CH625

Test one thousand and ninety-seven… failed.

Over the course of the day, not stopping for sleep or rest, Ben had carried out his tests, looking for any sort of weakness in the barrier that trapped him that he might be able to exploit, coming up empty each time.

He hadn’t been expecting to succeed immediately, he knew that was too much to hope for, but he had thought he’d get more than that. A small scratch lasting fractions of a second, a dent or small hole that would refill itself faster than a normal mind could perceive. Anything that would imply that he had hope. That dreaming of escape wasn’t the fool’s errand that the galwaxian trapped beside him kept saying it was.

It’s only been a day. Ben told himself, trying to keep positive. I have all the time in the world to try making it out. No reason to be discouraged about not getting it immediately.

As he thought it though, other darker voices in his head were making their opinions known. Everyone else trapped here has had all of the time in the world too, thousands of years of it without luck. Why would I be any different?

Stop thinking like that.

And it’s obvious I’m missing some pretty crucial bits of knowledge. Look at what’s trapped outside.

I’ll worry about it when I get there.

Oaun mentioned something dead bound to me, that has to be-

Something I’ll talk to the gods about when I get back. He thought forcefully, with his negativity going on.

Which gods? The one that looks just like Oaun in my eyes?

Yes.

And if they’re related somehow? How much of what I know is a lie?

Ben slapped his cheeks hard, feeling the sting of his powerful strike as he muttered under his breath. “Okay, if I don’t get out after a century then I think I’m just going to end it all instead of being alone with my thoughts like this.”

“Ha, you think no one else has tried?” The galwaxian cackled, drawing his eyes. “Watch this.”

Before Ben could ask just what he was supposed to be watching, the man had grabbed tight his own throat, squeezing and tearing away vital chunks of flesh as blood sprayed out.

But before Ben could do so much as scream, the act was undone, the blood flowing back to where it belonged and the pieces of throat escaped his hand back to where they’d been pulled, letting him get back to his mad laughter.

“Joy oh joy, I’m immortal,” The alien mocked. “And so are you! We all get to enjoy eternity together, whether we like it or not.”

“Okay, point proven asshole, so anything else I should know? Any chance our captors are going to zap in any food or water at some point?”

“Why would immortals possibly need to waste time on eating? Or be spared the resources?”

That’s… true.

Ben hadn’t once felt hungry or thirsty since he’d arrived, something he hadn’t noticed as he’d been focused on his tests, with what he’d felt in his current break being merely the psychological need for the stuff. His body thought it had been long enough since he’d had any that he wanted it but that was as far as it went. His stomach didn’t growl, nor was he parched. Though he craved the brief stimulation that came with smells or taste, he would do without.

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But he still needed a break, something that would occupy him as he came up with more ideas to test out as well as for whatever bit of mental recuperation he could get after having failed for so many straight hours, but he didn’t have many desirable paths to that. There was chatting with his overly pessimistic neighbour which he was sure would do nothing for his mental health and there was being alone with his thoughts which might have been even worse, but he had one more option too as he looked at the only thing he shared a room with. The strange metallic block he wasn’t seeing examples of in the other pens.

…No, let’s be honest about what it is. This strange metallic cube.

Given everything Ben had heard, both from the demon who’d caught him and its god, combined with the environment he’d been trapped in, Ben was fairly sure he’d been captured to act as a trophy of a world they hadn’t managed to claim a specimen from. Myriad’s world. There were other, conflicting issues with that fact that he was having trouble incorporating into that assumption but for the time being he went with it as the best explanation he had, so going from there, he was left to assume that what he was seeing was some sort of surviving artifact of Myriad’s planet that had been filling his role until then.