This time he woke up wishing he were dead, with a headache that tortured him almost as much as the white walls of the closet they had put him in. The cells he had come to know in his life were not half as torturous. At least there was something to look at, feel or smell.

This small space was smaller than his space in Alexandria.

Alexandria. If it hadn't been for the Eunuch, he would never have had to think about Alexandria again.

And if it weren't for the horrible white walls, his mind wouldn't find it so easy to project images of that horrible place onto them.

There they were, like transparent murals, the whores. They stared at him, pointing. He could almost hear them talking:

‘Aelus is crying. Someone give him a reason to cry for real...’ The whores then moved aside, making way for that ‘someone’ who always arrived with the real reason.

Ailill covered his face with his fists, pulling his knees up to his chest so tightly that he could feel his own pulse.

‘No! Not the Stick!! NO!!’ he screamed.

Finally, a door appeared—a real one, not invisible—like an eyelid opening in the wall, and a drone entered, with its threatening buzz. The unpleasant creature emitted a message, as if it were human, even though it had no mouth:

‘Welcome, AEONALIZE employee, to the Emotional Stability Department.’

The prince cautiously lowered his fists, verifying that he was far from the brothel. The world Harper had brought him to might be horrible, but anything was better than being in that city, the one that must not be mentioned.

The drone motioned for him to follow, and he obeyed meekly, weakened as he was from having spent so long in the white room. It led him down a long, rounded corridor to a circular room covered with screens and scrolls—bless the gods—where other employees sat in a circle of seats that seemed to be made only of black wire.

Some of the employees seemed to slip off them, so uncomfortable were they; others let their columns melt like wax. Similarly, the ten or fifteen subjects looked utterly miserable, and Ailill was energetically invited to join their group.

He took a seat and waited silently for something to happen. No one spoke, so he didn't either. From time to time, he noticed someone looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't have the strength to demand respect as a king should. He was busy suppressing the voices of the whores and trying not to fall off his seat.

Eventually, a woman appeared who, judging by her clothes, must have belonged to the same era as the eunuch: she had one section of her hair dyed purple and the other pink, both with a strange metallic sheen.

The only garment she wore also seemed to start at her neck and end at the soles of her shoes, with fabric so thin it could have been paint. Parts of her skin were exposed, as if to show that what was underneath the outfit was made of flesh.

‘Welcome, AEONALIZE employees!’ the woman repeated, in a much happier tone than the drone.

‘You are here because your superiors noticed a little sadness in your faces!’

Never in his entire life had Ailill begun to hate a person so quickly. Something about her cheerful tone, when she was surrounded by such miserable beings, made her seem less than human. The woman continued:

‘Some of you...’ Her eyes rested momentarily on Ailill. ‘You have just joined the AEONALIZE team, so you must have many queries! Remember to raise your hand before asking questions. Harold, show your colleagues how to raise your hand. Very good, thank you, Harold! Today we will talk about tolerance!’

What followed was a long speech about the importance of not reacting when insulted, which Ailill considered utter nonsense. It was obvious from the expressions on his colleagues' faces that they agreed, but the speech emphasised how any kind of reaction to an insult was typical of stupid apes.

The speech lasted three hours, which Ailill only knew because the woman herself mentioned it before she finished.

After she left, a rotund man with an egg-shaped head appeared, dressed similarly to his colleague.

He handed them white papyrus and wax crayons of various colours and ordered them to draw the AEONALIZE staff member they disliked the most. The prince was about to draw the woman, but decided he hated Syn the eunuch even more.

The egg-headed man then made them write down all the things they admired about the object of their hatred. Some, who had been at ME for a long time, wrote anything. The newcomers, like Ailill, stared at the drawing for a long time before mentioning something superficial or made up. The only thing he achieved with this exercise was to remember the eunuch's mocking face when he asked him what he had been doing all those years in Egypt.

‘Remember that anger is for idiots and animals, my friends. And here at AEONALIZE, we only hire humans,’ said the egg man with a smirk that made many wonder if there was enough space on the page to draw another character. ‘Life is a game, and whoever gets angry loses.’

The irritating man surprised Ailill by snatching the sheet from his hands and reading aloud. ‘Wow, employee, do you really admire the way your colleague walks with a stick up his rectum? I don't find that very admirable... Tell me, what is his name?’

Ailill moistened his lips and replied with a name well known to the Emotional Stability department.

The egg man rolled his eyes before returning the drawing. ‘He who gets angry loses...’ he muttered before walking away.

After the egg man came a guy who made them hold hands and recite some kind of poem. Then another woman made them stand one by one in the middle of the circle and sing a song from their village.

Ailill was about to refuse to do any of these things, but another guy rebelled before he could, and he was electrocuted so badly that the guards took him back to his cubicle; thus, the humiliation of holding a stranger's hand or singing didn't seem so painful.

Finally, they were offered food: a kind of dark black tea that tasted like sand and cookies so sweet that they only heightened the effect of the tea. At no time were the employees allowed to talk to each other.

The last session of the day consisted of the instructors turning off the lights and pretending to cry and shout insults, like some kind of plotless play. By then, the employees felt so bad that they cried too. The handkerchiefs that someone began to distribute among them certainly helped the suggestion.

When the drone returned him to his cubicle, Ailill felt only emptier. The lights went out again, and he lay on the floor staring at the ceiling all night.