A month had passed in the dark, stuffy atmosphere known ominously as the Eternal Night Mine. That’s how long it had been since Marie, Jessica, Sophie, and Judd had boarded the train bound for what was to be their workplace.

  During that train ride, Judd hadn’t bothered asking how long he’d be there. He might have had ninety-nine questions in his mind (honestly, probably more), but he knew there was no point in trying to have them answered. That would only invite further punishment - the sense of liberation that had come from believing things couldn’t get any worse was subsiding.

  Instead he’d spent those three days curled up against the seat, slowly getting weaker and weaker from the lack of food. They were offered water every so often, a welcome reprieve from how parched his throat had become. Especially given how much hotter the tunnel was getting with every passing hour. It wasn’t like Earth, whose temperature rose the closer one was to its center.

  With every degree the temperature climbed, Judd’s heart had grown heavier. He was being whisked away down the drain, and those remaining at Jet Force Isekai would never think of him again unless they were banished themselves.

  Really, it’s more like when they’re banished. Sophie did, after all, say that everyone is bound to fail eventually; you can’t prepare for every challenge your afterlife throws at you.

  The waiting was difficult, but it was not the hardest part; that “honor” went to the work. As soon as the Miner’s Train pulled into the Eternal Night Mine’s station following its three-day journey, the banished contestants had been fitted with harnesses, helmets, and shovels. The first two items excited Judd at first, because it brought to mind those high ropes courses he’d taken part in during the church camps he’d attended as a kid.

  Unlike that sort of activity, however, mining was a job. Moreover, it was one of the most physically demanding jobs one could take on, and by the end of the first hour Judd’s back, shoulders, and arms were crying out for mercy.

  He dug into his plot of dirt. He dug some more. Every so often, he found a gemstone, which their Emboar supervisor by the name of Master McGann would want to examine in order to appraise its value. Judd never learned what the gemstones were for, and quite frankly, he could hardly bring himself to care. Instead he kept working until such time as he broke through the floor and fell to the belay point. He’d then be lowered safely to the ground and forced to navigate the maze of tunnels back to the work site. And this pattern endured until his next break for a meal.

  The scheduled demands on the miners were great. They had a six-hour digging session prior to breakfast, then six hours before lunch, and finally six hours before dinner. Each meal was only ten minutes long, and didn’t count toward their work hours. In other words, each miner had to work eighteen hours a day, with only five and a half hours to sleep. That is, if you could sleep on their bedrolls that made the Cabin Gemini cots look like king-sized beds at a five-star hotel.

  Of course, for someone as exhausted as Judd swiftly became, sleep wasn’t too difficult to attain. He rarely remembered his dreams here, but whenever he would wake, he still felt like his sleep had been deficient somehow. As though it hadn’t healed his tiredness as much as it should have.

  With every night that passed (not that the words “night” and “day” had much meaning in this environment), sleep seemed to lose its effectiveness over time. Every day Judd’s grip on his trowel was a little weaker, and the blisters he’d sustained took longer and longer to heal. And still, there was no end in sight.

  It was during their periodic ten-minute breaks that Judd got the chance to speak to the others. The rest of the time, he was unable to communicate with his fellow miners, because the plots of dirt were just too far away. Judd couldn’t even tell how many workers there were, so vast and pitch-black was the cavern.

  But the breaks offered the opportunity, and given how meager and tasteless their food was, Judd seized this opportunity by the reins. As the days blended together into one long stretch of time, these conversations allowed Judd to remain grounded. They were the only thing that gave him any idea how many days he’d spent here.

  “Judd,” Marie told him one day, possibly a week after their arrival, “I’d like you to meet Clancy.”

  The young man standing next to Marie, evidently Clancy, had probably once been handsome, if in an awkward, rugged way. As it was, his face was covered in dust and soot, and it seemed incredibly pale. He’d grown a wide beard, and judging by the way he kept scratching it, he probably wasn’t happy about it. (Come to think of it, in the absence of a mirror, Judd could only imagine how he looked himself).

  “It’s nice to meet you, Clancy,” Judd offered, making the first move to shake hands.

