FIFTEENTH - Is this a game to you?

He was watching over the girl who was laying curled up in the grass, wrapped in his jacket that was too big for her, watching her. She was asleep or passed out. Maybe it's better for her that way. She seemed smaller, fragile and completely broken. Her long, dark curls fell around her sleeping face. He wanted to lie down next to her, to hug her and somehow forget where they were and everything he had seen. He couldn't. He could only stand and watch her. Dick's hand was laying friendly on his shoulder. He turned to his friend.

"Let her sleep," said Dick calmly, "she needs to rest after everything she's been through."

Bentley smiled weakly, aware that Dick had no idea what Mariana had been through and what he himself had been through while Dick was dealing with the wicked puzzle. Completely forgetting about Jasmine's remark about the time in the Vortex, he looked at his watch out of habit. He suddenly realized what he saw and it made him exclaim happily.

"Hey, it's three twenty-seven!" Three twenty-seven!"

"Should I now say 'thirty' or something?" asked Dick, confused.

"No, I mean time." When Jasmine said that time stood still here, we all looked at our watches. I remember well that my display was frozen at three hours and twenty-four minutes. And three whole minutes have passed since then. So, time does not stand still. We're not at the bottom, mate! There is still hope."

Dick looked at Bentley as if Bentley was, in all probability, out of his mind. He neither knew who Jasmine was, nor did he understand why time should stand still here, nor did he understand why Bentley accepted for granted that someone told him that time stood still here, instead of blaming the mechanism of his wristwatch. Bentley tried to explain to him, but Dick was still confused.

"And why wouldn't that just mean that your watch is broken? Or its batteries died?"

"First of all," began Bentley patiently, "if its batteries were dead, there wouldn't be any numbers on the display at all, it would simply turn off, no display. The numbers are there and bright, they just don't change or, apparently, they change very slowly. Then, the watches of others stopped at the same time, add or subtract a few minutes. It's a bit too much of a coincidence though."

"But what's the point?"

"Why are you asking me that? Ask Jasmine's friend Sergei. He created this whole theory that by penetrating deeper into this place, which behaves like a kind of vortex, time slows down, until at the bottom, it stops completely. The closer you are to the exit, the faster and closer the time flows to its normal flow!"

"Who the heck is Sergei? And where are Pope and that Jasmine?"

"We left Pope and Jasmine in the van and they should be parked next to Mariana's car. If Marianna came from there, and I'm sure she did, then they shouldn't be far. What surprises me is how Mariana got out of the car and got all the way to Gazebo, without those two noticing and stopping her. How come they didn't go after her? In any case, as soon as Mariana regains consciousness, we will go there to find them."

"Shit, now you are scaring me. I don't like any of that. Why wouldn't Pope go after Mariana, unless... if... and that thing... Why did you call her 'Gazebo'? I would rather call her a disgusting beast, a carnivore? That thing wasn't built by anyone, it looked more like a giant spider crossed with a carnivorous plant."

Bentley stared at Dick, not knowing how to explain to him where he got the idea of "Gazebo", although he was amused by Dick's comment about "built by someone". The thing was miles away from the building, but from afar, in the dark, it did resemble a small garden house that some call gazebo. Even back then he knew something was very wrong with it, and at the very sight of the thing, he felt that all his nervous impulses were warning him of danger, but Mariana seemed to be enchanted by that abomination. He didn't understand why. He didn't understand even now. Why did she want to sacrifice herself as food to that being?

"Who is Sergei?" asked Dick, who realized that he would not find out anything about the "building".

"Nobody knows that for sure. Apparently he is some guy who was with Jasmine, but it seems like it's not really certain if...wait, is that her waking up?'

He knelt next to the sleeping Mariana as if checking to see if she was really waking up or not, although it was obvious that she hadn't moved. In fact, he wasn't sure what to say to Dick about the mysterious man they called Sergei and tried to avoid answering. He suspected that he didn't know more than Dick, but he didn't feel like admitting it openly. Dick was fresh and new here, he missed a lot of what happened to them, and he demanded answers and explanations, and none of them could give him that. Should he have told Dick about Sergei, the mystical man in a shell, whom no one but the two girls had seen? Should he mention the mysterious mutants that attacked and almost killed Jasmine, explain how little he knew about the idea of this place as the Vortex, and finally, should he mention his "transferring" ability that led him to Dick's whereabouts? And how when he didn't believe in all that, and he would rather keep his freakish trait to himself as long as possible?

"I'm not versed in geography, but it seems to me that something about this place doesn't fit with what I know about Srem area," Dick said, seemingly giving up on further questions, "We passed through Srem before, Bentley , Pope, you and me, you know that yourself. We might even have driven through this area. It shouldn't look like this. Lonely, old and unfinished roads and rows of trees around them, bad roads that stretch for kilometers, maybe even some woods, we certainly saw that, especially on Fruška Gora, but this is not Fruška Gora and I have never seen this part of Srem nor does it make sense that there is this forest and even that small cave. It's all meaningless, Bentley."

