Forbidden Link

25. Basketball Court

Alex could see the closed door in front of him and scanned the corridor surrounding him. The corridor was about six meters wide with plain walls along the corridor. There was no detail that could be seen by Alex because the lighting was very minimal. And the only interior which could be seen was the door, as if the door had its own source of light in itself.

Alex knew that the clue was on that door, but he hesitated to walk directly through the door. So he turned around and chose to walk through the corridor, opposite from the door he assumed as a clue. There was only darkness around him and he could not see the end of the corridor at all. But Alex's steps didn't hesitate at all and continued walking in the corridor.

It seemed that Alex had been walking for a minute but there was no change in the view at all from the corridor. And how surprised Alex was when he turned around. It turned out that the exit was already in front of him again. The distance was exactly the same as when he had set foot in the corridor for the first time.

Still not believing what he saw, Alex blinked his eyes. Alex's vision wasn't wrong. The open door was indeed only a few meters from him even though Alex had walked away from the door for quite a while. It was as if he had only walked just in one place without moving at all.

It was not Alex if he was just not trying to get back to that weirdness. Alex ran away from the door, saw the exact same sight, and spent maybe five minutes walking in the endless corridor. After he found nothing for five minutes, Alex turned around.

The open door was already in front of him again. Alex laughed for no apparent reason. He was amused by himself in such a strange condition. After accepting this strangeness, Alex began to think that maybe he was in another dimensionless space. But unlike the dimensionless space that appears after pressing the forbidden link, this time the dimensionless space has a way out.

“Well… there seems to be no other choice,” said Alex as he walked towards the door.

As soon as Alex opened the door, a noisy sound could be heard immediately and replaced the silent situation which he felt before. There were dozens to a hundred people sitting in the audience seats in the room that had an area of ​​more than five hundred square meters. They all wore the same set of tracksuits as Alex, including a pair of white sneakers for footwear. There were several people walking on the sidelines. And there were also those who just stood up like Alex did.

Alex scanned the conditions around him. Some people looked back at Alex with a lazy look, then turned to the other side. Everyone seemed unconcerned by the arrival of a man who had just walked through the door. Several people in the group saw Alex then talked to the friends next to him. And some people just look and then remain silent.

At first, Alex thought that many people were the same NPCs as in the previous stage. But Alex immediately revised his estimation because the people he saw were far more expressive than the NPCs he had met before. Even so, the faces of the people on the basketball court looked unknowingly unenthusiastic.

Of all the people who were standing on the sidelines, there was only one person who immediately ran to Alex with a happy face, then let out his soprano voice, “Al! We successfully passed the previous test!”

"Yes, Bian. We did it."

Alex smiled briefly at Bianca then looked back. No doors opened behind Alex's back. The door that Alex was passing through was now tightly closed even though Alex was very sure that he didn't hear the door closing at all. Alex approached the door and tried to open it, but couldn't.

“That door never opens from inside this field. The door only opens before we go through it.”

A strange bass sound was heard in Alex's ears, causing Alex to immediately turn his head in the direction of the sound. A big man about one and a half times Alex's body, slanted eyes and short black hair appeared in front of Alex. The man's eyes were so narrow that Alex saw the man as if he was sleeping while talking.

"Ah, my name is Willow."

The man named Willow stretched out his hand with a flat face towards Alex. Alex accepted Willow's offer of a handshake while half looking up at the significant difference in their height. A firm handshake from Willow made Alex frown.

"His power is very strong. I even scolded him earlier when I met him," said Bianca, looking at Alex, who was fidgeting with his right wrist.

"So you two have met before?"

Bianca's nod made Alex realize that maybe he was the only one running in the corridor which was in the opposite direction from the door for a few minutes. Bianca had been there first because she might just have walked right directly through the door.

“So… Can you tell me something about what's going to happen here?” asked Alex as he followed Willow, who walked to the corner of the field. Willow motioned for Alex to sit on the hardwood floor.

“We will be playing basketball at a certain time. Nobody knows when the referee will show up and tell us to play. But I expected the referee to show up two hours after the previous match was over. I've seen it dozens of times…”

“Wait a minute… dozens of times?” asked Alex with his eyes widening at Willow's words.

“Yeah… we're all trapped here. I haven't seen a team get away from here since I've been here. Counting the days, I've probably been here three days. But since there is no clock that can tell the time, I'm not sure how long it has been. That must have been quite a while.”

While Alex was silent to understand all of Willow's words, Bianca immediately held her head with her mouth wide open. Bianca repeated the words "Huh?" at the end of every sentence uttered by Willow.

"Three days? Can't we get out of here? What really happened? So we're going to be stuck for days on end?”

"What happens if we lose?" asked Alex after seeing Willow's confused face, having to answer Bianca's question spoken at lightning speed.

"It's going to be dark all of a sudden and we're back in the corridor behind that door," replied Willow, pointing to the door Alex had walked through five minutes ago.

"So the game will be reset non stop to the beginning of the stage if you lose. So we don't need to eat, sleep and other things?”

“I never feel hungry or sleepy here. It's just that sometimes I really want to eat but there is no food at all. Hmm wait… actually when playing basketball, the NPCs will give the players drinks. And it looks like they are very thirsty after playing."

Alex tried to think back to the new information that was so interesting to him. Previously, Alex had indeed questioned the humans' needed things when he was in the first stage. But he still couldn't confirm it because the time it took him to complete stage one was only about two hours.

From Willow's information, Alex made two assumptions that still need to be confirmed. The first assumption was that people do not become thirsty, hungry or sleepy just because of the passage of time. If they waited in the classroom on stage one for about a day, then they wouldn't be thirsty, hungry or sleepy. Basketball players will become thirsty because they spend energy at one time, namely when playing basketball.

The second assumption was that actually the people in this forbidden link world didn't need to drink, eat or sleep. Players who drank water after playing basketball might just be psychologically thirsty. If the second assumption was correct, then many things do not resemble real life and made Alex wonder if he could use these differences to complete each stage he would take. And that curiosity could only be kept by Alex himself. He needed to prove which assumption was correct first.

"Okay. So are we going to compete with each other? Or we will have a match against NPCs.”

Alex had already imagined what would happen in the middle of the field. As a former athlete in high school, playing basketball was not a difficult thing for Alex to do. Positive thoughts had already filled Alex's mind. And Alex didn't realize that he was too confident in his own thoughts at the time.

"No, we won't be competing against each other."

"Oh.. so the NPCs will come and compete with us?"

Not only Alex, Bianca was also curious about Willow's answer because Willow spoke quietly enough to make people impatient to wait for the next sentence. And this time Willow gave a long pause before answering Alex's question. Long enough. Until Alex was able to turn to Bianca just to test if the people around him were statues because Willow didn't move at all.

“It is not an NPC….” Willow's voice sounded faint but Alex could sense the doubt in those few words. “But we will fight… the dinosaurs.”

“Cough…cough…”

Alex immediately coughed when he heard Willow's answer. Alex's mind immediately guessed whether the man in front of him was a comedian or a mentally ill person. But Alex tried to control his expression and tried to respond calmly.

Meanwhile, Bianca immediately half shouted, “Huh?! Dinosaur?!"

Several people who were standing on the sidelines immediately turned to Bianca. Alex immediately made a "Psst" sound to Bianca so it wouldn't attract too much attention.

“Okay… can you explain in detail? What do you mean by dinosaur?”