Take one look at her and think to yourself – how did we get here?
A dark room where a little bit of sunlight comes from the small window on top of her head. The tall ceilings made with long pieces of wood along all four walls. My head rests on the cold cement floor and is turned to her face. A familiar face. Her soft caramel skin, light brown hair, rosy pink cheeks, and long eyelashes are such vibrant characteristics of her, but what I take notice of is her tired eyes and the faint smell of alcohol coming off her.
Gathering all the strength I could, I tried to stand up. It took every muscle in my body and a lot of recollection until I got on my feet, but I managed. I found myself standing at these bars on the door, almost like a jail cell but not quite. The door was half the size of a regular one and it had the bars going halfway to the ceiling. I was confused and of course, scared. The door seemed like it would never open. Just as that thought ran through my mind, I heard her stand up behind me.
*Taken back to two nights ago. 1980’s. Disco Party at Frank’s.*
There he was standing at the bar and I thought to myself – what is he doing here? Doesn’t he know what is going to happen? How could he though- no one knew other than three people in the room. I knew I had to do something but I couldn’t betray my boyfriend’s plan that fast, I had to do it slowly so that none of them suspect a thing. The whole night I was hanging out with random people and we were drinking – I wasn’t to be seen with Steven or Micheal at all – they had no idea what was going to happen and I was on edge waiting for my signal.
“All you have to do is wait for Micheal’s signal and then flip the switch – got it?”
That’s all I had to do but I was on edge because I was going to save Sebastian. It was almost 12 am and I figured out that I was going to talk to him calmly telling him to stay around the corner from the exit closest to the switch. He questioned it at first, but once he saw the fear in my eyes when my boyfriend, Steven, screamed my name, he knew to trust me. Steven was suspicious that I tried to ruin his plan, so he kept me with him until 11:50pm when I’d go to where the switch was. Everyone I passed on my way had smiles as big as my fear at that moment plastered on their faces, and I just wanted to tell them that I am sorry and they should start running. 11:55pm – I knew what I had to do and I looked over to around the corner where I told Sebastian to be, and sure enough, he was anxiously waiting there.
I look over to the other side and I see Micheal raised his glass and winked at me. It was time. I took a deep breath, put my hand on the switch, and flipped it – oh, but not the switch Steven wanted me to flip, where sprinklers would be sent off and sleeping gas would be released – I flipped the one I knew would shut off all the lights, disco and everything except for the music. It was chaos. I ran from where I was around the corner of the exit door, grabbed what I hoped to be Sebastian’s hand, and ran out of the club. We barely ran far enough because Micheal came out of the same doors seconds after with his gun that knocks people out and shot it at Sebastian. Before he could reload his gun to shoot at me, I aim at him, shoot and he falls unconscious to the floor just like Sebastian did at my feet. Within the span of 30 seconds after that, I managed to get Sebastian into my car and I sped off into the only safe spot I knew – the local escape room.
I always thought that someday working in an escape room would come in handy, and today it did. I had a spare key for the back door, and that’s when I dragged Sebastian into one of the stalls, forgetting how they automatically close behind you. Without stressing that we weren’t able to get out, I laid my head down beside Sebastian’s and shut my eyes.
We would figure it out in the morning.
