Who's there?

Karl found himself in a dimly lit room—cold, silent, and unsettling. The walls were bare, with only the flickering light above his head. It felt more like an interrogation room, the kind where police aggressively question a suspect.

"Now," the voice of the Sacred Prince came from nowhere, sharp and authoritative, "you will be partnering with someone who has passed the first two tests, and the two of you will be pretending to be criminals."

Karl's chest tightened. Pretending to be a criminal?

"You and the other participant have two choices," the Prince continued. "First: confess your crimes—admit that you both killed someone. Second: remain silent."

"If you confess, and the other remains silent, you pass, and they fail. If you remain silent, and the other confesses, you fail, and they pass. If you both confess, you both fail. But if you both remain silent..."

The Sacred Prince's voice turned cold.

"I will torment both of you until someone confesses. The rules are absolute."

Karl clenched his fists. Was this a test of trust... or a game of betrayal?

A moment later, Karl was led into a room, empty except for a mirror hanging on the wall, as if something were hidden behind it. Karl realized he had no way of knowing who his "partner" was, or even if they were listening to him.

"Listen," Karl said quietly and urgently, his gaze fixed on the mirror, "Before I came here, I heard the Prince say something. He mentioned a third person... someone who's framing both of us. If we accuse each other, that person will go free. But if we remain silent, they'll start suspecting this third person."

He paused for a moment, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He had no idea if his "partner" would trust him.

There must be an error in this.

"Glitch, you have any ideas? Glitch? You there? C'mon." Karl went through his thoughts. "With no help, I need to figure this out. There's a small chance that the stranger is intelligent enough not to admit it, so if that happens, we get to escape. But what happens during torture? First of all, I am stuck in a 'Prisoner's Dilemma in the Rain.'"

Karl's mind raced, each thought seeming to crash into the next, but nothing made sense. The pressure of the situation and the eerie silence were closing in on him.

"Glitch, do you have any ideas?" he muttered, more to himself than to any tangible entity. His thoughts were fragmented, drifting between paranoia and logic. He had no way of knowing whether his partner was listening, let alone if they'd trust him. The Prince's rules were so clear, and yet they were laced with a complexity that only added to the weight on Karl's shoulders.

"Come on, Glitch," Karl whispered again, his voice tightening with frustration. "I need something. Anything."

He turned to look at the mirror, his own reflection staring back at him—a stranger, almost. In that moment, he felt like he was standing on the edge of something terrible, and the only way out was to play a game of trust or betrayal.

The "Prisoner's Dilemma in the Rain" played on repeat in his mind. In this dark, distorted version of reality, there was no right answer—only a choice between two equally damaging outcomes. The rain, though absent from the room, hung in the air as a metaphor for the suffocating pressure—an oppressive weight that threatened to drown him.

If I confess, will they believe me? Karl thought. Will my partner even understand what I'm trying to say?

But what if he stayed silent? Would that be enough to convince the stranger of the third person's presence, or would the silence itself be their undoing?

Karl's grip on his thoughts started to slip, each option stretching out into an infinite array of possibilities. The idea of the third person framing them—someone who was pulling the strings behind the scenes—was just a theory. He couldn't trust it without evidence. But if he played the wrong hand... if he made the wrong choice, it could cost him more than just this test.

A cold sweat began to form at the back of his neck. What if this whole thing was a setup? A manipulation meant to break him down, push him into the very trap he was trying to avoid?

The room felt tighter, the air heavier.

He clenched his fists again, the anger and frustration rising in him like a storm.

"I can't keep going in circles like this," Karl muttered, his breath quickening as he tried to force his mind into clarity. "I need to decide... but the stakes are too high. If I fail, there's no coming back."

Suddenly, something inside him clicked. A thought, fragile but piercing—What if the Prince is testing not just our choices, but how we handle uncertainty?

Karl realized that this wasn't just a game of trust or betrayal. It was a test of his own resolve, his ability to act without complete knowledge, to make a decision when the odds were stacked against him.

"Alright," he whispered to the mirror, hoping his partner could hear. "Let's gamble. No confession. We hold on to the possibility... and maybe, just maybe, that third person will show themselves. If we hold out long enough, maybe we'll outlast this."

The rain in his mind began to quiet, and for the first time since the test began, Karl felt like he could breathe again.

"I admit it!" Karl said.

If he couldn't be the savior, he needed to survive, taking the risk of getting kicked.

"Here, at the end of the world, we can only provide benefits for ourselves. We can't trust anyone, especially a stranger. I am not the hero!"

The Divine Prince clapped his hands.

"Well done, Karl. You made the right decision. Because the other guy chose to trust you, and you betrayed him. You won the gamble."

Something ain't right about Karl's emotions, though. He had always been a nice guy in school.