The Mystery Date

[Originally written over three sessions, using the same Story Dice roll for all three]

"Enjoy yourselves, and good luck!" exclaimed the bubbly employee as she shut the door to the small room. The four people left inside nervously laughed as the slight twinge of claustrophobia spread over them as the door loudly locked.

"That wasn't the least bit ominous," Jason chortled as he looked around the room, attempting to take everything in before the timer began.

The interior of the escape room felt surprisingly empty to him. One side contained the only visible way in or out of the room, a single door centered on a stark white wall. If it wasn't for the brass doorknob, he wouldn't be able to tell a door was there.

"Do we start?" asked Sam, Jason's Fiancé. "And how do we start? I feel like there should be more."

Jason couldn't help but to agree with her as he slowly turned, looking for anything of importance. Two of the other three walls were completely empty. If it wasn't for the doorknob on the first wall, all three would be exactly the same: empty but for a layer of white paint. However, the wall opposite the entrance felt a bit more homey with its obvious IKEA furniture decor. A light-brown, narrow desk sat off-center to the right, with two similarly colored bookshelves continuing towards the left. Each piece of furniture had random knickknacks and trinkets that wouldn't feel out of place in a home office. A small globe, some picture frames, and a few other random items randomly spaced out to make nothing seem important.

"We're just a single plastic sheet away from being in a murderer's dream room," chortled Lee, the Best Man. Jason chuckled at Lee's comment before he caught sight of Sam's wide-eyed look that was practically screaming "your friend is being weird. Stop him from being weird."

A bell chimed from an intercom in the ceiling and pre-recorded voice began to speak, "Welcome to Reality Escapes, where you have one hour to escape our reality. In here, the world is not what it seems to the naked eye. Do you have the eye needed to survive? Let's find out."

Suddenly, a panel of red LEDs turned on in the top of all four walls, previously invisible behind the paint. Each panel read "1:00:00" and with another chime of the bell, began to count down.

"Alright Lee, let's start at the desk. Ladies, maybe there's something by the door?" Jason said more as a direction than an actual question before walking to the desk.

"Absolutely," agreed Sam without hesitation as she pulled her Maid of Honor, Katy, towards the door.

Once he arrived at the desk, Lee began picking up everything he saw, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Jason, on the other hand, hovered near Lee with his back to the shelves. "So, what do you think of Katy?"

"I don't know. She hasn't really said anything, but you said she was great at puzzles, right? I've never failed one of these and, no offense, I don't have high hopes in," Lee paused as he noticed his friend's complete lack of attention. "Um, what are you doing?"

"Nothing, man. What do we got here," said Jason as he shook off the question and turned around to assist his former roommate.

Back at the door, Sam tried the doorknob to no avail. She then put the side of her face against the wall and began slowly scanning up and down. "Oh, I think I see something. Check it out."

It was clear from her perspective 3 feet back that there was nothing on the wall, but Katy knew Sam was awful at puzzles and figured she should be supportive. As Katy approached, Sam stepped back to let her friend take her place before asking "so, Lee's kinda cute, huh?"

"I guess. What did you think you saw because I don't see a damn--seriously Sam?" Katy asked matter-of-factly as she pulled away from the wall, rolling her eyes. "Seriously? Is this a set-up?"

Sam shrugged in response. "Maybe. Do you want it to be?" Her best friend of 15 years stared back at her, expressionless for a few seconds before Sam couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, fine. I'll drop it. Can you just get us out of this room, it's kinda creepy."

"It's not creepy," said Katy, "it's just bare and full of secrets." She paused for a second as she looked back at the men on the otherwise of the room talking by the IKEA desk. "Like you in college," said Katy as she began walking back across the room. Sam scoffed and put her hand over her heart, feigning offense, before following in her friend's footsteps.

At the bookshelf, Katy started picking up and flipping over every object. She looked behind the trinkets, under them, and at all sides. The globe spun as expected; the photo frames had the cheesy stock images that they came with; the small animal sculptures weren't secret switches. About halfway through checking the items she began to hear the patterned buzzing sound of a cell phone vibrating as it gets a call. It was coming from somewhere on the shelf.

"I found a key!" enthusiastically shouted Lee as he held it in the air. The key was a small and silver. It looked like every padlock key he had ever had. It was attached to a red square keychain. "Anyone see any locks?"

"No, but I hear a cell phone on this shelf somewhere," said Katy, continuing the search. Jason perked up, intrigued by the mystery. Sam checked the clock. 00:52:20

"Almost 10 minutes gone."

"Come help, Love, I can hear it too," said Jason to his still disinterested fiancé.

Katy continued her search along the bookshelf, moving towards the desk. Sam joined Jason as they began at the right side of the shelf and moved towards Katy. Lee sat the key on top of the desk and then laid down on the floor underneath the desk and began looking at the bottom of the desk for any hidden compartments.

Jason went to pull a book from the shelf, but was surprised when all four books came off as one solid item. "Woah woah woah." He quickly swung his arms at the object, barely managing to catch the false books before they fell to the ground. Something inside the box rattled around as it tumbled, then he felt the vibration.

Quickly, Jason grabbed the red-tagged key off the desk and shoved it into a small padlock on the backside of the fake-book box. Inside was an old, blue Nokia cell phone. Its green screen was illuminated with the words "Incoming call..." as it vibrated around its container. "Awesome, when was the last time you saw one of these?" Jason asked as he held the phone up for Katy and Sam to see.