  Clancy fidgeted a bit, but then held Judd’s hand in his own. “Y-you t-t-too, J-Judd”.

  Something about Clancy’s behavior made Judd wonder about him. The most notable part of it was the stutter - Judd surmised that Marie’s once-fiancé got nervous whenever he met someone new.

  “You don’t have to be nervous, Clancy,” Judd told the other man.

  “W-why d-do you say that?”

  “Because the way I see it, the worst thing that could happen to us has already happened. What do you have to lose by being more open with us?”

  Clancy sighed. “I w-was already open. When I f-first got to the r-ruins, I thought being among Pokémon was the c-coolest t-t-thing in the world. I figured that if there w-w-were a heaven, that’s what I w-wanted it to be.”

  “Well, you got one of your wishes” Judd pointed out. “There are Pokémon in this afterlife.”

  “Yes,” Clancy admitted, flapping his left arm. “But clearly my a-afterlife h-h-hasn’t gone quite how I w-wanted. Even w-with my h-h-hyperfixation, I only lasted a few weeks down there.”

  Judd considered saying something like be careful what you wish for, but he elected against it. There didn’t seem to be a way to get that message across without blaming the victim. Because Clancy was a victim, even if Judd was as well.

  “So how do you feel being with Marie now?” Judd asked the other young man.

  Clancy looked as though he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. He made only fleeting eye contact with Judd as he replied.

  “I’m h-happy we’re r-reunited. There’s just one p-problem.”

  “What is that problem? Besides the obvious one?”

  Clancy gave a sad laugh. “It is the obvious one, Judd. I get to s-spend the rest of my a-afterlife with M-Marie - that’s nice. But it has to happen in the w-worst w-way p-p-possible, both t-toiling away in the m-m-mines!”

  Judd didn’t respond for more than a minute - the pair instead focused on their pitiful lunches of crackers and beef jerky. Finally, Judd spoke up.

  “I can’t imagine what that must be like. You finally get to be with Marie again, and you have to spend your time in the mines. That’s not a very romantic honeymoon, is it?”

  “We c-could have gone on our h-h-honeymoon to a city with a Pokémon Center” Clancy told Judd morosely. “Instead, we’re here!”

  “Master McGann really had to ruin things, didn’t he?”

  Clancy narrowed his eyes, then spoke in a careful whisper. “S-softly! I d-d-don’t want that Emboar to h-hear us!”

  “Fair enough. But our break will probably be over soon anyway. We’re only given ten minutes.”

  The other man snorted. “D-d-don’t remind me”.

  After that conversation was over, they were swiftly hustled back to work. While Judd would not memorize everything that had been said, he at least used that conversation as a landmark in his new life. Between these landmarks, Judd knew time would crawl until he finally got a reprieve.

  Judd didn’t see Clancy again for the next week. Neither did he have any chances to talk to Sophie, Marie, or Jessica. Those short breaks were far too valuable, as was the limited time they were given for sleep. Rest had been sacrificed on the altar of one thing only - work.

  Unlike his faith, which Judd never questioned for fear of offending the Heavenly Father, there were plenty of things within the mines that raised some red flags. He’d expected that once he were banished he wouldn’t need to worry so much - he’d been wrong.

  For one, why were these gemstones so important? Yes, they were beautiful, and that meant they could be sold at high prices. But was there anywhere down here to sell those gemstones, and if so, where would you even spend that money?

  One day, roughly a week after meeting Clancy, Judd came face-to-face with a familiar figure. His dark brown hair was now significantly longer and dirtier, and his face was gaunt from what this laborious life had brought him, but he would have recognized him anywhere.

  “Mizar!” Judd exclaimed.

  For a brief moment, Judd worried Mizar wouldn’t answer. But eventually, the former climber sighed and smiled. “Yes, it’s me,” he said.

  “I thought I wouldn’t see you again!” Judd exclaimed. He knew he only had seven or eight minutes to talk to his old friend, and he wanted to make the most of any second. Best to cut to the chase as quickly as possible.

  “Eh, I figured that if they could banish me, they might banish you eventually too” Mizar sighed. Words like these would normally have been delivered with an arrogant demeanor, but that wasn’t Mizar’s style. Besides, Judd realized that his friend might have been too weak to show any more emotion.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “What do you mean?” Judd asked, afraid of the answer.

