"What's inside?"

William reached and felt what was inside. His hand touched something and pulled it out. It was a folded piece of paper; he opened it up, and,

"LonelyLoner123", William read out. "What is this? A username?".

David's eyes lit up. "That has to be the password", he said with an inspired smile on his face. He quickly stepped to the desk and sat on the chair. "Can you read it out again, please?" he asked.

"LonelyLoner123. No spaces, and both the lonely and loner start with a capital L", William told him.

David quickly typed out what he was told and pressed enter when he finished. The boys gathered around the computer while it loaded. The loading circle took a long time; this could be good, but it could also be for nothing. This time it was,

"I'm in!" David cheerfully said.

Lucas's face broke into a smile. "Great! Now, find the to-do list", he said, getting closer to the desk.

David clicked on random apps to find the to-do list and eventually found the notes app. The first thing that popped up was a to-do list with multiple tasks written.

"Exercise, respond to emails, respond to family, upload a picture with friends, upload assignment, bake cookies, clean room, complete video game and feed Gary", David read out.

"Who's Gary?" William asked, looking around the room. All the boys did the same, confused about who Gary was.

"It has to be a pet", David said.

"Don't tell me it's something like a hamster or mouse", Lucas said, getting shivers and dreading the thought of feeding a mouse.

"Is that a fish tank over there?" Ray asked, pointing towards the bedside table. Lucas, who was motivated by their sudden progress, went closer to inspect it. A small wooden box covered what looked like a fish tank.

Lucas moved the box and found out what it was. "Will. Why didn't you properly search the bed area?" Lucas calmly asked.

"What? There's nothing there", William replied, despite seeing the fish tank in 4K.

"There's a fucking goldfish here", Lucas said, showcasing the lone goldfish swimming in the tank.

"Forget arguing!" David said, stopping them before it escalated. "Let's do these tasks. Lucas, find the fish food and feed Gary. The rest of us will clean the room".

"Okay", Ray and William agreed. Lucas was already searching for the fish food.

The three of them cleaned the room, picking up clothes and rubbish from the floor, cleaning the dirty dishes, the kitchen table, the study desk, the bed, and everything else that needed cleaning. It took the boys about 10 minutes to clean the room. It wasn't the best job, but it would do.

"Have you found the fish food yet?" David asked Lucas.

"No", Lucas worriedly replied. Even after thoroughly searching the room, the fish food was nowhere to be found. "Have any of you seen it?".

He got responses of no and shaking of heads. Lucas wasn't happy, he thought it would've been a straightforward task.

"Lu, maybe we have to do something to earn the food", Ray told him as he noticed he was stressed.

"Yeah, don't worry too much", David added. "We need to keep doing tasks to find out more".

Ping!

A noise came from the TV.

"You must complete all the tasks before escaping", Lucas read out.

"Before escaping", William repeated. "Wait, so completing the task isn't a way to escape. What's the point?" he complained.

"Lu literally already told you, dude. The room has a story, the tasks are a part of the story", David told him.

Lucas rolled his eyes and shook his head. He was starting to understand why Malakai and William argued a lot of the time.

"What should we do next?" Ray asked, waiting for something to do.

"Right", David hastily made his way to the computer and sat down. "Let's separate the tasks", he said. David looked at the list. "I'll deal with the tasks on the computer, William, you do the exercise".

"Is that the treadmill?" William asked.

"Yeah", David replied.

"What does it say I have to do?"

"It doesn't say anything. I think you just have to run on the treadmill".

"I'll start now", William said, walking off.

"You two should bake the cookies", David told them.

"Both of us?" Lucas questioned.

"Yes, because I can do most of the tasks on the computer", David replied.

"Let me help with the computer. I think I can find more clues here. I feel the computer is a big part of this room", Lucas said. "Ray can handle the cookies. He's a pretty good chef".

"Chef, not baker. I don't know how to bake cookies", Ray said. "There's no recipe book in the kitchen either".

"I can find a recipe online and print it out", David said after some quick thinking. There was a printer next to the computer, which was convenient. David opened up the web browser and searched for a cookie recipe. He clicked the first link and printed the recipe.

"Here you go", David handed Ray the recipe.

"Thanks", Ray took it and went to bake the cookies.

"Okay, let's search this computer", Lucas said.

