STRANDED, 3000.

She remembered when she first read this letter. She read this whenever she wanted to escape from reality. She now read it more than a thousand times here. The only way for people in different region to contact each other was through e-mail since the other ways were blocked for the danger of secret information spill. However, Kayelin and Jin were both too busy studying and they naturally stopped contacting each other at some point. Kayelin still loved him but there wasn’t a way for her to find out if he felt the same as her. Now she spent 4 years in this school and was famous in school for having the highest score. It was decided she would be the one to be the president’s individual doctor and she was happy about this fact since a comfortable life was guaranteed if she worked inside the government. She was planned to graduate as the valedictorian but wasn’t happy. Time seemed to have stopped after she came to Hong Kong. Everywhere she went seemed like she had been there before maybe because her daily routine was same without a single difference. She woke up at 6am studied at school from 7am to 7pm. School wasn’t an exception. From 7am to 10am, it was always psychology foundation courses. Without a break in the middle, until 12 o’clock the next class was ‘Essentials of Clinical Medicine class.’ Until 1:30 which was lunch time, it was independent learning time. Students could eat for 30 minutes. From 1:30, scientific foundation course continued for 3 hours. From 4:30 to 5:00 was the only break they had but most students including Kayelin had to continue studying due to the massive amount of information they had been received. The last until 7:00pm was the ‘Essentials of Clinical Medicine class’. There was no such time to waste talking with her rivals but she still wanted friends that she could depend on, just like Aldwin or Jin. Reality was the opposite and Kayelin had already given up living as ‘Kayelin’, a human being. Instead, she lived as the model student, Kayelin. “Hammy!” Kayelin called for Hammy. Hammy came into Kayelin’s room. “Yes, ma’am.” “I forgot my schedule for today because I was too tired. Could you repeat what you said in the car?” “Of course, ma’am. There wasn’t special assignments or research for today but just the message from Mrs. Brigitte.” “Sorry, what was did she say to me?” “She wanted Miss Kayelin to follow the white rabbit to return back. That was all the message, Miss.” “But, I am supposed to stay 1 more year. What is all the white rabbit about?” “I have no clue ma’am.” Kayelin looked at the clock. It was only 11 o’clock. It was a rare day without any assignments from school or from the government. “I will just sleep early today. Good night.” and Hammy went out of the room after she made her bad. Kayelin laid down in her bed and looked at the sky through her ceiling. It was dark, absolutely dark without any light except the moon that shined brighter in the dark. She soon fell asleep. Then there was a deadly knock of someone. Maybe not someone but a herd of people. She became frightened and called Hammy but there wasn’t any reply because Hammy was charging himself. “Who are you?” Kayelin shouted holding a knife but there wasn’t any reply. She opened the door a little and a man with a tall hairy man pushed the door hard and came into her house without any permission. As he came in, he walked around the house slowly bending his back that looked like as he was trying to find something. “Who are you? Get out of this house or I will wake others up.” she tried to threaten him but actually she was the one menaced by his existence. “I am looking for my child. She just ran away from me.” he cried. “You have parents and you will become one then you will understand I am not just a random stranger but a pity man looking for her daughter.” “I don’t have parents.” “What do you mean? Everyone in this world does.” “No… I mean I did have parents once because I am here. But I became apart of them when I was very young. I don’t know why. But I can still vividly hear their voices sometimes. I see their faces. Then they look at me with eyes full of love and open their mouth and try to say something. When they open their mouth and talk they disappear. Maybe they are not my parents but my imagination. Probably my imagination. I am too stressed here and just seeing and hearing what isn’t there.” “Listen... There isn’t any parent in this world that doesn’t love their children. If you lost them when you were young, they will be looking for their cute white rabbit.” “What? What did you say?” “I said I found my white rabbit, dear.” he put his arm on her, shoulder patted her. She then realized his shadow wasn’t a human. It was very small and faint unlike his big body size. It was a rabbit! “Do what your heart tells you.” then disappeared. She looked where he just stood. “Oh my god! The white rabbit!” She quickly put on her jacket and rushed out of the house. Then she saw a white rabbit in front of the elevator and she chased him and got on the elevator with it. Soon, the lights went off and the elevator started falling down. Kayelin started screaming in fear and pressed the emergency bell repeatedly but didn’t work and the elevator kept falling. She closed her eyes and was praying to god alone. “Jin, I am sorry I couldn’t keep the promise.” and she closed her eyes. Kayelin had probably fainted. Her eyes opened automatically because of the glaring light that was illuminating her face. When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the elevator but was