Kevin pushed his hands against the floor to get up.
Well, he tried, but the floor turned out to be less supportive than he had expected, which resulted in his face being slammed straight into the floor.
The floor cracked and compressed beneath Kevin's hands, forming two arm-length holes and a human-shaped indentation carved into its surface. It took him a few seconds to process what had just happened.
The floor, supposedly made from a strong adhesive material, had buckled under his touch as if it were mere clay.
To confirm it wasn't a mistake, Kevin moved his hands again. He attempted to roll despite his arms being buried and his face pressed into the floor, but the result was the same.
The concrete material beneath him shifted like loose sand, resisting structure yet yielding effortlessly against his movements.
Once again, he found himself in the same position as when he had awakened, lying on the unstable floor, naked.
For a moment, suspicion crept into his mind. Was this some kind of trap, meticulously designed to capture individuals like him? But as his gaze roamed the sterile white experiment room, the answer became clear.
The environment was in chaos. Scattered, broken pieces of metal lay strewn across the floor, twisted into shapes that resembled half-eaten limbs. Devices, some shattered beyond recognition, looked like abandoned remnants of failed trials.
Most telling of all was the fractured black glass panel on the far end of the room. A tiny shard had broken off its upper right corner, the damage seemingly fresh.
If this were a trap, it wasn't well maintained. No calculated effort had been made to ensure precision or containment. This wasn't a setup designed to control him; it was a failed experiment.
The realization settled in. Whatever had happened here, it wasn't about capturing him. It was something deeper. Something that had gone terribly wrong.
Under normal circumstances, such a minuscule opening in the glass would have been nearly impossible to notice. But Kevin was far from normal now.
Kevin can see several supercomputer-like systems arranged in a systematic way through the straight-line view from the hole.
He rolled from one spot to another to get a better view from all angles possible.
After several tries, Kevin reached a conclusion.
"This glass is a one-sided view glass," Kevin thought.
Kevin's thoughts began to flare, and even though he could feel some pain all over his body for some unknown reason, he ignored it.
From this single property of the glass and several computer systems behind this glass, Kevin formed several possible assumptions inside his mind, but only one with the highest chances of being closer to the truth remained at the end:
that this white room is an experiment room, while the place behind this black glass should be the command room from where they control and observe their experiment.
Well, isn't this how crazy scientists do their experiments on people inside novels and movies?
"My assumption should be at least 80% correct," Kevin analyzed.
"Let's see what's behind this black glass."
He thought before he moved.
Kevin started rolling on the floor toward the black glass in hope of trying to break away from this imprisonment when he reached beside the black glass.
He tried to keep rolling through the glass by destroying it just like the destroyed floor, but unlike the floor, the glass withstood his body slam.
Kevin's expression brightened.
"Finally, something useful."
Kevin thought with a pleased expression, looking at the black glass, which is strong enough to handle his physical strength.
After all, if there is a glass capable of withstanding his strength, then there should be many more objects and materials in the world with even more durability, right?
He rolled a little away from the black glass and then punched at it while still lying.
The black glass trembled under the force of Kevin's punch but still managed to remain without any additional cracks and unbroken. He attacked several times, but his efforts remained futile.
He even tried to break the glass by kicking the black glass, something that resulted in his body being thrust a few more inches inside the floor.
He again rolled just beside the glass with a new purpose in mind.
Kevin tried to stand himself by taking the support from the black glass, but due to the continuous compression of the floor under his feet, Kevin's every try kept ending with failure, but he did not lose hope.
He kept trying, but only after four tries, he suddenly stopped.
"My physical strength is too much for the floor," he thought.
"Just which bastard said that 'we can do anything as long as we have enough strength'?"
Kevin murmured in an irritated tone, remembering a few lines from a novel he had once read.
Kevin knew that he was being unreasonable, but so what? After all, despite his continuous suffering and getting his consciousness repeatedly bounced between sleep and an awake state like a broken street bulb for the last few days due to his weakness, he has again ended up in this annoying situation where the main problem is not his weakness but his newly possessed excess strength.
"Focus"
Kevin shook his head to stop his mind from diverting.
"I have to control the amount of strength being exerted."
Kevin's current condition is similar to an elephant walking on the snow with the help of bamboo sticks; his every step contains so much force that it compresses the solid floor like a snowfield being pierced by a spear.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Several calculations and memories of training with his father began to move at an inhumane speed inside his mind.
Kevin has always been much more adaptable and sharp-minded than almost every person he has met, something he has known since he began interacting and comparing himself with others, but he can not understand why his mind is moving at such high speed, as if a stopper has been removed from his mind, letting the flow of his creative thought be smooth and precise.
In just a few seconds, Kevin's mind processed several calculations, made dozens of assumptions on the foundation of his understanding of the situation, and then rejected most of them by verifying them according to his knowledge and experience.
A feat that would have taken him at least 3 hours to complete, normally.
Kevin looked at the black glass in front of him once again while still lying on the floor.
Sigh
"It's useless,"
he thought while shaking his head with a sigh after reaching that conclusion inside his mind.
He understood that the key to survival lay not just in brute strength but in physics. Every movement had to be deliberate. Pressure was distributed over an area; the greater the area, the lesser the force exerted per unit.
Kevin did not waste his time anymore and moved with a definite goal in mind. He rolled on the floor once again to lie on his stomach, and then, slowly, he experimented.
He first extended his arms wide, spreading his weight further, then lifted his torso just slightly, testing the response of the floor.
It sank, but not catastrophically. He adjusted, shifting his weight evenly between his limbs. He recalled the principle of buoyancy—how displacement affected stability. This wasn't water, but the concept applied.
The more evenly he spread out, the less the floor compressed under any single point.
He moved with calculated precision, adjusting his body like a swimmer maintaining balance on the surface.
First, he shifted onto his knees, careful to distribute pressure equally, and then paused. He knows. The more abrupt the motion, the greater the force acting on the unstable ground. He had to move slowly, letting the floor adjust to his presence.
Gradually, he transitioned into a crouch, keeping his feet flat and his center of gravity low. Every muscle in his body remained engaged, anticipating the moment the floor might betray him.
His trials had shown him the nature of his environment, but confidence came only with progress. He knew that standing fully meant shifting from distributed weight to a single force pressing down, but what if he could minimize the impact?
He inhaled deeply and made his final move, rising with careful precision, pushing up while simultaneously shifting his weight horizontally to lessen the vertical force.
The floor groaned beneath him but did not collapse. He had done it. His understanding of physics and fast learning speed had saved him, and now he stood before the weakened glass, ready to strike.
He carefully took a punching stance, ready to break away from this imprisoning boundary of glass. His hand moved straight toward the glass at an astonishing speed.
Before the punch could even connect with the glass, his newly advanced senses started screaming at him, flaring alarm at the upcoming danger.
Kevin's hand unconsciously moved toward another path, positioned in front of his head, guided by his senses.
BAM
SQUISH
Something passed through the black glass, shattering it like an ordinary glass.
It did not stop but moved straight toward Kevin's head, but his hand suffered under the direct impact of this attack.
Before Kevin could understand anything, his whole hand got blown away like a watermelon being shot by a shotgun.