"Isn't there a chair somewhere you could use?" David asked, looking at Lucas standing up.

"I'm fine. I don't mind standing", Lucas replied, eager to search for more clues.

"Should we do the tasks first and then search the computer?" David asked.

"Yeah, let's get them out of the way", Lucas replied.

David clicked on folders until he found a folder labelled assignment. He opened it up and found a two thousand-word essay.

"Where do we upload this?" he rhetorically asked. He scrolled to the bottom of the essay and found a link. He clicked the link, and it took him to a different page, a page with an upload button. "That answers my question", he said. He clicked the upload button and chose the assignment. He submitted the assignment, and,

"TWO HOURS!?" Lucas reacted. "What type of connection do we have?"

"I'm sure it will be two hours for everyone. It would be unfair if it weren't", David replied. "There is a six-hour time limit, I'm this is to fill the time".

"Tsk, this challenge is stressing me too much", Lucas said, rubbing his forehead.

"Relax, dude. I'm sure we're doing good. I imagine a lot of people will struggle to find the password", David reassured him. "It was in a basketball. A lot of people wouldn't check that".

Lucas sighed. "Having Benjamin or Malakai here would've been so much better", he said. "They both act like they know what they're doing most of the time".

"You prefer being lied to that everything is okay?" David replied, skim-reading an email for the next task.

"In this situation, yes", Lucas replied. "How many emails are there?" he asked, seeing David writing a response.

"There's five. It'll take a while to respond to them all", David replied.

"It's a good thing we've got time", Lucas enthusiastically said as a joke.

While those two responded to emails, let's see what William was doing.

When William left them, he went to the treadmill and turned it on. The screen on the treadmill showed kilometres, miles, and speed. William increased the speed to the maximum number, which was ten. After 2 minutes at max speed, William felt breathless. He decreased the speed to seven and continued at that speed.

15 minutes later.

"How long do I have to run for?" he rhetorically asked, breathing heavily. He looked at the screen and saw 2.4k and 1.49 miles. Do I have to go until I reach a certain distance?". He was feeling tired now; he couldn't continue at this pace. He decreased the speed to 5. At this point, he was speed walking, sweat dripping down his forehead. "How do I know when I'm finished?" he complained. No one heard him as everyone else was engrossed in their tasks. "Forget this", he said. He turned down the speed again to 3. William's stamina couldn't handle it, but he knew he couldn't quit as his friends would be mad at him. He had to get this done one way or the other.

After some time, Ray came over to William to check up on him.

"How's it going?" Ray asked.

William silently shook his head and gave him an exhausted look.

Ray looked at the screen and saw 4.9K and 3 miles. "Are you trying to reach 5k?" he asked.

"Huuh, haah. Probably", William answered, looking like he'd given up on life.

Ray looked at the speed number, which was not impressive. He clicked on the speed button a few times to increase the number to 8.

"What are you doing?" William asked in a panic, trying to keep up with the treadmill.

"You're almost there. Give it your all for the last kilometre", Ray replied with a mischievous grin.

William was forced to run, but he still tried to turn down the speed. Before he could press the button, the treadmill started slowing down.

"Huh? Did you turn it off?" Ray asked, watching the running belt slow down.

"No", William replied out of breath. He kept walking on the treadmill until it completely stopped.

Ping!

A notification came from the TV. Lucas and David turned around after hearing that noise. The TV showed the amount of money they had. It wasn't $0 anymore, it changed.

"$24? Where did that come from?" Lucas asked.

"I think Will got it from running on the treadmill", Ray replied.

"Is that it?" William said, dissatisfied, catching his breath.

"Is there a timer on the treadmill?" Ray asked, looking at the screen on the treadmill.

"No. There wasn't", William replied, on his knees resting

"How fast were you going?" Lucas asked, he didn't know as he was focused on the computer.

"Pretty fast", William lied, looking at the floor and not making eye contact.

"You were walking when I came over", Ray said, ruining the lie.

"I was running for a long time. I had to take a break", William replied, giving an excuse. "It's not that important. We don't even know why we need money".

David swivelled the chair around. "Actually, we need as much money as we can get", he said. "There's a shop, and we can buy an escape for $100".

