I awaken in a room with blue-teal, peeling walls.
Directly above my head and attached to the ceiling are two electrical bulbs. No lampshades, just two bulbs, side by side and jutting out from the plaster.
The bulb on the right is switched off. Dull, and green, and lightless.
The bulb on the left is switched on. Alight in bright red. It hums softly. Besides my breathing, it is the room’s only sound.
I rub my head and groggily sit up in bed.
…If you can even call it a bed. There are no sheets or anything. It’s just a rough, flat mattress.
…What the hell? Where am I, exactly?
Squinting, I turn to look around.
The room is perfectly square. Its four walls are all that same faint, peeling blue-teal, and each of them has a near-identical door built into it. Heavy wood, by the looks of them. And I say ‘near-identical’, as only two of these doors are blank.
The other two have words scrawled across them in white paint. One of them says: ‘exit’.
And the other says: ‘EXIT’. Same word, just in all-caps. Same white paint.
Two exits… Why two? Is one of them a fake, perhaps?
I blink and peer across the walls. They are adorned with a series of grainy, framed photographs. They appear to depict oceanic scenes… from the bottom of the sea… and many feature colorful coral reefs. I notice one that shows a shark.
I close my eyes and rub my hands across my face.
…Where the hell am I? Am I seeing things?
I try again. I open them up.
…Nope. Same view.
Resisting the rising, cold urge to panic I instead consider each of the individual walls. An attempt to focus and to properly assess my surroundings.
I turn my head. The wall behind me is bare, except for a mirror in the rough centre. The door is to the mirror’s left, and like the others, is closed.
The next wall going round has a few of those framed pictures of fish swimming in the sea hung across it, and between them in the wall’s middle is what looks like a hard plastic button. A button in the crude shape of a fish, on a little panel protruding out from the wall. There is also another door. This is the one that says ‘exit’.
Ocean pictures. Button. Door.
On the opposite wall to my current position is something I mistook, at first glance, for a window… but closer inspection reveals that it’s merely a poster depicting a window, and the view beyond. The view appears to be from a hotel room on some beach, overlooking the sea. Beside the poster is a second mirror- directly opposite the one behind me- and beneath it is another of these panels and another plastic fish-shaped button, this one in blue. The wall has a similar-looking door to all the others.
Poster. Mirror. Button. Door.
Between myself and these features are two curious objects, rising up from the floor. About waist-height, they look a little like pedestals, placed a fair distance apart. One further out to the left, one further out to the right. They kind of resemble towering rocks, I guess. Undersea, eroded towers of stone.
…There’s clearly a theme here.
And finally, on the last wall, is one more framed picture of the ocean. There is another button, this one orange, and there is also a screen. The screen, for now, is dead and dark.
Ocean. Button. Screen. Door.
The door on this wall is slightly different to the others. It has the all-caps ‘EXIT’ written across it in white, but what draws my attention are the four locks, stacked on top of each other beneath the door’s handle.
I glance round to the other three doors, though none of them have any visible locks or places to enter keys.
This is insane. Where the hell am I? What is HAPPENING?
It feels like I’m in some kind of bizarre purgatory. The poster of the window is particularly unsettling. I drop my eyes to floor, scanning it, and I realise that what I mistook for soft, blue-washed yellow carpet is in fact a thin layer of what appears to be fine sand. It’s all so surreal.
…Alright, enough of this.
Cautiously I clamber off the mattress. The second that my bare and shoeless feet touch the sandy floor, however, the screen to my right makes an abrupt beeping sound. I stare at it as the pixels flicker into life, my heart suddenly hammering; senses primed as my drowsiness evaporates into the stale surrounding air.
60:00 UNTIL DOORS LOCK PERMANENTLY, it reads.
…And then the timer starts ticking down.
59:59
59:58
59:57
“Fuck!”
I start to panic.
…‘Lock Permanently?’
I jump to the right and try the door beside the bed. It doesn’t budge.
I rush across the room to try the next, the one offering greater potential with its marked ‘exit’ promise; though as I do so, a series of sharp pains spike suddenly up into my feet.
“Argh, Jesus!”
I flinch and pause, shooting a look down to the ground. Awkwardly I stand on one leg and lift one of my feet a little closer, allowing myself to inspect it.
…To my dismay I appear to have been cut, and upon peering closer still I spy the culprits. Horrified, casting my eyes out over the floor, I finally see that hidden in the sand… amongst the grains, is a tide of broken glass. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The ground beneath my feet is positively littered with the stuff.
“What the hell is this..?” I murmur, then I throw out my hands and look up to the ceiling. “HELLO! HELLO IS ANYONE THERE? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?”
…There is no response.
I grimace and tiptoe as carefully as I can to the second door, doing my best to avoid the glass, but I still take a few painful cuts across my toes in the process. This door too is locked up tight.
