The body lay on the far side of the room, yet the blood had spread so far it nearly reached Gabriel's shoes.
Crap.
Did someone kill him? Or did he do this to himself?
Gabriel's eyes scanned the floor, the chairs, the corners of the room.
There's no weapon.
There was no knife. No shard of glass. Nothing he could see that would allow someone to slit their own throat like that.
There's no way he did this to himself.
A cold weight settled in Gabriel's chest.
The attacker could still be here.
"Is anyone here?" Gabriel called out, his voice sounding far too loud in the room.
Silence answered him.
The hum of the lights felt suddenly oppressive, like they were watching him.
This was a mistake.
This is not worth finding out.
His pulse began to quicken.
And I am not getting framed for this.
Why hadn't the Arbiter announced anything? Why hadn't alarms sounded? Why hadn't this place reacted at all?
Gabriel backed away slowly, never turning his eyes from the body. His heel brushed the doorframe and he flinched, then forced himself to keep moving.
Once he reached the corridor, he turned and hurried away, glancing back over his shoulder more than once, half-expecting to see something step out after him.
Nothing followed.
But the feeling didn't leave.
Not for a second.
Gabriel burst out into the hub.
The darkness pressed in from all sides. It wasn't pitch black, but close enough that shapes dissolved into suggestion and distance meant nothing. The vast space felt small without the light.
Then he saw Arthur.
The android stood behind the canteen counter, perfectly still. His eyes shone brightly in the dark—twin beacons cutting through the gloom like a lighthouse in a storm.
A sanctuary.
Gabriel didn't hesitate. He jogged over, boots echoing too loudly against the floor.
"Arthur," he said quickly, lowering his voice, afraid of someone listening from the dark. "There's a body. In the room of that door. Some guy is dead."
Arthur didn't respond immediately.
For the first time since Gabriel had met him, the android's expression… shifted.
Just for a fraction of a second.
His smile faltered. His eyes dimmed, then refocused, as if something inside him was recalibrating.
"Oh," Arthur said at last. "That is… surprising."
He tilted his head slightly. "Very sad to hear."
Gabriel stared at him. "Sad doesn't even cover it. His throat was slit. There was blood everywhere."
Arthur folded his hands together on the counter. "I see. Then it is likely that the contestant took his own life."
Gabriel stiffened.
"What?" he snapped. "No. That doesn't make sense."
Arthur's eyes flicked toward Gabriel. Calm. Unbothered.
"Psychological strain can lead to extreme actions," Arthur replied gently. "This environment is… difficult for some humans."
Gabriel shook his head immediately. "There was no weapon."
Arthur paused.
"No knife. No shard. Nothing sharp anywhere near him," Gabriel continued, words tumbling out faster now. "Are you saying he slit his own throat, then hid the weapon afterwards?"
Arthur's smile returned—but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Humans are capable of many things when distressed," he said. "You yourself noted that some contestants were struggling to accept their circumstances."
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
That guy…
The image hit him unbidden. A man hunched over in the canteen, face buried in his hands. Shaking.
He was here last night, in the canteen with his hands on his head.
"So that's it?" Gabriel said quietly. "Someone dies, and that's your explanation?"
Arthur regarded him for a moment longer than necessary.
"There is currently no evidence of rule violation," he said. "If a contestant ends their own life, the system does not intervene."
A chill crept up Gabriel's spine.
"And the door?" he asked. "Why didn't it disappear?"
Arthur blinked once. Slowly.
"That…" he said, "…is unusual."
There it was again.
That tiny hitch.
Arthur straightened. "I will look into it."
You already should have.
Gabriel swallowed, suddenly very aware of how alone he felt standing there.
"I didn't touch anything," he said. "I didn't go near the body. I just left."
"That was wise," Arthur replied pleasantly.
Too pleasantly.
Gabriel took a step back, eyes never leaving the android.
"Arthur," he said, choosing his words carefully. "Do you ever… look inside the rooms?"
Arthur smiled.
"No," he said. "Privacy is important."
The words echoed unpleasantly in Gabriel's mind.
Then what the hell killed him? It's against the rules to kill another person. Did that guy kill someone else and then was executed? Possible.
"Alright, the Arbiter now knows about the faulty door, and has removed it." Arthur gestured to where the door once was and then continued. "I'm sorry that you had to experience that Gabriel, it won't happen again." Arthur said, with a sorrowful expression.
Gabriel said goodbye to Arthur, passing by another digitial clock.
13:43:23