"What shop?" William asked. He slowly stumbled to the computer, his legs shaking with every step he took.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

David and Lucas opened the shop and showed him what they could buy. The store had a lot of things, but the majority of it was useless.

"Is the fish food there?" Ray asked.

"Yeah, it's $20", Lucas answered. David scrolled to the fish food and clicked on it.

"I did good then. I got us the fish food", William said, finally breathing normally.

"You did, but now we need to get $95 more to escape", David said.

"$96, actually. We'll have $4 left after you buy the fish food", Lucas corrected him.

"Same difference", David replied as he bought the fish food.

"It's fine. We can find another way to escape", Ray said, feeling more confident about their chances. "Did you find anything else?"

"We found important information. The mannequin is a girl who has no friends. All of her social media accounts have no friends, and there are no posts", Lucas replied.

"That's depressing", William commented.

"She likes music and made her own song. That's why there were lyrics in her diary", Lucas continued.

"She made a song?" Ray asked.

"Yeah. There's a file here, it sounds good", David replied.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

"Oh, the cookies are done", Ray said, looking towards the kitchen area. He went over to the oven to get them out.

"Oh yeah, he was baking the cookies. I was wondering why he came over to me", William said, wiping sweat off his forehead. "We've done a lot of tasks. What tasks have we got left?"

"We've done the assignment, responded to the emails, exercised and baked the cookies. We need to upload a picture with friends, respond to family, feed Gary, and oh fuck", David said, with his face dropping.

"What?" Both of them were surprised by that reaction.

"Lu, you should've completed the video game", David replied.

An already stressed Lucas became more stressed.

"It's fine, I'll do it, but I wanna shower first", William excitedly said, still wiping his sweaty forehead. "Is there a shower in the bathroom?" he asked Lucas.

"Yeah, there is", Lucas replied with his head in his hands. "Fuck, we still need to respond to our family and upload a picture. We don't even have a camera. There's only a Polaroid camera in the shop, and we can't respond to our family on the computer", Lucas was stressing a lot more now.

"We do have a camera", William said. David and Lucas turned to him. "I found a phone at the back of the closet earlier", he said, pulling out a phone from his pocket.

"You fucking idiot! Why didn't you show us earlier?!" Lucas raged, snatching the phone from William.

"I forgot", William honestly replied, realising he messed up.

"What do you mean you forgot?" Lucas continued.

"Lu, forget it", David stopped him, "Will, go take your shower. Don't take too long", he told him.

"Uum, okay. My bad guys", William said, feeling responsible for wasting time. He quickly went to the restroom to shower.

"I swear, how does Malakai deal with him?" Lucas mumbled, unlocking the phone using the password they found in the notes app on the computer.

"The cookies are done", Ray said, bringing the tray to them.

"They look good. How many did you make?" David asked, counting the cookies.

"Twelve. I could only make enough mixture for twelve", Ray answered. "But, what do we do with them? Does it tell us to do something with them?".

"No, it just tells us to bake cookies", David replied, double-checking the tasks. "We still need to take a picture with the mannequin, feed Gary and complete the video game", David looked towards Lucas, "Lu, have you responded to the family yet?".

"Yeah, I've sent the message", Lucas replied. "I need to look through this phone so we don't miss anything".

Ray put the tray of cookies on the kitchen table. "Should we dress up the mannequin for the picture before Will gets out?" he asked David.

"Yeah, let's do that", David agreed.

Ray and David dressed up the mannequin while Lucas searched the phone for information. The fish food came through the glass window the boys found at the start, so Lucas got the fish food and fed Gary, leaving only two tasks left. William eventually got out of the restroom.

"I told you to be quick. What took you so long?" David asked.

"I was resting, and I was deciding whether to wash my hair or not, then I remembered there was no blow dryer", William replied.

"There was one in the shop for $10", Lucas said, setting up a makeshift tripod for the photo.

"How is a blow dryer less than fish food?" William asked, going to the make-up area near the bed to get some perfume to put on himself.

"Use your head, dude. Obviously, the things we need will cost more", David replied, putting the mannequin in position.

William walked over to them after applying some perfume he found on the make-up table. "Why is the mannequin dressed up? What are we doing? Taking a picture?".

"Yeah, it's one of the tasks", Ray replied.

