Escape Plan

All Addy could see were blurry eyes lying on a stiff bed. Still, the place felt unfamiliar. The coldness could be felt on the hard bed that could ruin any spine. The headache started as Addy sat up, her vision clearing. The small room appeared cold and mysterious, with strange puzzle-like games on the walls: some involved moving colored tiles, others had complicated patterns or symbols. The confusion was compelling. enough to escape. a place. It was small but still mysterious, without a door to leave, or at least one that would look like it. Addy sat up on the stiff metal bed, looking around, and stepped to the cold floor without shoes, looking around in wonder. She then noticed her clothes had been changed. They were dressed in shorts and a shirt that were the same shade of brown. Addy looked over to the shelf with a pair of slip-on shoes and socks. She ran over to them and placed them on her cold feet. As questions raced through her head, an announcement was spoken.

You have been chosen for the ultimate escape room. This will challenge you in every way. You must reason your way out before you go mad. The clock is ticking. The clues are all around you. If you escape, you will be free. First and only clue: all things lead to another in interconnected ways. Best of luck, puzzler.

Addy looked around the room as if a high-pitched noise started over the loudspeaker. The lights then turned brighter than normal. Addy stumbled around from the brightness. This was not going to be easy, as she stumbled into the wall. Her body aches as she falls to the ground. A pop noise came from the wall. A small area opened as her head could now focus despite the lights and sound. Inside was a box containing a small metallic key with strange engravings. Addy wanted it all to end and not to be tortured for someone’s entertainment. She rose to see the key in the small box. The key was unique and had to lead to a lock somewhere. The space around it did not match as she tried to think. The sound was really as if she felt like running, but where did it go? She looked around to find where the key could be unlocked, noticing that one of the puzzles—now close to her—was a sliding-tile puzzle with textured pieces that seemed to form a picture.

“If everything is interconnected, then does it matter the order?” Addy asked herself.

She went to the puzzle and stared at the numbers, which must be in a certain order, arranged in a grid that resembled a Sudoku board. Holding her focus with the noise still ringing in her ears, she tried to slide the numbers into place. All the headache was stopping any focus at all. The wall twisted into another puzzle. Addy could only stare at the next one in confusion, as it looked like a clock but kept resetting, its hands spinning rapidly each time she pressed a button. As it would blow odd-smelling air into her face. She started to feel rather dizzy and then passed out.

Addy opened her eyes again and lifted herself off the ground in pain. This puzzle was more complicated than expected as she headed towards the bed, wanting this place to disappear. She looked at it and noticed that the puzzle was there too. The top had an odd one—an alphabet cipher etched into metal dials that she could rotate. She decided to start on what looked like a cipher. She moved the letters around, and it clicked. The message was of a journey you would not forget. Another puzzle opened on the bed with another cipher, this time requiring her to align coded symbols to spell a word. Addy realized the noise had stopped, but the lights were now dim with white noise. This was also very distracting as the headache began again. It was more difficult, but with the next message, I figured it out. Its ready traps are there, and do not go mad. Addy could only stare, realizing she had run into one. She then heard another click on the side of the table as two puzzles opened. It was a Sudoku, and they finished it as fast as a puzzle on the wall revealed itself. Logic was neither her favorite nor her best, but she pushed through the headache. It was difficult not to get the right answers.

“Get me out of here,” Addy screamed as loud as she could.

No response from outside of whoever was watching her. The madness was starting as she struggled to even think through instructions and even walk. As the last letter was placed right with the last bit of focus. Other clicks from two other sides in the two separate puzzles. The first one she went was easy enough, but a little dart shot out at completion, and she passed out again in pain, hitting the ground.

Addy could hardly feel her head as she awoke from this attack. The traps had struck again, and now a buzzing noise and blinking lights could be heard, causing another headache. She propped herself up to look at the other puzzle, and it was difficult: a grid filled with numbers that required her to solve a series of math equations to unlock the next step. This one took the longest, with its many faults in any focus, and only when the numbers finally looked right did she look at them. A click across the room where the key was found. It was another word-scramble puzzle, as the letters looked odd too, the tiles scattered with letters she needed to rearrange. At some point, she heard a click on the other wall. Addy was not focusing as she stumbled and ran into a wall. A cloud of dust knocked her out again.

Her head could not think straight. As the world kept going dizzy, she tried to focus on the puzzle beside her. It was another cipher, this time with rotating rings of letters that had to match a specific phrase. She slowly placed the letters in position. Each time seemed wrong since the letters no longer made sense, but with another click, it worked. As that puzzle was an adding game, she took her time, lining up numbers to reach a certain sum when the screeching noise came back on, and with that, a light appeared. It was a door, and crawling on the ground to the door was the last hope. As she pulled out the key and put it into the funny-looking lock, it clicked, and the light appeared on the other side.

She crawled through the door and escaped the noise and awful box. When she awoke, men and women in suits were watching her.

“Well, looked like you made it out even though it seemed doubtful,” one man said.

“Looks like you can pass the test that so many did not and are willing to offer quite the job,” a woman stated.

“I will have to decline, and just one to go home and never see you again,” Addy replied.

As she felt the cloth over her face, Addy passed out, wishing only to go home.