The darkness seemed to last forever. Casper was falling slowly into what seemed to be just a vacuum of shadows and black paint. He couldn't breathe at all, nor see his own limbs, feel, smell, taste…
In reality, he had a single dominating and strange feeling. It was like each part of his body was being destroyed and rebuilt several times, and very fast. Something similar to get together all the little fragments of a broken glass, just to break it again, then do the same thing over and over.
Each time that he visited that room, the moments into the darkness seemed to last for longer than the previous one. He didn't know why, but it probably had something to do with the machine trying to dig deeper and deeper into his memories, his personality, and his fears, to reproduce the simulation at its peak, verging on perfection.
Before he could notice what was happening, the soldier was looking to the ground, crouched, and holding firmly a pistol in his hand.