lying on the red block which said start. “Start? Start what?” She looked at herself and realized there were different colors of blocks in a square shape. This looked very familiar to her. She tried to think what it was and realized she was standing in the start box of a board game. “Wake up.. Wake up… This is a dream. A stupid dream… Let’s go back and study...” She pinched herself really hard but it hurt a lot. Then she slapped herself but it was very painful. Suddenly there was a voice. A thin voice of a woman. “This is your dream but you cannot wake up now. If you win this game, you will return back but if you lose and die here, you also die in the reality.” Kayelin couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Who are you? What is this? Why do I have to play this? Let me out of here!” Absolutely everything was white and there wasn’t an exit. She felt like she was going to get crazy if she stayed still in this room. She hurtled around the room trying to find the exit. The voice said “Please accept your reality. You should be thankful to the miners who doesn’t even have a chance to play this.” At the front wall, there were 3 doors: red, blue and green. She kicked the handles and tried to open each door but it wouldn’t even make a sound. She started weeping. “I didn’t come here to live like this.” She then screamed and yelled if there was someone but her voice echoed inside the room where it seemed there wasn’t any end. “How long will it take? What is the purpose of this game? And who is making me play this?” She howled in an angry voice. “Mrs. Brigitte. I believe she already told you to follow the white rabbit. This is the process of selecting whom to take to the new planet next year in 3000. Everyone are required to play except the miners. All of the miners will be left on earth unless the rich who agreed to freeze their body through cryonics.” Kayelin suddenly freeze. “Then all this time, it was true what chestnut was saying. It wasn’t a rumor. The world is dying soon the black hole will suck this planet and so the government is selecting whom to take. How could they. Mrs. Brigitte, I know her. I came here to be her individual doctor.” As she was saying that special people passed by her head. Oh no. Jin.” The voice announced again. “Now it is time to start the game.” “Wait!!! Can you check if Jin, my friend majoring in astronomy at WSA won the game?” The voice said “All the students majoring astronomy are selected automatically. But I heard your friend is attending Einstein Technical School right now. Your game starts in 3 minutes. Get ready. Otherwise, you lose your chance of playing the game.” Kayelin cursed at something for the first time and was relieved to hear Jin would be safe at the same time. The voice announced again. “This game is similar to Monopoly. According to the government, they have a record of you playing the game often when you were in elementary school so we assume you already know the rules. Jump the number of blocks your dice tells you to. If you finish the task on that block, you get another chance. All the blocks are 100 in total. Everything is simple. Just one difference with Monopoly is that in this game, the first person to come to the beginning position becomes the winner.” “Wait... The community has been watching me secretly the whole time? How could they…?” “Please don’t make the game long. In front of you there are 3 keys. Pick one of them and open one of the 3 doors with it. The other player who will be competing with you will come out of the door. Please remember. Only one of you will be able to get out of this place. So even if a person you know comes out of that door, remember he or she is your rival of life. Now pick the key and good luck.” The announcement had stopped. Suddenly, 3 keys appeared on the floor. Kayelin looked at the 3 keys. They looked all the same. She picked up the first one nervously and walked toward the 3 doors. She felt her all of her limbs shaking. She tried putting the key in the first door. It didn’t work. She went to the second door, it didn’t work as well. Feeling more nervous she went to the last green door. She couldn’t imagine who would come out of that door. Whoever came out, one thing was sure. She had to win that person to go back to the real world. As she opened the door, someone very familiar came out. It was Aldwin, her friend she thought was dead. Feeling guilty all these years, she looked at him in a surprised and glad face not knowing what to say. “Aldwin? I mean… What?” However, he came out of the room slowly ignoring her and said “Let us start the game.” Suddenly with a loud noise, the ceiling of the whole room opened. The white wall of the ceiling turned into a transparent window and Mrs. Brigitte and some other government leaders that looked familiar were sitting and looking at the 2 children that were below their heads. They had a camera to see how they were doing. As Mrs. Brigitte made a hand to start, one of the leaders stood up and threw the dice. It was 5. The voice announced that Kayelin was the first player. She jumped 5 blocks. There was a small card that said task card. She grabbed the card and opened it to read it. It said “ Grab the gun and shoot 2 people in front of you. This task measures your ability of surviving in desperate situations.” When she finished reading, with tears of resentment she looked above and Mrs. Brigitte nodded her head once and pressed a button. Now she was totally in a different place, a jungle. As she waited there for someone to come, one woman and a