"It's all set up. Stand next to the mannequin", Lucas told his friends. The three of them took a position next to the mannequin. Lucas pressed the button on the phone to take the photo, and a ten-second timer started. He quickly went over and stood next to Ray in the photo.

"Do we smile?" William asked.

"Just look happy", Lucas replied.

Flash!

"Ow, why did you put flash on?" William asked, blinking fast.

"Do you have to complain about everything?" David asked.

"I uhh", William couldn't answer, slowly realising he might be the problem.

"Will, go complete the video game, " Lucas ordered while looking at the picture on the phone. William silently agreed and went over to the old games console.

"Where do we upload the photo?" Ray asked.

"I'm uploading it right now on her social accounts", Lucas replied. "Aannnd done, that's all the tasks finished. Will should complete the game, and then we need to find a way to escape". Lucas looked over at the computer and saw David already in the seat. "How long until the assignment is uploaded?" he asked.

"50 minutes", David replied. "Let's look over everything again. We still need to work out how to escape".

Over the next 50 minutes, the boys inspected the room all over again to find something. They tried mapping out everything they'd done to find clues to escape. Seeing if things linked together and painted a bigger picture. Over an hour went by, and nothing.

"Finally, I've completed the game", William said, putting the controller on the floor. "Those last two levels were a bitch". The game he was playing was a Super Mario-style type game. It had terrible graphics, and the controls were stiff, making it hard to complete levels. "Have you guys found out how to escape yet?" William asked. He looked at his friends, but it didn't look promising. Ray was leaning against the kitchen table, looking lost; David was sitting at the computer, staring at the screen, looking clueless, and Lucas was sitting on the bed, looking defeated. "Guys?".

"I don't know what to do", Lucas muttered. "We haven't found anything in an hour. We had an hour and found nothing", he stressed. "We're losing so many points".

Ray walked over to William, "Were there any clues in the game?" he asked.

"No. Well, I don't think so", William answered unsurely. "I doubt there were any clues in there anyway", he continued, worried he might have missed something.

Ray stared at the console. "Should we break it?"

"Break what?" William didn't know what he was talking about. He looked at what Ray was looking at. "Y-you mean the console?".

"Yeah. What else have we got to lose?" Ray replied, sounding confident in his idea.

"But the console might be a clue. We might need it for later", William said, trying to persuade him against breaking it.

"Will, think about it. How did we find the password? We had to break the basketball. We probably need to break something again to find what we need", Ray replied.

"The basketball was deflated, it was already broken", William said, not in favour of breaking the console.

Ray was growing tired of staring at a dead end. He crouched down and unplugged the console.

"Woah, Ray! Wait!" William tried to stop Ray as he held the console above his head.

SMASH!

Ray forcefully smashed the console on the floor. Lucas and David turned to see what had been smashed.

"What happened?" David asked, standing up from his chair.

"Ray broke the console", William said in shock.

"Did you complete the game?" Lucas worriedly asked; he hadn't heard William earlier.

"Yeah, I did", William slowly replied as he watched Ray pick apart the console.

Ray was tearing apart the console to find something until he noticed a card tucked away at the base. He pulled it out and skim-read it.

"I FOUND SOMETHING!" Ray excitedly announced.

Everyone quickly gathered around him to see what he was talking about.

"What did you find?" Lucas eagerly asked.

"The mannequin's ID", Ray replied. He handed it over to David to let him see.

"Gracie Taylor", David said, reading out the name. He flipped over the ID. "Student number 829463".

Lucas's eyes widened. He looked over to the door with the keypad. "That's the code for that door", he confidently said. He ran over to the door, "Quick, let's try it".

"Isn't his hopes too high?" William asked, thinking this was too good to be true.

"When you've had nothing for over an hour, anything can excite you", David replied, walking away.

The three of them reached the door. David stood in front of the door and looked at the ID again.

"829463", he said while he typed it in.

All the boys impatiently waited for the door to open, but it didn't open. Lucas's smile dissolved, and his shoulders slumped. He was so sure that was the escape that the thought that it wouldn't work wasn't an option in his mind. William and Ray kinda expected this would happen.

"Let me try again. I think I typed it wrong", David said. This time, he slowly and carefully pressed each number. When he pushed the last number, nothing happened again.

"That's that", William said.

Click!

The door opened.