Alright, think. Think think think.
I scan the room for something that can help me. A pair of shoes would be a good start, or even socks… but there is nothing.
Fuck it.
I race across the room to door three, wincing with pain, rattling the handle and slamming against the hard wood. “HELLO? HELLO! PLEASE, CAN SOMEONE LET ME OUT!”
I hop to the final door, feeling the weight of something jingling against my chest as I do so. I flinch and curse as I step through the glass, trying the handle of door four as I reach up under my shirt to discern the source of the weight.
My heart jumps momentarily as I realise that it is a key. A key hung on a piece of string and tied around my neck.
I fumble with the thing as I draw it up over my head, turning it over in my hands to get a good look at it. It has the silhouette of an octopus carved into its base, and it twinkles dimly in the overhead light… But the thing is otherwise unremarkable.
“Alright”, I mutter. “Come on you bastard. Let’s get out of here”. And I try it in the first lock.
To my utter amazement it turns all the way, and elation springs forth. Could it be that easy, perhaps?
I try the handle again, but still, no dice. The door does not budge.
I roll my shoulders and try to force myself to remain calm.
Alright, no pressure. No pressure, maybe I just need to unlock them all.
I withdraw the key and try it in the second lock. It too goes all the way round, but the handle does not budge. Same story for the third lock, and then, after turning the key round in lock four, I mutter a quick prayer before attempting the handle.
I am not a religious guy, but I think perhaps that it might help.
…It does not.
“FUCK!” I shout as I rattle the handle, slamming and kicking against the door. “LET ME OUT! LET ME THE HELL OUT!”
The key DOES fit the locks… Maybe there are just more of them. Maybe there are four keys in here I need to find.
But where would they be hidden…?
I glance around.
The room is pretty bare.
There is a bedframe, and a narrow mattress across it, but no sheets or pillow. There are no cabinets or drawers, no chairs… The only ‘furniture’ are the two bizarre, rock-like pedestals in front of the poster.
First things first. What am I going to do about the glass?
I glance to the timer.
54:15
I make a quick plan, and execute.
Removing my T-shirt, I tear it with a grunt into two rough halves, which I then do my best to wrap around my feet. They don’t make particularly great shoes, but they’ll help, for now. The spots of blood are also serving grimly to keep the shirt stuck to my skin.
Why is this happening to me? I wonder bitterly as I tread my way across the room. I am a good person. I am a good person, and I don’t deserve this.
Was I kidnapped? What the hell was I doing last night..?
The memories for now elude me. My focus is on escape. On getting out. I’ll have time to think later.
I begin by scabbling about in the sand. Pushing it aside and wincing with every cut across my fingers as I do so. I take the opportunity to try and push as much of the stuff to the sides of the room as I can, but the room is large. And there’s a frustrating amount of glass; particularly difficult to see amongst the grains of sand.
I check under the bed. I check the mattress, though it is securely fastened to the bedframe. The bedframe, likewise, does not budge My desperation rises. I check behind each of the ocean pictures on the walls. I smash them to see if there’s anything hiding behind the photographs, succeeding only in adding yet more shards of glass to the ground.
The time ticks ever down.
47:02
47:01
47:00
46:59
Sweating and swearing I try hitting the coloured buttons. No response from any of them. I look for clues in the pictures to see if I am supposed to tap them in a certain combination. It hurts to keep crossing the floor, treading through the sandy shards as I move from one of the buttons to the next, but it’s all pointless. They don’t do a damned thing.
I tear down the poster of the window.
…Nothing.
I inspect the mirror. I stare back into my own face, then turn to look behind me. The mirror is exactly opposite the one on the back wall. They create the illusion of the never-ending tunnel when you look into them.
Moving hastily on, I approach one of the two pedestals. Inspecting it thoroughly, I realise with a spark of hope that there is a little button in the groove around the pedestal’s upper surface. I reach down and press my thumb against it.
I hear a little ‘beep’ from the screen, and I look over.
Something has happened.
Beneath the timer is something new:
0.3% COMPLETE
It says, above a thin blue line of pixels.
0.3% complete? I consider this, tapping the button again, and again and again and again, but it does nothing further. I wince and tiptoe across the floor to the second pedestal, searching to see if it has an equivalent button of its own.
…I find to my relief that it does. I try tapping it.
And the little blue line of pixels grows slightly longer.
0.6% COMPLETE, it now reads.
My heart jumps.
Okay, okay I think I get this!
I try tapping the button a few more times to confirm, but as I expected, it does nothing. I have to return across the floor, back across the glass to pedestal one to press the button there.
The line of pixels, which I realise can surely be only a progress bar, grows ever so slightly longer.
1% COMPLETE, it reads.
RIGHT! Progress!
