"No Pause Today"

The room stirred slowly to life.

Soft groans, a yawn, the rustle of limbs stretching across the cold floor. The heavy, stagnant air hadn’t changed, but something about it felt… shifted.

Sai was the first to sit up, rubbing his tired eyes as he scanned the room. Mira followed shortly after, combing her fingers through her messy hair with a quiet sigh. Eira blinked heavily, caught somewhere between sleep and waking thought.

Corvin, however, remained lying down with his arms crossed behind his head, staring blankly at the ceiling. It wasn’t clear if he had been awake for a while or not.

“Everyone awake?” Sai asked, rubbing his eyes once more.

Mira stretched her arms high above her head, arching her back before reaching toward her toes with a groan. “Yeah… but this was a terrible sleep.”

“Oh no, your beauty sleep! How terrible,” Corvin teased with a grin, sitting up just as Mira finished stretching.

“No, more like my back is killing me,” she retorted, wincing slightly.

“Definitely not the best sleep in here,” Eira agreed, sitting up slowly with her eyes half-closed.

Corvin stood and looked around the room. The clock on the wall had jumped to about 14:00—two in the afternoon. “We slept that long, huh?” His eyes then traced downward, landing on Reith, still lying sound asleep.

“Hey, Sai, looks like someone’s still a sleepyhead over there,” Corvin said as he walked over to Reith and stopped beside him.

“Hey, rise and shine, sleepyhead,” he said, nudging Reith’s shoulder. No response.

“I said, rise and shine!” Corvin kicked Reith’s shoulder harder.

“HEY, WEIRDO! DON’T IGNORE ME!” Corvin practically shouted. At that, Reith’s eyes slowly opened. Corvin, surprised, froze as Reith showed no reaction to the kick.

Reith sat up and muttered simply, “Morning,” before immediately turning his attention back to the clock. Corvin backed off.

As Corvin back up closer to the others, Mira approached and slapped him playfully on the back of his head as he passed by.

“Hey! Rude!” Corvin exclaimed, throwing his arms out in mock confusion.

“I don’t think you can call that rude, considering what you did earlier,” Sai said, eyeing Corvin sharply.

Sai glanced up at the clock as well, noticing Reith’s intense focus he was getting interested in why.

“Hey, can I sit down?” Mira asked awkwardly, waving at Reith and pointing towards the spot next to Reith.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t you?” Reith replied without looking away from the clock.

“No, just… ah, never mind.” Mira sat down beside him.

“So, what exactly are we watching?” Sai asked, curious.

“The clock,” Reith said, still watching the hands move. “It’s changed.”

Mira squinted at the clock, trying to find any visible difference from yesterday but gave up.

“Could you give me some hints? I don’t see anything different.”

Reith looked away from the clock and toward Mira as he explained.

“Since the first day we’ve been here, there’s been a pause every day—at exactly five o’clock, AM and PM. The first day, the pause lasted four seconds, the second day three, then two, then one. But yesterday at five, there was no pause at all. I thought I missed it, so I started tapping a rhythm to keep track.”

Reith began tapping on the floor—the same slow, steady beat as the clock’s second hand.

“So that’s why you were tapping once every second,” Sai said, now approaching them.

“Mhm.”

Interesting. If we’re brought here once every day, does that mean there was a secret countdown? Sai tapped his chin thoughtfully.

The others gathered around as the conversation picked up.

“Wait, why didn’t you tell us about this before? I’ve been here for four days too.”

“Well, I just assumed you noticed it.”

“Clearly, I didn’t! You should have told me.”

“You should have asked.”

Corvin bit his lower lip, closing his mouth as the argument died out.

“Okay, so if yesterday there was no countdown, does that mean something new is going to happen today? Or will it just stay like that?”

“Maybe we’ll finally get out.”

“Or maybe we’ll just starve to death in here,” Corvin said quickly, dashing Eira’s hopeful comment and earning an elbow from Sai—this time, not from Mira.

“What? I’m not wrong. I’ve spent four days here with no food. I’m starving.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t spend those four days talking to you,” Reith retorted. “I’m already tired of it.”

“Oh, sorry, Reith, but when we’re on the subject, I’m tired of you acting like none of this affects you. Are you brain damaged or something?” Corvin threw his arms wide as he spoke. “I mean, think about how you’ve been acting. maybe you are the cause of this”

Reith placed his hands on the floor and pushed himself up to his feet, turning to face Corvin squarely.

“Oh yeah? What, you wanna fight weirdo?”

“You just said you’re hungry and now you want to waste energy fighting?” Reith said, clearly dumbfounded by Corvins logic.

“You know what?” Corvin rolled up his sleeves, fists tightening. He raised one hand, ready to strike.

Sai grabbed Corvin’s arm before the punch could land.

Eira wrapped her arms around Corvin’s waist, trying to hold him back, while Mira stood and pushed a hand against Corvin’s chest, gently shoving him and simultaneously nudging Reith back.

“Okay, that’s enough. Come on, guys,” Mira said firmly.

Corvin pushed Mira’s hand away. “Fine,” he muttered as the others let go of him.

As the hours ticked down toward five o’clock, everyone tried to find different ways to pass the time.

Mira and Eira played everything from rock-paper-scissors to inventing new handshakes, laughter occasionally breaking through the tense atmosphere as they constantly failed their hand shakes. Even though they laughed, it was clear they were only distracting themselves from the reality of their situation.

Sai and Corvin took turns trying to climb on each other to create a sort of tower, attempting to reach the clock but failing repeatedly both seemingly getting annoyed at their situation

Reith silently watched their efforts as they fell down while doing push-ups, his eyes never leaving the ticking clock.