Escape Room Survivor

Crystal, Steven, Myself and Bruce were all sitting in Bruce's car before it was time to go in. The place was an old bowling alley on a kind of old and quiet part of town. The main street behind us had almost no traffic at this time of the evening. The street light flickered overhead.

"You want to hit this, Jessica?" Steven asked. He knew I had quit smoking weed, right around the same time I had broken up with him.

"No thanks." I smiled anyway. He was a good friend to stick around and be cool after I dumped him. I hadn't even asked him to still be friends. He had just waited and when I wasn't mad at him anymore, we became friends again.

We went inside and there was a guy behind the counter wearing one of those dresses for guys. Steven and Bruce were snickering at him. The place smelled like a dead animal.

"Room for Jessica?" I asked him when he just stared at us.

"Number four. You don't start for five minutes. I can let you in early." He spoke in a monotone and led us to escape room four. "No phones or tools?"

We had all emptied our pockets except Bruce's car keys.

We all went inside and the lights came on. The the door closed behind us and locked loudly.

"This is going to be so fun!" Crystal was excited. I was too. We started looking around the room.

"Huh?" I wondered. There was nothing in there but us. And an intercom. And a camera.

"What is this?" Steven looked confused.

"This is like some next level escape room." Bruce grinned.

We started feeling around and messing with the door, the intercom and the camera was in a protective bubble. Five minutes later we were all frustrated and a little bit nervous.

"Welcome to a different escape room." A heavily accented voice came over the intercom. "We can only bring in one group at a time. That's because you can't escape. You are all going to die in there."

"That's a joke, right?" Steven tried to smile.

"There is one way out." The voice continued. "If only one of you is still alive in the next fifteen minutes, he will be released."

Suddenly the look on the face of Steven and Bruce changed. They were staring at each other. These two had always had some kind of rivalry over me and Crystal. This was all it took to set them over the edge.

"Bruce!" Crystal shrieked as Steven suddenly took the initiative and punched his friend, breaking his nose. Blood was all over the white carpet.

"Hit him back, Bruce, this is to the death." The voice encouraged them.

Bruce was bigger than Steven and leapt onto him and started beating the crap out of him. Soon Steven was on the ground getting punched to death. Crystal was screaming frantically and trying to pull him off of Steven.

His elbow took her in the chin and she staggered backwards and fell against the wall. There was a sickening crunch. Bruce got up and looked at her. She was dead, her neck broken. Then he turned to face me. He'd just killed Steven and Crystal and there was blood all over his hands face and shirt. I didn't recognize him.

He started towards me and then hesitated. Then he started toward me again but Steven's hand gripped him suddenly and tripped him to fall face first.

I didn't know what I was doing, only that I had to keep him from getting back up. I jumped onto his head and held him there with all my weight, and I am not petite. He couldn't get up or remove me from that position. I ended up smothering him to death.

In some kind of survival mode I stood back up and felt his pulse. He'd suffocated. Steven was dead too, the shock of the beating had killed him, I guess. I went back to Bruce and got his car keys. I'd thought:

"I gotta go back out to the car and get a phone so I can call the police."

Then the door unlocked.