My going is slow, to begin with. Minimising the pain of the glass. I tiptoe, I push as much of it aside as I can as I go back and forth, back and forth.
But no matter how carefully I try to clear the route, there always seems to be a piece that I’ve missed.
Conscious of the time, however, I am forced to pick up speed.
Slowly but surely exhausting myself as I race relentlessly between the two pedestals.
12.3% COMPLETE.
12.6% COMPLETE.
13% COMPLETE.
In my haste, my foot slams down hard onto a particularly painful shard of glass. I cry out in frustration, and swear as I reach down to dislodge it from the skin. Blood starts flowing immediately, and as I am forced to continue my back-and-forth a series of bright, bloody footprints are left across the ground.
I shoot a look at the time.
42:30
The pain is just too much.. I HAVE to take a few minutes to thoroughly clear the route between the pedestals…
…So that’s what I do. Crouching down, brushing and pushing every last trace of glass and sand to the side, further cutting my fingers in the process.
“Goddamn.. GodDAMN!” I swear beneath my breath as I push it all away, my fingers shaking, and once I am satisfied that the path is now safe I return to the task at hand.
Running between the pedestals, my feet still stinging with every step.
The timer ticks on. The progress bar moves its way along the screen. My breathing becomes shallower, and sweat begins to bud across my back. My body heat rises with the tightening tension in the room.
39.6% COMPLETE
40% COMPLETE
40.3% COMPLETE.
As I run I try to think of what I might have done wrong to deserve this fate. To find myself trapped in so sick and hateful a place as this. Who would do such a thing? …Lock me up in here all alone, make me play these games?
Am I being watched? I wonder, beginning to pant with the exertion. Is someone getting a thrill out of watching me push myself like this? Back and forth like a rat in a lab? Is this all punishment, for something? But for WHAT?
I do not know. So back and forth I go. Slipping occasionally in the trails of blood that I am leaving behind, my feet intermittently numb and then sharp with pain. With every single step I wince, not just with the feel of my injured feet upon the ground, but in anxious anticipation. Waiting, tensed in preparation to step down onto a shard I might have missed.
…This expected shard does not find my feet until I am red in the face, at 84.6% COMPLETE.
It strikes up thin and sharp between my toes.
I scream out loud in pain and hobble, knocking sideways into the pedestal and using it to balance myself.
“FUCK THIS!” I shout out loud as I pull the shard from the soft flesh of my foot. The t-shirt-socks have just about worn though, now. I hurl the shard across the room. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”
…But there is no response. I am answered by nothing but the gentle buzz of the lights. The shard strikes the far wall and lands on the mattress, directly beneath the glowing red bulb overhead. It twinkles scarlet in the light.
“Fine, fine… I can play your game”, I mutter bitterly, catching my breath and doing my best to get it over with… back and forth… pressing those buttons again and again and again.
23:29, reads the timer.
23:28
23:27
But the progress bar now stretches the length of the screen. It’s nearly there-
99.3%…
99.6%…
…100%!
I let out a gasp of relief as the screen flickers, and my heart pounds as I rest against the pedestal. I wipe some sweat from my forehead, glancing between the doors. Is one of them going to unlock? Am I going to be given the keys..?
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then the screen cuts to black, and a new message is displayed across it.
…ROUND TWO, is all it says.
And a picture of a yellow fish appears onscreen.
…Round Two?
I stifle a sob of distress.
Another round? I don’t know if I have the strength for another round! I wasn’t even rewarded with a damned key!
I NEED OUT. I NEED TO GET OUT!
I try all the doors again, swearing and kicking up clouds of glass as I run, but of course, each door remains locked up tight.
I glance back to the timer.
21:21 UNTIL DOORS LOCK PERMANENTLY
Could it be true? Could I really be locked in here… forever? …Surely not, right?
…Right?
Hell, I can’t afford to risk it. So I allow myself a scream of frustration, I brace, and I get ready to play Round Two of this twisted game.
The screen shows a yellow fish, and so my next move seems simple enough. I reach behind me and slam a hand up against the hard plastic of the yellow fish button.
This time, there is a reaction. The button glows for a split second, and the same progress bar appears on-screen. I am treated to a: 0.3%, and the fish onscreen changes from yellow, to blue.
I am exhausted, but fuelled with adrenaline have little choice but to play along.
“Fine”, I mutter, spitting onto the ground. “Let’s do this”.
I creep over the floor, wincing until I have arrived at the blue button on the opposite wall. I press it, and the progress bar jumps to 0.6%. The fish changes to orange.
And so it goes.
As the timer ticks steadily on I am forced to cross the floor again and again, right through the glass that I pushed aside earlier from the trail between the pedestals. Blood is streaked across the ground and the pain only grows; it becomes difficult to move, to take even a single step onto a glass-free space sends shoots of pain racing up my lower legs.
