The Platform

Goreng wakes up on level 48 of The Hole — a vast vertical concrete prison where each level holds two people, and each day a platform descends from level zero loaded with elaborate food. By the time it reaches the middle levels most of it is gone; below level 100 there is nothing. Goreng's first cellmate Trimagasi explains the brutal logic: prisoners are randomly redistributed to a new level each month. Some days you are on level 6; others on level 333. Trimagasi was sent for a minor crime; others chose imprisonment for one year in exchange for a credential. Goreng chose this. When redistribution places them at level 171, Trimagasi nearly eats Goreng before being killed by a woman named Miharu who descends regularly looking for her daughter. Goreng's subsequent cellmate Baharat shares his belief that change is possible. The two ride the platform downward, rationing food to every level as they go — trying to send a message upward that the system can share. They designate one dish — a panna cotta — to return untouched to level zero as proof. At the deepest level they find not Miharu's daughter but a small living girl hidden alone. Goreng sends her up on the platform as the message, and stays behind.