man came. The man was the stranger that came into her house that was looking for his daughter with a rabbit shadow the last day. “Hey! We met again! Did you find your daughter?” “Kayelin, it’s us, honey. We missed you so much…” “What? You were my dad?!” “Yes, we are your parent. The government took you away from us just after we had you… They said you were too talented to grow between us. We missed you so much...” All the 3 of them were crying. “Mom… You are my mom.” “Yes, I am your mommy. Come here my sweetheart.” Kayelin went over to her and hugged the woman. “Please someone tell me this game is a lie. I cannot shoot my family.” Kayelin’s dad said “No, you will. Shoot us and find yourself. We’ve just waited for this moment all our life to see you. You must survive. Get away from that corrupted world and make your own family. Then you will understand us.” “2 minutes left. There is no time to talk with others Kayelin.” it was Mrs. Brigitte. Mrs. Brigitte was watching this game. Kayelin tried to pretend she was calm and okay but her heart was broken already. “It’s okay. We will always love you honey. You are doing what you are supposed to do so don’t feel sorry for us and shoot us.” “Mom, dad I am so sorry and I love you.” she closed her eyes and shot them. There wasn’t any sound or any voice. She had just killed her parents. “No…” Kayelin shed tears went to the 2 warm corpses that were bleeding and kissed each of them on their forehead saying “I love you mom and dad. Please forgive me.” After she said that, she was back in the white room on the board game floor. She was still crying and her tears seemed it won’t stop for a long time. Something was burning inside her: ‘revenge’ to those who made her kill her own parents. Kayelin looked above at Mrs. Brigitte. She was concentrated in looking at Aldwin playing the game. A few minutes of waiting, Aldwin went 3 blocks ahead but she couldn’t see his task and it was Kayelin’s turn again. This time the task was fairly simple. “Make food for 30 people using all the given ingredients until you run out of time. Make it as much as nutritious as possible thinking of the people who would eat this to survive. You are allowed to use all the machines in the kitchen including water. The time starts from now. Good luck.” and she was moved into a kitchen with a big red clock that was ticking with a loud noise in front of her. This was Aldwin’s kitchen. She recognized this place since she would always go over to his house and eat dinner because his parents didn’t want Kayelin to feel lonely as a child. The given ingredients were each in a bag with small name tags with the amount of it. Kayelin didn’t notice the name tags and just opened the first heaviest bag that was in front of her. “It’s food… It won’t be something violent… Calm down Kayelin…” she said to herself and opened the bags. As soon as she opened it, she screamed and threw it in the air which fell on the floor. She started gagging. It was human skin. Yes, 2kg of human skin that was still warm and bloody. She thought the other ingredients couldn’t be worse and opened it. 2kg of cockroaches live that were still moving, a kilo of flour, honey and some dried leaves. She felt sick, started sweating and had difficulty breathing right away because of katsaridaphobia she always had. Kayelin picked up the human meat from the floor. She had no other choice. She just killed her own parents according to their wish for her to live in a better world. “Let’s do this. I still have 30 minutes left.” she said and put on the plastic gloves. Kayelin started following how Hammy used to cook before. She first washed the meat and fried it in a machine. While the meat was getting fried, the cockroaches were the problem. Her katsaridaphobia made her feel not only vulnerable but she couldn’t kill them with her own hands or even watch them properly. She tried lifting up the bag with her hand but dropped it immediately because of the feeling millions of cockroaches moving inside. “I cannot do this.” she was crying again. “Yes, you can. What you think makes you. Remember?” A voice inside her was whispering. Kayelin closed her eyes and thought of the easiest way of dealing with it. The only way she could dare think of was putting the whole bag into the mixer. “I am not that weak. I can overcome this. I am a strong girl.” Kayelin took a deep breath looked for scissors. She grabbed the scissor on her left hand and grabbed the bag with her right thumb and index finger and put in the mixer. Kayelin opened the bag with scissors and flipped it so all the creatures would get out easily. She made it run for 8 minutes and went back to the meat. It was fried so she took it out and cut it into small pieces. Whenever she chopped, her heart was bleeding too. Then she mixed all the flour and the water she prepared to make dough out of it. She mixed the dough and the finished cockroach powder and baked it in the oven for 15 minutes. Now, only 3 more minutes. She quickly washed the dried leaves rubbed it on the meat. A minute later, the black bread was prepared and she cut the middle and put the meat with leaves inside and closed it. 1 minute left. She poured all the honey in the bottle and time was over. Kayelin used all the ingredients required and it was judged that it was enough for 30 people. “Mom, dad. I did it… But is this really what you wanted me to do?” she was asking them longingly in her heart but they didn’t answer. She was back in the white room. “Congratulations. You two have both passed the game once again. The