But I play. I play their game.
Blue to orange, to yellow, to orange, to blue, back to orange, back to yellow.
At 54% I make a critical error. Wearied and angry and stressed beyond measure, I mistake the yellow fish for the orange one. I press my hand against the button and the progress bar cuts BACK to ZERO.
The timer, however, continues ticking down.
Fuck.
I am forced to increase my speed yet again. All pretence of caution and care when it comes to crossing the floor are abandoned as I run from place to place, smacking the buttons as quickly as possible as they appear onscreen.
The pain is excruciating. I can feel the little shards of glass stick into my skin, and I simply do not have the time to do anything about it. And that moment before my foot lands on the ground… that brief anticipation of the incoming pain… It is- almost- worse than the pain itself.
But I do my best.
Orange.
Blue.
Yellow.
Blue.
Orange.
Yellow.
Over and over. And as the timer ticks down to:
05:00
I just have to pray that there is no Round Three. There will not be time.
I am still yet to receive any more keys.
With a cry of bitter determination I slam my hand down onto what should be the final button, gritting my teeth through the waves of constant pain throbbing up from my feet.
The progress bar hits 100% for the second time, and it once again disappears as the screen flickers.
“Come on..” I mutter through raspy breaths. “Come on”.
And with a little ‘beep’ the screen changes to:
CONGRATULATIONS
I wait, tensed and afraid as the screen holds this phrase for a moment more.
03:22
03:21
03:20
And then the message changes.
YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED THE ROOM. YOU ARE FREE TO LEAVE.
TWO DOORS WILL NOW UNLOCK.
Audible clicks sound from two of the doors.
The one beside the opposite mirror, and the one labelled ‘exit’, in lowercase.
YOU MAY ONLY OPEN ONE DOOR. THE ACT OF OPENING A DOOR WILL PERMANENTLY LOCK THE OTHER. PLEASE MAKE YOUR CHOICE.
I wonder if this is some kind of trap. I hesitate, but then, after taking a step towards the ‘exit’ door, the mirror besides the torn poster suddenly changes.
In one second there stands my reflection, and then, in the next, the mirror effect has entirely vanished. Where once there was a mirror, there is now a window. Though, it does not show me a view of the beach, or any kind of view to the world outside.
…I step towards it, heart beating, wincing with every movement, and I bring my face in for a closer look through.
…The window shows me another room.
A room, in fact, identical to mine.
I can see a copy of the same screen. I see the poster of the ‘beach through the hotel window’. I can see the coloured buttons and the framed pictures of the ocean… I can see three doors from this position, and I realise quickly that the fourth must be the one that connects to my own room.
I see a floor covered in sand, and catching in the light amongst it are little shards of clustered glass.
…And I see something else, too. Or someone else, I suppose I should say, as my heart hammers in my chest.
They are asleep on a thin, rough mattress identical to my own. Their hands are crossed over their chest, rising and falling… And directly above them are two bulb lights, both glowing in their respective colours.
One red, and one green.
“The fuck..?” I mutter out loud.
I look back to the screen, eyes wide.
01:04
01:03
01:02
YOU MAY ONLY OPEN ONE DOOR. THE ACT OF OPENING A DOOR WILL PERMANENTLY LOCK THE OTHER. PLEASE MAKE YOUR CHOICE.
“What the hell kind of a choice is that?” I shout out loud. “Escape, or put myself through all that, again?” As if in response a series of sharp stings echo across my feet. The cuts across my fingers and hands ache and throb.
I shake my head.
It’s no choice at all, surely…
But I think about the games I was forced to play. About what I went through, alone.
A memory from the beginning returns to me. One of my own thoughts.
I am a good person. I am a good person, and I don’t deserve this.
… I am a good person.
With jaw clenched, I turn back to the screen.
YOU MAY ONLY OPEN ONE DOOR. THE ACT OF OPENING A DOOR WILL PERMANENTLY LOCK THE OTHER. PLEASE MAKE YOUR CHOICE.
00:12
00:11
00:10
I release a guilty, sad sigh, and wipe for the hundredth time the sickly layer of sweat from my forehead, streaking it a little with blood as I do so.
“…I’m sorry mate”, I murmur through the window, as I head to the door marked ‘exit’.
My knuckles white on the handle, I mentally prepare myself, and I turn it.
…It relents, and the door creaks open.
Beyond is a long hotel hallway; narrow, and leading away into the unknown.
I shoot one last look back behind me.
I can still see the window. I can still see the sleeping man on the mattress….
…And I can see the bulbs above his head. The green one has now gone out, and only the red light shines in the shadow.
“I’m sorry”, I whisper one final time, as I take my leave, and close the door tight shut behind me.