The mental fortitude test

We were each led into a small, dimly lit room, one by one. Inside, we were told the room would make us hallucinate our worst fears. The purpose wasn't just to see how we reacted, but to measure the intensity of the fears themselves.

The good thing about this test was its anonymity, we would all go in in place and exit indifferent place, some could even rest for a while before going for the last test. It was designed considering the fact that some people may suffer severe trauma, and some may even soil themselves.

I stepped into the room, and immediately, the air felt thick and suffocating. The darkness closed in around me, and for a moment, I felt like I was back in that suffocating void—where I had faced the colossal shadow with its burning red eyes.

**Woosh**

Suddenly, I saw it again—the shadow. Its presence was overwhelming, filling the space around me like a living nightmare. It loomed over me, its gaze piercing through the void, demanding an answer. *Why do you carry an authority that was supposed to be lost? * The voice, if you could call it that, wasn't human. It was like a vibration, reverberating deep within my bones, rattling my very soul.

I froze, my chest tightening with a fear so profound it seemed to suffocate me. The air was heavy, thick like a weight pressing down on my shoulders, making it hard to even breathe. My body felt paralyzed, locked in place under the crushing intensity of the shadow's presence. Every instinct told me to run, to escape this overwhelming force, but my legs wouldn't move. Even though the hallucination was not as potent as the real experience, I was still barely keeping my composure.

A bead of sweat rolled down my temple as I fought to stay calm. 'Move', I told myself. 'You have to move.' Slowly, agonizingly, I managed to inch forward. It wasn't much—just a twitch in my fingers, a slight shift of my foot—but it was progress. Yet as soon as I took that small step forward, the pressure increased. It was like an invisible hand pressing down on me, squeezing the very life out of my body. My muscles screamed in protest; my bones felt like they would crack under the strain.

Suddenly, my knees buckled, and I collapsed to the ground. My body shook as I tried to lift myself back up, but the weight of the shadow was unbearable. It felt like the darkness itself had form and substance, pushing me into the ground, mocking my every effort. But I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop. This test wasn't just about endurance—it was about willpower, about proving that I could overcome the impossible. If I didn't pass, I wouldn't make it into the class associated with hunters, and I couldn't let that happen. I needed this.

So, I crawled. My hands scraped across the cold, rough surface beneath me, pulling me forward inch by inch. Each movement felt like dragging a boulder uphill, the shadow's presence growing heavier with every second. My arms trembled, my breath came in ragged gasps, and my vision blurred. It felt like I was drowning in the suffocating darkness. Every second I spent in its grasp seemed to drain me of my strength, my energy, my very will to keep moving.

My mind began to slip. Thoughts became foggy, disconnected, as if the shadow wasn't just pressing down on my body, but invading my mind as well. The void around me seemed to close in tighter, its darkness absolute. It swallowed everything—sound, light, even time itself. I wasn't sure how long I had been crawling. Hours? Days? My arms were starting to give out. My head felt like it was spinning, like I was on the verge of losing consciousness.

Then, just as I felt myself slipping into that abyss—something shifted.

In a moment of desperation, a spark of defiance flared up inside me. My eyes, heavy and half-lidded, suddenly flared with a golden light. For a second, the world around me changed. The oppressive void seemed to peel away, and I could see beyond it—a vast expanse of something greater. My mind cleared, as if the fog had lifted, and I could *breathe* again. The suffocating pressure on my chest lessened, and with each breath, it felt as though a great burden was being lifted off me, slowly but surely.

The shadow still loomed, but its hold on me was weakening. The brief light in my eyes had helped me strengthen my will, flickering like a flame, pushing the darkness back just enough for me to see the way forward. 'Keep going', I thought.

With newfound clarity, I rose to my knees, then to my feet, though my body still trembled from the strain. My legs felt like they were made of lead, but I forced myself to take one step, then another. It was slow, agonizing progress, but I was moving. I focused on that one goal—the exit. It wasn't for now. I could see a faint light in the distance, a promise of release from this nightmare.