next game is competing directly with the opposite player. After 5 minutes the race will start so please prepare yourself. Kayelin crossed Aldwin’s path and they stopped for a moment. “It’s over” Kayelin was sobbing. “I can never win you with running. What did I kill my parents for?” “Kayelin, you won’t die. I promise.” Aldwin said to her. “What? What do you mean?” Aldwin walked to the green door where he came out from and rang the red bell. The whole room became noisy with the beeping sound from the bell. It meant he would give up playing. Automatically, Kayelin would be the winner of this game and the government would take him and kill him as they had promised at the beginning. “Why did you do that? I know you are a fast runner. No… This is not fair… I am the one that should lose… I can’t let you die once more like this!” Kayelin began hitting his shoulder crying. Aldwin patted her shoulder and reached his hand and wiped the tears on Kayelin’s face with his finger. “No, Kayelin. You deserve it.” and he smiled very warmly. “Please tell me Aldwin. I am so sorry… But why did you hate me and leave me? I missed you so much…” He put his face close to her and looked at her eyes. He has never been this close to a friend he knew for such a long time. He was now wondering why he didn’t realize that Kayelin had such dazzling black eyes that were beautiful as stars in the night sky with long eyelashes. “Look at me. How could I ever hate you…? You were my best friend and I have never seen a person as lovely and kind as you… I know you so well… And you know me... I know you would have cried so much because of what I said… I am so sorry… I always knew how innocent you are but for a moment I thought you were hiding something from me.” “Hide what? There is nothing I would hide from you!” “I know… It was my fault. Please forgive me. I won’t tell you what it is because you will find out soon on your own. I will just tell you this. It is about Jin.” “I don’t care about Jin right now. Eldwin, they are going to come soon and take you away at any moment.” “I know. Look. I am not scared of death. I accomplished my wish, meeting you before I die. Please don’t cry with those beautiful eyes Kayelin.” “I am killing you twice Aldwin…” “No, I wasn’t dead. I was in the ice pot when my heart stopped for a while and woke up again. But everything was planned, I am so sorry. I had no other choice to save you. All this time I knew what would happen in this world because I heard everything from my father who is a scientist that belongs to the government. I couldn’t tell you that this earth would demolish and what the government were doing to conceal this. You were studying so hard and how could I interrupt you? Instead, I pretended I was mad at you and sent you to Hong Kong, the city where the government couldn’t destroy the students at least like here. All of your friends aren’t like the past anymore.” “My friends? Which friends are you talking about? All of them went to WSA. They would be studying all day like me.” “Nope, they are addicted to drugs, alcohol and even sex. The government even took all of their robots and now most of them are starving from death or just lost their minds. Only the top 5% students and those who were majoring in astronomy were moved to the Busan campus to continue studying like you. The others are now thrown in the dumper by the government. Oh, Einstein Technical University is another exception too. Jin might be studying there if he graduated earlier.” Kayelin wasn’t breathing properly. “Look, I know it is hard to believe. But I couldn’t let this thing happen to you! You were always my best friend and I like you so much. You were actually the only one to survive from the psychology department.” Kayelin just nodded because she couldn’t say anything. “Can I say one more thing before I leave you?” She just nodded again grabbing his hand. “To be honest, there wasn’t even a moment I hated you. I actually didn’t confess to you because I knew you loved Jin. But I am not him and I cannot be. You have to get out of here even if that is someone else.” Aldwin could see the police coming for him on the screen in live. His breath became faster. “Kayelin, listen to me. I really have no time. You said before that if I jumped into the ocean, you would jump and save me because we are best friends. But don’t. Don’t jump into the death yourself and try to save me. Forget about me and start everything new.” Eldwin tried to let go of his hand but Kayelin grabbed it harder. “You had the world you dreamed of. The world where students could study what they really wanted and needed in the future. The world where everyone would be equal not only in words but in action. The world where people would do their roles, not robots. The world where we could hold our hands together instead of shooting guns and bombing missiles in the weak regions. The world where we could breathe in the fresh air not worrying about yellow dust. The world where everyone had the right to know what happened in the past and what would happen in the future. The world where anyone could be anything. The world where citizens were in charge of their own life instead of the government.” The security robots finally arrived. 2 of them, each taking 1 arm of Aldwin, pulled his arm hard. Kayelin was screaming and crying on her knees for him not to lose him but their hands were already apart. Aldwin looked back as he was getting farther away from her. His eyes were full of tears as well but he just gave her a smile. “Don’t forget where you belong.”