  “I haven’t spoken to you in weeks, but I’ll tell you one thing I know for a fact - they rigged my mission”.

  “Your last one?” Judd replied, to which Mizar nodded.

  “I fulfilled all the objectives set before me. Yes, I wasn’t perfect - I rarely am. But I had to have gotten at least pretty damn close to a hundred”.

  Judd wondered then if Mizar had reached the conclusion that Sophie had come to. Maybe he possessed an inkling about Toriel’s secret, or maybe he didn’t. But if not, Mizar had gone to his proverbial grave (in terms of his time on the show) without knowing he was, in fact, on a show.

  “Why do you think they’d rig it against you?” Judd remarked, before realizing that this was a stupid question. After living two weeks of his life in the mines, he’d practically forgotten about how he’d ended up banished in the first place.

  “My best guess?” Mizar replied. “Honestly, I have no idea. But maybe it was punishment for what you said to Lucas about him being a loser and sucker.”

  A few weeks ago, if you’d asked Judd if he regretted that outburst at the Lucario, he would have given a resounding no. After hearing Mizar’s story, however, a metal fist seemed to squeeze Judd’s heart, and he felt sick to his stomach.

  If I could have kept myself from lashing out at Lucas…that might have saved Mizar from this fate. It’s the fate that came for all of us, I suppose.

  Judd didn’t have the guts to talk back, to suggest that Mizar was unfairly accusing him of something. If the other man had yelled, Judd would have felt better, because then he’d at least have felt justified in defending himself.

  “Look, Judd,” Mizar continued. “The last few weeks here - has it been a month?”

  Judd tried to remember how many days had indeed passed. This was easier said than done, but eventually he recalled the date of his banishment relative to that of his friend.

  “I was banished three weeks after you” Judd stated. “And I feel like I’ve been here for…two weeks?”

  “Then I’ll have been here for five weeks,” Mizar grunted sarcastically. “That’s nice to know.”

  Judd’s muscles felt positively jelly-like by now. With every passing day, they seemed to take more and more time to recover from each backbreaking shift atop his dirt pile. And while he was no expert on bodybuilding, Judd felt pretty sure that workouts were meant to build muscle; the soreness meant that you were making progress toward an Olympic gold medal.

  In other words, two weeks here had been brutal enough. He shuddered to think of what would happen if you added three weeks to that number.

  “Let me tell you something, Judd” Mizar continued softly as though reading his friend’s mind, “it doesn’t get easier down here. Not with time. I feel weaker than I did last week.”

  Judd didn’t bother making a joke about the homophone. Instead he just sighed. “You’re telling me” he whispered, taking off his helmet to wipe some sweat off his scalp.

  “In fact, I would say that working in this Eternal Night Mine is like climbing a mountain. Only we’re now above eighteen thousand feet, which is roughly five thousand, five hundred meters. Do you know what’s so important about that elevation?”

  “I wasn’t much of a mountaineer,” Judd admitted. “So no.”

  “That’s the elevation at which it’s impossible to permanently acclimate” Mizar explained. “No matter how much you train at sea level, or even at a higher altitude like Colorado, you can’t get used to it. I couldn’t have prepared for this.”

  Judd wiped more sweat off his brow. He then sniffed his armpit, only to realize that it didn’t seem to smell as bad as it had the first few days. Perhaps that was because they all smelled so awful at this point that they were immune to one another’s BO. A long shower sounded heavenly, even if it only had cold water like the cabins at Jet Force Isekai.

  “You should’ve seen us when we got back from Aconcagua” Mizar remarked with a snort. “We practically had to bathe in deodorant - we didn’t shower during the whole expedition!”

  “I assume there are no showers here?” Judd asked in vain.

  Mizar shook his head. “If there are, I haven't found any. So there might as well not be.”

  “On a more serious note, Mizar, you said you couldn’t have prepared for this.”

  “Well, of course not. This is harder than climbing Everest, and trying to climb Everest literally killed me! But we only have a few minutes left, Judd - haven’t you eaten?”