"I know that. But what should I do about it? Shall I go after those who draw atlases of our homeland and write geography textbooks and warn them that they are wrong?"

"Stop that bullshit! I didn't bring us here, and even if I had, I couldn't have imagined what would await us here. This looks like we didn't just miss the road, we fucking missed the country, the continent, and probably the planet! What I propose is that we immediately, without hesitation, pack into the van, all of us get ready and start from here and just drive away."

"I agree with you, provided we find the others. I don't like the fact that I haven't heard a word from Pope so far," said Bentley, sitting in the grass next to the sleeping Mariana. He rose to his knees and, kneeling as steady as he could, took the girl's relaxed body in his arms. With a little help from Dick, he managed to get up with her in his arms, which was not easy at all. She was heavy. He knew he wouldn't last long if he carried her like a child in his arms. Without much thought, he lifted her up a little more and, not very gentlemanly, but very practically, slung her like a jacket over his shoulder. This was already easier. Dick took her bag just in case. They started walking through the grass.

Bentley guessed that Mariana didn't walk too far from the place where they left the parked van and her car, and he was right. As soon as they hit the road, they saw a red car parked not far from there. There wasn't even a trace of their van! Where and why did Pope drive the van? They finally reached Mariana's car and Bentley finally put her down in the grass by the side of the road, as gently as he could. If she was asleep, all that carrying and tumbling would surely have woken her up. He didn't like that either. She didn't look dead, like when Pope revived her, but she did look pale and sick. She wasn't even asleep, she was unconscious. He anxiously tried to feel her pulse and was relieved when he found it. What he wanted was for something normal to appear, something he could predict, solve, something he could occupy himself with and manage the situation. He had nothing to grab onto here. Everything was pointless.

Dick looked around the car in a futile attempt to figure out where the van could have disappeared. In his own way, he had set his own mind to view the situation through the prism of this place, and although he wasn't fully aware of it, he had actually found the best way to deal with everything that was happening to him. Everything has its own rules and laws, he reasoned, so why shouldn't this place have them too. If there are, he will find them. Bentley hinted to him that Jasmine was attacked by some mutants and that worried him the most, because it meant that a constant threat was hanging over their heads, as if it was not enough that they were lost, that there was no food, no water, no way to survive. He wasn't even aware that his mind, in some kind of self-defense against madness, reacted in its own way. He treated the whole situation as a complex computer game that needs to be understood and played according to the rules, which are there, you just have to find them. And like every game, this one has its pitfalls, its tricks and its hidden rewards. He was deeply aware that something was happening to them that defied common sense and everything they had learned so far, but just so, to save himself from deadly panic, confusion, and even madness, his mind reacted as best as it could, temporarily accepting everything. He sat next to Bentley and Mariana, his legs bent in front of him, resting his forearms on his knees. They sat for a while in silence.

"I've been thinking a bit about what you told me about the Vortex," Dick began awkwardly "if I understood correctly, what we know is that the concept of time changes when traveling down and up the Vortex, so to speak, if we look at climbing with the Vortex as a way out of it. This would mean that we should constantly monitor the passage of time, that is, whether time is passing and at what speed, and look for situations and events that influenced time to begin to pass or to pass faster, which would mean that we are climbing towards top, right?"

"Sure," Bentley grunted, though he didn't understand any of that.

"If three minutes have passed on your watch, it could mean that either we are not, as you say, at the bottom and time still flows only extremely slowly, or that you have temporarily started the flow of time by some action of yours, which would mean that we have to find actions that trigger time flow."

Bentley remembered the feeling of rising, like an elevator going up, that Mariana and he had in the car after they made love. Could it have been that moment?

"That had to take longer than three minutes though." he grumbled, unaware that he'd said it out loud.

"Maybe the two of us could repeat what you did then and see if anything happens."

Bentley stared at him first in astonishment, then burst out laughing.

"There's no way the two of us are going to do THAT!"

"Why not? If you could..." began Dick, but soon he slowly began to realize. He managed to crack a smile.

"Okay," he continued a little later, "what conclusion does that lead us to? What drives time and the way out of this place, what do you call it, the Vortex? Sex?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't say it's that simple. That was just a guess. After all, who says that we are at the bottom? If time passes so slowly that within a few hours, only a few real minutes pass, it can only mean that we are not at the bottom."

"And did that...Sergei say what's at the bottom? How will we know we are there?'

"What's at the bottom? He didn't say anything, at least not to me. Death, I suppose. We'll just die."

"Just." Dick looked shaken "I didn't think about death at all. It always seemed so far away to me. Even now I don't think about dying."

