Chapter Two
Kazan was 24 years old, he woke himself in the middle of the cube without any recollection of where he was. The last thing he remembered was being in his room along with his mom but after that everything became fuzzy. He started to panic and started to stim by rocking his head over and over. He walked horizontally over six rooms without getting hurt or murdered, much as he knew what he was doing.
Kazan knew the orange rooms weren't safe and they had traps in an odd number, the red rooms weren't safe and they would activate a trap no matter what, the blue and white rooms were the safest options with the blue rooms being the only ones with no traps and sometimes they had food and survival.
He was panicking even more because he couldn't find a way to communicate with anyone and was making loud noises. He stopped for a moment and breathed heavily. He realized he sat down and decided to wait. Waiting could be against him because he wasn't sure if any of the technicians would execute a full reset and execute every single person that could inside the Cube.
There were some voices he heard coming from a few rooms on his east side, he tried to scream but he only got some mumbles that weren't human, he wasn't sure what was happening as his kinesis and finesse were quite uncoordinated. Something happened to Kazan before he was placed in the Cube but he couldn't remember what it was.
The Cube for being such a complex structure it lacked the density to keep sound isolated, you can hear the mechanical aspect every other hour and you could hear voices coming from different directions really easily. As soon as he opened the hatchet he found another person named Alderson who was a sixty years old man, bald and wearing similar clothes as him with their names imprinted on the left side of their uniform shirts. "I see your name is Kazan, nice to meet you" Said the old man "My name is Alderson". Kazan tried to speak but he couldn't say anything coherent. "Is OK my friend, we can walk together and find an exit of this strange contraption we are in" Replied Alderson with a big smile.
The two went walking together, Kazan knew the possible combinations on how to escape as he was part of the group who handled the cube and was a senior technician but suddenly he got punished from a deed he didn't remember doing.
The Cube was an impossible structure inspired by Giovanni Pirannesi concepts in the 17th Century of impossible prisons, but the Cube became a reality and it became a gargantuan form of execution for political dissidents of the United States government in the 21st Century.
Alderson was feeling at peace while walking with Kazan, they soon reached a blue room after passing a few traps that the two of them avoided and deactivated thanks to Kazan knowledge. For Alderson, Kazan was some sort of a savant that was unlucky enough to end up in the Cube, someone who didn't deserve to be there but was placed because he was unwanted by society.
The two of them sat down for a few and ate the oats and drank the milk that was placed in a bottle next to the bowls of oats. Out of nowhere the hatch from the roof of the room opened and a young girl, roughly 15 years old popped her head and said hello to them.
"Guys! There are more of us" she screamed back at a group of people who were with her on the upper cube. Everyone helped them to go to the same room they were in before the Cube switched positions.
The young girl introduced herself as Leaven, who was a student of mathematics in the public university, followed by Holloway, Rennes, Quentin and Worth. Alderson was glad to see a group of people inside the contraption because he knew at least they weren't alone any longer.
"We are Alderson and Kazan. Kazan is mostly non-verbal and myself I am a former teacher" Everyone else seemed somewhat relieved to see more people as it improved their possibilities of escaping the maze.
"Shall we introduce ourselves?" Said Holloway, a woman in her mid 40's who worked as a doctor in the penitentiary system, specializing in obstetrics. She seemed frail but was quite outspoken against the government regime which was probably the reason she ended up in the Cube, albeit it was rare for a clinician to be a dissident of the regime. Worth used to work in his own private architectonic firm but he was quiet almost as if he was mute.
Quentin was a cop, he had a brute physique and was relatively tall, Leaven was short and had curly brown hair. Rennes was a convicted criminal who had a fame of escaping the most impossible security prisons. Alderson the last one to introduce himself in a proper manner and explained that he was a dissident and refused to follow protocols the regime wanted to exterminate queer and trans youth from the schools and the public life.
It was a large group who seemed to be united by their hate towards the regime or at least their betrayal of the system, the only one missing was Kazan who none of them came from but he was just there and saw him as an undesirable by society as many people with mental illness experienced.