Suddenly, the lights in the room went out. Startled, Sam let out an involuntary scream before she threw her hands over her mouth. For a brief moment, the only light in the room came from the screen of the ringing cell phone and the LEDS that continued ticking away the time on the walls. 00.47.56

Jason answered the call and held the phone to his ear. "Uh, hello?"

Black lights in the ceiling clicked on, revealing hidden markings all over the room. Lee pulled himself out from under the desk to join the women as they stared at Jason intently listening to the call.

On the other side of the phone, a menacing voice kept repeating the phrase "I have my eye on you. Enter the code and I will show you the way out." After the third repetition, Jason recited it to the room before having up the phone.

The group looked around the room at the previously invisible markings painted on the walls and book shelves.

"Okay, screw this," proclaimed Sam with a seriousness she hadn't shown since arriving. "Katy, you take that wall. Lee stick to the shelves and desk. And Jason, you take this wall. I will start at the door. We are getting the hell out of here."

The group followed the bride-to-be's instructions without hesitation. Although Sam was the only one that had a noticeable reaction to the lights flicking off, each of them were startled. That brief moment of panic they all felt during the few seconds it took for the black lights to illuminate and reveal the previously hidden markings left each of them filled with adrenaline.

Unfortunately, the random lines, numbers, letters, and symbols that now covered the walls, trinkets, and furniture meant nothing to them. The clock continued to tick away. 00:42:38

Over the next ten minutes, the group grasped at straws. "There's a 'T' and a 'H' on this wall, maybe we have to unscramble the letters?" suggested Jason."

Katy quickly shot down his suggestion "I doubt it. I've got at least fifteen different letters over here. That'd be one hell of a scramble."

"Oh oh," interjected Lee to get everyone's attention, "What if we have to match the numbers on the trinkets with the numbers on the wall. Like this frame has a 4 and this statue has," he paused as he flipped the statue over and over in his hand. "Um, no number. Okay, nevermind. That doesn't work."

This postulating continued and the minutes ticked away. 00:30:26

As the clock crossed the halfway point, the cell phone began vibrating again on the desk. Lee quickly answered the phone. Another pre-recorded message played: "Follow my friend. He will help you find me and I will reveal the code." Lee repeated it to the room.

Confused, Jason looked around the room at all the markings. "Friend? What friend? We're losing time and not getting anywhere. Love, come help me out on this wall."

Before Sam could respond or even move, Lee responded, "Sure thing. What do you need, babe?" Katy and Jason chuckled. Sam did not.

"Lee, stop joking. You're supposed to be smart. Find the friend and get us out of here. Katy you help. We brought you 'cause you're good at these things."

"Uh huh. Sure, that’s why I’m here" she sarcastically remarked. "Fine, Lee. Get over here and take a look with...what's that?" Katy pointed at the top left corner of her wall where a small panel of red LED lights were blinking on and off. "Is that, a bug?"

"Yeah, looks like a little scarab." Lee said as he got closer. "Has that been there since the lights went off?"

"Absolutely not."

"Huh, they must feel bad for us and are giving us a hint."

"I think that's the friend. Y'all. That's the friend,” proclaimed Katy, unable to hide back her growing excitement as progress was once again being made. “What is he trying to show us?”

The group quietly watched the scarab blink, hoping for a sign of what it wanted. Blink. Blink. Gone.

“Wait! What the hell?” Exclaimed Katy and Lee in unison as they began frantically twisting their heads to look around the room for where the beetle went. A few seconds passed before the friend reappeared 3 feet to the right next to another horizontal line with a slight arc. Blink. Blink. Gone.

Again, the beetle jumped 3 feet further to the right next to another marking on the wall. This pattern continued repeating until the scarab reached the end of the wall, where it blinked out and reappeared 2 feet lower than the first spot. 00:26:45

Each marking seemed random, but somehow familiar to Lee. A gentle “hmm” escaped his mouth as he stared back at the trinkets on the bookshelf. The other three continued to follow the beetle, throwing out their own ideas about what the pattern represented. Lee, however, walked to the opposite corner of the room. With his back in the corner, he could now see the entire scarab wall and the bookshelf.

“Hey, Katy? Can you do me a favor and switch the fake-books with the picture frame in the top left corner on the shelf?” He asked.

Katy spun around, surprised to see Lee standing in the corner. “Um, sure. Why?”

“Humor me,” he shrugged. Katy did as he asked. As she placed the books down a loud click came from behind the shelves. “Okay, now put the globe in the middle and move the bookends to opposite ends.”

This pattern continued. With each placement another click came from behind the shelf. “Dude,” said Jason, “how do you know what to do?”

Lee pointed at the scarab wall, “it was literally in front of us the whole time. Come stand here.” Jason took Lee’s spot and looked back at the wall. To him, it still looked like a wall of random markings with a blinking beetle and a ticking clock. 00:23:14. “Now look at Katy.”

“Oh that’s cool.” The markings on the trinkets that looked random before now outlined a large eye staring back at the participants. Jason looked back at the wall and a similar outline was staring at him, with the beetle blinking next to one of the markings. “It seems so obvious now.”

At the bookshelf, Lee helped Katy move the last couple objects into their place. With each placement, another click. As the final piece was placed, a sudden pop and a hiss rang out as the the entire desk swung out away from the wall, revealing an exit. Startled, Katy screamed and jumped sideways. Involuntarily, Lee wrapped his arms around Katy to protect her.

In the opposite corner, Sam nudged Jason and smiled.