  Judd nodded. “I ate everything they gave me.”

  Mizar raised an eyebrow. “I kind of doubt that, but whatever. You’re an adult; you can take care of yourself.”

  They were silent for many seconds after that. Then, Mizar spoke up again.

  “Judd. I know you probably feel guilty for getting me sent here. But I shouldn’t have phrased it like I did - I’m sure you didn’t mean to earn any punishment”.

  “I didn’t care at the time” Judd replied morosely. Even if I really should have. I’m supposed to protect others with the power of Jesus, not the other way around.

  “Well, it’s water under the bridge now,” Mizar told Judd. “I just refuse to believe that I only scored a 45. If it wasn’t because they were punishing you, then there must have been a mistake.”

  “I’m pretty sure they don’t make mistakes, Mizar. I’d give it a three percent chance at best. They’ve got a pretty tight production going there, and…”.

  Unfortunately for the man otherwise known as Michael Rainsford, he never found out what Judd was talking about, because Master McGann then rang a bell to announce that lunch break was over and everyone had to return to work.

  I’m pretty sure they don’t make mistakes.

  That’s what Judd had literally just told Mizar. Either they were making a genuine mistake, or the “mistake” had been intentional. There were no other options - it was totally binary. And if the production team at Jet Force Isekai truly only had a 3 percent chance of making a mistake, there was a 97 percent chance that they’d meant to punish Mizar for something.

  But why him?

  Judd would struggle with that question over the next few days, even though he didn’t see Mizar again during that time. If the “powers that be” were trying to make Judd pay, then why not just banish Judd instead?

  Regardless, following his talk with Mizar, Judd found that his friend had been right about one thing. The Eternal Night Mine did become more tiring with every shift that passed, and each sleep felt less useful than the previous one. How long until Judd lost the strength to go on? And what then?

  Draining. That was the right word, because it seemed to him as though some unseen force were sapping his energy. In a way, it felt deliberate, but who was Judd to make such a wild assumption?

  Another week passed, and then another. It got harder and harder to get out of “bed” each “morning”, and the only thing that kept Judd doing so was the knowledge that he simply needed to. It didn’t matter how exhausted he may have been, or how fervently he wished he could have kept sleeping. If he didn’t go to work each day, Master McGann would come down on him like the wall of a castle.

  Occasionally, during their meal breaks, the Emboar would walk around and “entertain” the banished contestants with anecdotes about past workers. At some point, you had to wonder if this was meant as part of their punishment, or if it was intended to keep them in line by warning about what would happen if they stepped out of it.

  Regardless, as Judd’s strength waned, he found it more and more difficult to pay attention to these tales. All that mattered was the next shovelful of dirt, and the next, and then the next…

  The next oddity Judd noticed was just how many people were arriving on the Miner’s Train these days. While the days may have blended together into one giant blob of time, the young man still felt fairly certain that company was arriving more often than it had in the past. Indeed, each day seemed to bring with it a handful of people set to work in the dirt.

  That’s none of my business, Judd told himself as he dug up another gemstone, this one a purple amethyst. I can’t care about anyone but myself anymore. I can’t sacrifice my life, not when I don’t have a life to give anyway.

  It had been quite a few weeks since the personality test, so much time that it felt hazy in his mind. However, Judd could remember that he’d given his Vulpix “life” to protect that little girl from the Growlithe. He would have been burned to a crisp if that simulation had not, in fact, been a simulation.

  He’d been so quick to play “missionary” that time. So why was he so hesitant to take one for the team now by striking?

  Because I’m too weak.

  As Judd placed the amethyst crystal in a basket, prepared to ring the bell so that the Emboar would notice and appraise the gemstone’s value, he realized something.

  The mere act of putting the crystal in its basket seemed akin to carrying a dumbbell. The crystal didn’t feel heavy itself, but it was as though it were leeching Judd’s strength from his exposed, blistered hand.

  There’s no such thing as magic crystals, Judd. That’s some New Age bullshit - it’s insane to think you can use magic. The crystal is not stealing your energy, that’s ridiculous.