Mariana suddenly turned and was now lying on her back with wide open, large, dark eyes, in which there was a true terror. She leaned on her elbows and shook her head several times as if to deny everything she was seeing around her. With a rather sudden movement, almost like a jerk, she straightened up in a sitting position and was now looking at them pleadingly as if she wanted them to tell her some good news, any kind of good, just something to make her feel better.

"You know what I would like now?" Dick said "Music. Man, I'd kill for some music. Does anyone have a radio, CD player or something? Just to feel a little more normal and relax."

Bentley stared at him, unable to believe what Dick was saying.

"You know what," he said, "instead, I suggest we pack in the car and get out of here." We will bring help for Pope and Jasmine. And Sergei. We will engage all people who agree to search this area. It's impossible that they just disappeared. And maybe they... maybe they've already managed to find some normal, recognizable area and now they're going to send help for us.''

"Yes, I can already hear the helicopters." Marianna said sarcastically "Who knows what level of the Vortex they are at now. Maybe they are below us. Anyway, I think Mickey is right. We should try to get out, and then go back for the others."

Dick absently looked around. Trees, road, darkness, road, trees, nothing more.

"I don't know, but I have a strange impression that this place is like one big puzzle. You have to look carefully at every part, to understand the essence, to know the whole in order to get out. I'm sure this place has its own rules though. You just have to find them. Everything has some rules. Entropy is always present to some degree, but I don't believe in total chaos."

"What are you saying?" Marianna asked him "That we shouldn't try to physically drive ourselves out of this place because that won't get us anywhere but find rules to get us out?"

"That's right," Dick said triumphantly, "even while I was working on the puzzle, I realized that it was just a representation of the essence of this place, so to speak, a guide to how we should look at it."

He briefly explained to the confused girl what kind of puzzle it was, then continued:

"So if we were to solve this puzzle, we would surely find a way out." he finished triumphantly.

"My friend, there's something you don't know," Bentley explained, "you weren't solving the puzzle, it was solving you. I didn't want to tell you, but Dick, with each piece of the puzzle, you looked older and aged faster. When I first saw you with that shiny structure, you had the face of an old man. And you looked as if you had lost your mind.'

Now it was Dick's turn to shut up in confusion. He was convinced that he had found a solution. This was supposed to be a game, a rebus, a crossword that you just have to solve. He was convinced that the solution to the puzzle, which Bentley so clumsily ruined, was a way out, or at least a signpost to the way out, and he didn't get rid of the subconscious conviction that solving that puzzle would improve his life and solve all his problems.

"You're bit serious, Bentley! You say that because you ruined the puzzle and now you're trying to justify yourself."

"I saved your life, asshole! If it wasn't for me, you would have died of old age because of that puzzle. Holy shit, Dick, you're acting like this is some fucking game, like fucking Tomb Raider or something! While you were out there messing around with that puzzle, we saw a lot more than this place, this Vortex. We've been through some really nasty stuff, and you wiped out the first time you saw blood.''

Dick came at him with clenched fists, red in the face.

"Calm down," Mariana said, placing herself between the two of them, as if they were children. She sensed that Bentley was telling the truth about the puzzle and aging as a consequence, and she also felt a subjective need to agree with the guy with whom she was closer, but she didn't want to openly take anyone's side. She felt that would create new problems, and there were too many problems anyway. "It's obvious we're not in a normal place, and it's obvious we have to get out of here, because I don't know how we could survive here. We should try to drive the car a little further, if only to find the others and the van, but we should not forget that we are not doing great with gasoline either. I think you are both right to some extent. We should try to leave, even physically, by car, and it would be good to try to understand why everything here is the way it is. Why does time stand still? What is the role of that Gazebo? How right was Sergei about the theory of this place being the Vortex?"

Dick grabbed his head, massaging his forehead. His head hurt. What's going on here? Was Bentley telling the truth about the sudden aging with the progression of the puzzle? Bentley wouldn't lie about something like that, at least not in this situation, and it wouldn't make sense to invent something like that just because he didn't agree with Dick's reasoning. Still, looking around, Dick could not help but to see hidden keys, traps, parts that need to be found and fit into the appropriate places, places that need to be avoided and hidden ones that need to be found. He could almost see the levels too, like those in games. The lowest level is where you start, then progress all the way to the top where the game ends with victory. Surely there is a way to move to a higher level, you just have to find it, he reasoned. He did not understand why Bentley and Mariana were looking at him so worriedly. He touched his face with fear. Maybe he's starting to age again? Under his fingers, the face was the same. Maybe he was putting something wrong in the puzzle and it was punishing him that way?

Bentley was worried. Although Dick mostly seemed lucid and like his old self, something about his behavior, expression and something about his look was wrong, different. He had noticed something similar in Mariana, after she had revived after she had experienced that attack of something like death, and even more so after she had been dragged out of "Gazebo", but he could not be sure because he barely knew her, and these were only hints. that something about her is not as it used to be. He wondered if he himself had undergone a similar transformation, only unaware of it.