ESCAPE

Chapter Six

We're in a long and narrow room that I can only describe as a science lab. There are counters with test tubes, Petri dishes, and other scientific instruments beside clipboards and paperwork. I can't help but wonder what all these rooms are doing underground, and what they would have been used for. It feels like we're going deeper into a maze whose center we do not want to see. This lab doesn't look as grimy and run-down as the kitchen, but it doesn't seem to have been used for a long time. A thick metal door with a small window is on the far end of the room.

We drop Bella into the corner by the entrance, with Luke watching over her. She complains about being very hot as she takes off her jacket, leaving herself in her black, low-cut top.

"It's gotta be food poisoning," Luke says, looking up at us. "From those pastries at the start."

Will, Chia, and I are scanning the area, but we all seem to be too distracted to look for clues or do whatever is needed to get out of this room. For me, anyway, it's hard to think clearly.

"I don't think so," Will says. "I don't feel anything, and I had one."

"I dunno man," Luke says, rubbing Bella's back. "She hasn't had anything else today."

"Maybe only some were poisoned," I suggest. That doesn't really help, though.

"Maybe it's something else," Will says. I can't read anything in his pale blue eyes.

"Oh, hey," Chia calls out. "Check this out." She's by a counter on the left wall. There's a large glass unit on the counter with a keyboard attached to it. As I get closer, I look through the glass and see there is a syringe held up in the center.

"Whoa." The word escapes me in a big breath.

"What do you think?" Chia says. I can see the glint of hope in her eyes.

My first thought is that one of us needs to inject ourselves with whatever is in there. Then it hits me. Is this what we need to help Bella? Now that I know this isn't a regular escape room, I really don't know what to think anymore.

Will steps closer to us and says, "Thirty minutes until the end."

I follow his eyes and see the sticky note stuck to the side of the glass unit. 30 minutes until the end. There is a crude pencil drawing of a pastry that looks like the ones Bella and Will ate.

"Oh, god," Chia says. "Thirty minutes from the time they ate them? Or thirty minutes from now?"

Will and I check our watches.

"How long has it been since the pastries?" I ask.

Chia asks Luke and Bella, who are further away in the corner and lost in their own concerns for each other. No one has a good sense of when exactly they had the pastries but we estimate it's been between twenty and twenty-five minutes.

"Whatever it is," I say, "we don't have much time left."

We all agree that the syringe has to be the cure for Bella's pain and that we needed to give it to her soon. Sweat is covering her distressed face. I can't bear to look at her in such pain. She's shivering now, and Luke places her jacket over her back.

"What's this?" Will says. He's pointing to a large framed photo on the opposite wall. It seems to be a photo of this room, taken from the entrance. I'm glad that Will seems to be able to keep a good head and not break down.

He and I study the photo. It's just a photograph of the room we're in. My heart is racing as I try and figure out why it's there. "I'm sick of these fucking puzzles," I tell him. "We don't have time for this." My head feels like there's thick mud clogging everything up.