background. On the second, Cat was being dragged by Tomás and Jacob into a bright white room. On the third, Sarah paced back and forth inside a small square cell, restless and wearing a worried expression.
“Ah, but this challenge just became easy,” Rose said behind him.
“Easy? How does this seem easy to you?” Mica asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the monitors.
“Well… You'll choose Sarah, right? That's the option that seems most obvious to me. The other two are your friends and…”
“This isn't a logic puzzle, Rose! How can you think it's so easy to decide which friend I want to fight to the death?”
“Didn't you say Sarah was responsible for all this? That you wished you'd never met her? That thanks to her, you were living through all these terrible nightmares?”
Mica hesitated. He knew he'd thought several of those things, but he wasn't sure he'd actually said them.
“The answer is easy. Choose Sarah and get your revenge.”
“Whether I think that or not, Sarah is… I can't fight her to the death. She hasn't done anything to us… Not intentionally, at least.”
“But you know deep down that you want to. You want to punish her. You want to make her pay for all the pain and anguish.”
“No… I…”
“You know she's responsible for the disappearances. James Howard. You saw him in her Dimension. She kidnapped him and didn't hesitate to burn him alive. What kind of madness do you think she'll come up with for your father?”
“My father? He…”
“Disappeared. Yes. I know. And it's Sarah's fault. If she weren't doing what she's doing… your father would still be safe at home. Your mother wouldn't be crying. Your brother wouldn't be sick with worry. You yourself would be far less distressed.”
“Rose, I don't know how you know all this, but I need you to…”
“What you need is to face Sarah and kill her. Tear her apart. Make her beg for mercy and then execute her. Mica, you're a weapon of destruction. The voice in your head tells you so. Your Angelino tells you so. Remember how you defeated the creature that almost killed Cat last night. Remember how…”
“Enough!”
“All right. If you want to stop, that's valid too. You can choose to do nothing. Not face anyone. That way, we'll both die here, and possibly all your friends will die too, unable to escape the Tower.”
“Rose… Stop. Stop talking.”
“Ah! I understand! Maybe you're afraid of Sarah? Then choose Hugo. The idiot won't be any match for you. You'll only have to kill him and continue on our way. Then you can deal with Sarah once you feel safer.”
“No!”
“Or will you choose Cat?”
“I won't choose anyone!” he shouted, materializing his black light sword in his hand. “I'll break this Dimension and…”
“There you're wrong, silly. That's not an option available to you. Not right now, at least… So what will you do?”
Mica turned to look at the screens. He watched his friends' faces from the distant perspective of the cameras focused on them. Then he turned to look at Rose's charming smile, which now seemed sinister and manipulative.
“If the champion refuses to choose an opponent from among the proposed options,” the narrator interrupted, “they will be disqualified and spend the rest of their miserable existence in this Dimension.”
“Do it, Mica. Choose her. You know it's the best option.”
Mica focused his attention on the screen showing Sarah. She paced from one end of the cell to the other. She seemed trapped. Cornered. But it was true that she had dragged them into all of this. She was responsible for the fact that he was now a soldier in the Angelino's War. But…
“I choose Sarah,” he finally said.