Every step was a battle against the pull of the shadow. It tried to drag me back, its presence still pressing against my mind, whispering doubt and fear. But the glow in my eyes, that golden flicker, gave me strength. My chest felt lighter, my breathing more even. The pressure hadn't completely vanished, but it was bearable now. I could walk, though my legs wobbled with each step.

Finally, I reached the end. I stumbled out of the dark, oppressive space and into the dimly lit room where the examiners waited. My legs nearly gave out from exhaustion, but I forced myself to stand upright. I had made it. The shadow was gone.

I could feel the examiners' eyes on me, but I didn't care. I had passed the test, not just by endurance but by will. I had fought through the suffocating fear, through the void, and come out on the other side.

The examiners monitored each student's mental state, assessing their inclinations and willpower. Although they couldn't see the exact hallucinations, they could gauge the intensity based on the data from the hallucinator. If a simple hallucination was produced, the mana readings stayed stagnant, and the vitals only showed slight elevations. But as the student named Darius entered the room, the instructors experienced the shock of their lives. The mana readings were off the charts. Never in the academy's history had the readings been this high. They knew whatever the student was hallucinating wasn't something a normal person experiences.

Based on past candidates, those who exhibited higher mana readings on the machine were often individuals with strong wills and are meant to bring great change to humanity—whether for good or bad. After confirming and recording the data, the test came to an end.

The hallucination faded, and I stumbled out of the room, shaken but still standing. I could tell from the examiners' looks that I had passed.

As I stepped out of the room, still catching my breath, the echoes of the shadow's presence lingered in my mind. My body was free, but the weight of what I had experienced still pressed down on my thoughts. It made me think of the hallucinations the main characters had to endure during this very test. It wasn't uncommon for the academy's trials to force students to confront their deepest fears—their most painful memories.

For Arthur, the burden he carried was unbearable. His hallucinations must have brought him back to the night he lost everything—the night his parents were killed by demons. He wasn't just watching it happen; he was reliving it, over and over again. I could imagine him standing there, helpless, as the chaos unfolded. The walls of his family's estate burning, the shouts and screams of his loved ones echoing in his ears, the sight of the demons ripping through his home. It wasn't just a childhood trauma for him—it was the moment his entire world shattered. The memory would have clawed at his heart, dragging him back into the abyss of grief and guilt he never fully escaped. But Arthur was strong. I knew he would have endured it, as he always did, though the scars of that night would never truly fade.

Melissa, on the other hand, had faced her own horrors. The hallucinations would have brought her back to the time she was kidnapped as a child. I could almost see it—the dark, dingy room where she had been held captive for weeks, maybe even months. She had been so young, so powerless. The fear of never being found, of being forgotten, must have weighed on her. She probably remembered the cold shackles, the hunger gnawing at her insides, the isolation that slowly crept into her mind. Even though she had been saved in the end, the trauma of that experience had never truly left her. Every time she closed her eyes, she must have remembered the suffocating darkness, the silence broken only by the sound of her own terrified breathing.

Elana's trial was equally harrowing, though hers was more personal, more bitter. The hallucinations would have shown her the years of scorn she endured from her own family. She had been belittled, mocked for her failures, and then thrown aside after her engagement with Jayden was broken off following his mother's death. The scandal had tainted her name, casting a dark shadow over her once-promising future. I could imagine the cruel words whispered behind her back, the icy glares from the other noble households, and the disappointment in her family's eyes. She had worked so hard to be strong, to prove her worth, but in the end, she was left standing alone, her heart heavy with unspoken feelings for Jayden and the shame that came from being discarded.

Then there were the other characters—the ones whose hallucinations had been less personal but no less terrifying. Some had been transported in their minds to deserted islands, stranded with no one but themselves. It was amusing to think that isolation could frighten them so deeply. To me, being alone on an uninhabited island didn't seem all that bad. Maybe it was because they had never truly been alone before, always surrounded by the attention of others. Their greatest fear, perhaps, was to be forgotten, abandoned by the world, left to fade into obscurity with no one to remember their name.

But in the end, it was all subjective. Each person's worst fear was unique to them, shaped by the experiences that haunted their past. I couldn't help but wonder—was my fear any less real than theirs?.