  Nonetheless, Judd persisted, simply because he had no other choice. It was quite remarkable, really, just how much you could grow accustomed to when you had no other choice. You had to draw as much strength as possible from within yourself in order to “keep on keeping on”, as they said.

  It was times like this that Judd fell back on his old habit of praying to his Heavenly Father. It did not matter that he had no privacy here, or that God hadn’t answered his prayers thus far. If it gave him comfort during these difficult circumstances, what was so wrong with an appeal to heaven?

  So Judd clasped his hands together and said some silent prayers. My Lord, I am certain You have a plan for me. I may not understand it yet, but I know that one day I will. One day I will be by Your side in the Kingdom of Heaven, and I simply need to get there first. Please show me the way. Amen.

  He prayed during most of his ten-minute breaks once he was done with his meager rations. Every time, the prayer was shorter, and it wasn’t long before Judd stopped asking God to deliver him from these mines. He instead asserted each time that the Lord had a plan and Judd just needed to follow it. God wouldn’t show him the way - Judd had to figure it out himself.

  Occasionally, Sophie would notice that Judd was praying. Each time, Judd weakly braced himself for the forthcoming argument, knowing that his former bunkmate did not approve of his faith. He steeled himself for the inevitable war of words that he’d grown so accustomed to during his five weeks in Cabin Gemini.

  But it never came. Instead Sophie merely sighed before readjusting her hard hat and returning to her food. She ate a lot more slowly than Judd, and it wasn’t hard for the latter to imagine Sophie scoffing at him for his poor manners. Ultimately, though, the outburst did not occur, possibly because Sophie couldn’t work up the energy for it anymore.

  About a month after he’d arrived at the Eternal Night Mine, Judd got onto his bedroll and found that he just couldn’t sleep. Normally during the five-and-a-half-hour rest periods, he was out like a light as soon as his heat hit the pathetic pillow. Not this time.

  Before thinking too long about why he couldn’t sleep, Judd decided he wouldn’t even try. He got to his feet and searched the “sleeping cavern” for a familiar face. It didn’t matter if said familiar face was one of the people he’d been preordained to despise by the game show overlords. Judd merely wanted company, and he was going to get it.

  As it turned out, though, Judd got exactly the conversation partner he would have chosen down here: Mizar.

  “I can’t sleep,” Mizar admitted with a nod and a sad smile.

  Judd sighed. “There’s a lot of that going around, isn’t there?”

  Even though toiling in the mines was the sort of work that would normally be expected to build muscle, Judd noticed that Mizar’s arms were not as thick as they’d been at Jet Force Isekai, nor his shoulders as broad. Even the man’s posture was far from perfect.

  That raises the question of what I must look like. Mizar was in better shape than me during our Earthly lives, but does that even matter down here?

  “It’s like a night in the death zone,” Mizar muttered. “I mean, I didn’t quite reach the death zone on Everest, but you can’t sleep above a certain elevation. At least, you won’t sleep well.”

  “How long have you been suffering from insomnia?” Judd inquired, realizing he probably sounded very much like a doctor here. But he didn’t really care.

  “It’s been…a week? Maybe two? Time is difficult down here.”

  Judd snorted. “You’re telling me.”

  “Look, Judd, I don’t know how much we should be talking at night. Someone’s bound to hear us, and our colleagues won’t appreciate being woken up like that.”

  “But…” Judd protested, though he couldn’t really think of the best way to phrase his protest.

  Mizar shook his head. “I don’t know if I want to hear it. Quite frankly, Judd, it’s probably best if you forget about me.”

  “You’re the only real friend I have down here, Mizar. I don’t know if I can forget about you.”

  “Maybe not,” the other man muttered. “But mark my words, Judd: One day, you will wish you forgot about me sooner.”

  “Trust me,” Judd replied. “I won’t. We can still talk, can’t we?”

  Mizar sighed. “We can hope, Judd. We can hope.”

  At first, Judd didn’t think much of such a response. Mizar was probably just being pessimistic, and a healthy degree of pessimism was always warranted in the mines. To some extent, that was normal.

  But as he lay awake for another several hours before Master McGann sent them back to work, Judd couldn’t shake the belief that Mizar’s words would somehow come true.