As Michael steps into the next room, trip wire cleanly slices his foot off from the ankle down. You must be wondering how we I got here…. so am I.
A few hours ago (I can only assume), I shot up from my sleep in a panic as I woke up in a bright orange room. This is not where I fell asleep at, in fact the last thing I remembered wasn’t sleeping at all. I was walking my dog Rufus, down Main Street. Where is Rufus?
As I look down I realize my clothes are replaced with another’s, all my personal items gone except for my cell phone, and all communication apps are blocked instead of this one. Stripped. Where the fuck am I? I need to get out of here. As I scan the room for an exit, I see doors on each side of me. Four walls, four doors, each a different color. What is this?
This must be some kind of game. Red, blue, yellow, and a purple door sat around me. What could be on the other side? In a panic, I shot straight up and headed for the yellow door, the one straight ahead of me. I ripped it open, and flames burst from all directions of the room. I slammed the door, but not in time to keep the fire from reaching me. My hair shot up in flames, and I screamed as I stripped my shirt and did my best to smack the shit out of the fire that was actively scorching my scalp. I can’t tell what it looks like now, but I know it hurts.
Doesn’t matter now. Booby trapped rooms? What. The. Fuck. At this point my panic is rising, what do I even do? There must be something. I search the room for clues, but to no avail. Only the doors stood in my way of the exit. Red, blue, yellow, purple.
Red
Blue
Yellow
Purple
That’s it.
Purple is the only secondary color there is here. Red, blue and yellow are all primary colors.
I shot up again with confidence, and opened up the purple door and thankfully, no traps awaited. Instead all I saw was an exact copy of the room i was standing in. The only difference was the colored doors that were now replaced with orange, green, purple, and blue. This has to be a pattern. Blue is the only color that isn’t secondary. I head for the blue door, hoping my theory isn’t gonna get me killed.
I slowly open the door. The very last thing I expected to see was another man, laid on the floor, fast asleep. He is wearing the same clothes as me and doesn’t appear to be distressed at all.
“Hey!” I shout.
His head spins around as he snaps awake and he looks straight at me. It takes him a minute, but as he looks around he realizes the same thing I did, —that we have no idea where we are.
“Who are you? Where are we?” He asks me with a look of a suspicion on his face.
“I wish I knew. I’m Liam..- Before I can even finish, he jolts up and heads for a door.
“Stop! They’re trapped!” He turned once again.
“How do you know that? How do I know your not the one who brought me here?”
I stared at him, startled, and didn’t know what to say. I pointed at my head. I didn’t know how bad it was, but I could tell it was enough to at least convince him to trust me for now.
“Believe me, I want out of here too. Do you have any idea how you got here?” I asked
“The last thing I remember was eating at that diner on Main Street. Wiesel’s Diner. I was paying my check and I guess the next thing I know i’m waking up here. And i’m Michael.Never think I mentioned my name.”
We looked around the room and back at each other.
“Michael listen, there’s a pattern. Whichever door is the odd one out, is the safe way to go. At least that’s how it has gone for me so far.”
“So… which one’s different?” He replied. For the first time I actually noticed that the doors were different. Not by anything specific, but the details looked…. off. And this time, there were two primary and two secondary colors, so that was out of the question.
“Great. The patterns off.” I sigh in defeat.
“Well now what?!”
“I don’t know.”
“Well we can’t just sit here. I can’t be stuck here doing nothing. I have a family…” Michael panics and rises off the floor to head towards a door once more.
I tried to stop him. I really did. He grabbed the red doors handle, and he flinched his hand back as it it burned through his skin. He sprinted through the next door and… well here we are.
I can’t figure out the pattern. Michael is in the next room screaming but I can’t go in there without risking losing a limb, and I don’t wanna leave him. I don’t know where to turn or where to go….
All the doors look the same.