"We've done all the tasks. What do we do now?" Delilah asked.

"I thought if we did all the tasks, one of the doors would open", Tanisha said, with her hands on her hips.

Benjamin looked at the TV. "We can't buy our way out. Does $41 get us anything?" he asked, knowing there was nothing.

"Nope, nothing useful", Sarena replied, remembering the items in the shop.

"Completing the game was harder than I thought", Maria said, looking at the game console. Maria started playing the game, but it eventually got too hard for her, so Benjamin took over and completed it.

Their team had completed all the tasks and was struggling to think of their next move. It took them a while to find the computer password, so everyone was already anxious about their timing. It felt like they wasted a lot of time, and they didn't want to waste more.

"We've searched everywhere. How do we escape? Can't we get a hint?" Tanisha asked in desperation, looking at the camera in the corner of the room.

"There are four ways to escape. One of us will figure something out sooner or later", Benjamin said, trying to ease her mind.

"We don't have time for sooner or later. We need to find something now", Tanisha hastily replied. Benjamin's attempt to calm her down didn't work.

Delilah was on the computer trying to find a hint, Sarena was sitting on the bed, writing in the diary to try and find links between the tasks, Benjamin and Tanisha were wandering around the room, searching every nook and cranny for something that would help them, and Maria was zoning out. Earlier, she had an idea but forgot it as she was playing the video game. Now, she was trying to remember what thought she had in mind.

"It's no good", Maria quietly said, covering her face with both hands.

She walked over to the fish tank to look at Gary again. The fish tank was a decent-sized cuboid; it had gravel at the bottom, a pump for clean water, and little accessories to decorate it. Gary was a big, rounded, fantail goldfish with a nice pattern on his body and a white belly. Maria watched as Gary swam left to right in the tank.

"Doesn't he get bored?" Maria thought, staring at Gary swimming. "He could be swimming in a big pond with more fish, but he's trapped in a small tank, alone. He doesn't have a clue how big the world is".

...

"Maria".

Maria was pulled out of her daydream by a voice and a hand on her shoulder. "Y-yeah?".

"You need to help us find a way to escape", Tanisha said. "I don't think staring at the fish will help".

"R-right, sorry. I wanted a little break", Maria apologised, seeing Tanisha stressed.

"It's fine. I'm just worried we won't escape in time", Tanisha said, looking at the clock. "6:36!? Delilah, what time does it say on the computer?".

"1:42", Delilah answered.

"I got scared for a second", Tanisha said, putting a hand over her heart. "That clock is wrong", she pointed out.

"Should we change it to the right time?" Sarena asked, putting the diary down.

"Why not? We might get a hint or something", Benjamin replied, optimistically thinking.

While everyone fussed over the clock, Maria's attention returned to the fish tank. She was weirdly invested in it. Back home, Maria had pets; she had two dogs and a cat, and they were the family pets. When she was younger, she had her own pet, a hamster, but Timothy didn't last two months. After that gigantic heartbreak, Maria agreed not to get any small pets again. Also, in her house, one of the rooms had a big fish tank with many tropical, exotic, and colourful fish, but Maria never considered the fish to be pets. They were more like moving paintings, something nice to look at. But, now she's here staring at a lone goldfish named Gary, 'someone's' pet. She knew this whole situation was fake; she knew this fish wasn't someone's pet, but this fake scenario made her interested in the fact that a fish could be a pet. Maria knew fish could be pets as she had seen it in TV shows, but this was the first time she'd seen it.

"A fish as a pet? Isn't that lonely? They don't even do anything".

She continued to watch Gary swim around the accessories, which caused her to look at the accessories more closely. Most of them were casual sea stuff like an open treasure chest, fake coral, seaweed, starfish, etc. But one of the accessories was a lighthouse. Maria stared at the lighthouse, she didn't like how it looked. Something came over her. She rolled up her right sleeve and put her arm in the fish tank.

"Maria, what are you doing?" Delilah was the first to notice. Her question caused everyone else to look.

"Maria?!" Tanisha went over to Maria to see what she was doing.

Maria had her arm deep in the fish tank. The water was cold, but she continued fishing. She picked up the lighthouse, and something came out from the bottom of it. The lighthouse was hollow, and a key was floating in the water.

"Did a key just come out of the lighthouse?" Benjamin asked, coming closer to the fish tank.

Maria dropped the lighthouse, retrieved the key and took her hand out of the tank. "I knew something was going on in there", she said.

"How did you?" Tanisha quietly asked, totally confused.

"It felt too weird. The fish tank was too much for one goldfish. It nearly had the same amount of decorations as my fish tank in my house", Maria replied. She looked at the wet key. "Is this the key that opens that door?".

"We have to find out", Delilah said, walking to the door.

Everyone walked to the door with the lock. Maria put the key in the lock and turned the key.

Nothing happened. Maria tried turning it several times, but the lock didn't budge.

"The key isn't for the door", Maria disappointedly said.

"Don't worry about it. This is good, we found a key that means it must lead to something", Delilah said, seeing the positives from it.

"Yeah, that means there must be another keyhole somewhere", Benjamin added.

"Keyhole", Sarena mumbled with her hand to her chin. "I know!" she piped up.

The rest of the group was surprised by her sudden cheer. Sarena skipped to the desk with the computer on it and pulled the chair back. She went under the desk.

"Look, there's a keyhole here", she said, putting her finger over it. None of the other guys could see, as the space under the desk was small, and Sarena was occupying it right now.

"How did you find that?" Delilah asked. She was at the computer most of the time and didn't recognise it was there.

"When I was responding to the emails, I was kicking my feet and felt something stick out, so I checked it out. When I saw it, I didn't think it was a big deal. I thought it was a bad design for the desk", Sarena replied, popping her head out from under the desk.

"Let's try it. Here you go. You can open it", Maria said, handing Sarena the key with her sleeve still rolled up and her arm wet.

"Thanks", Sarena said, taking the key.

She inserted the key in the hole and twisted it. This time, it opened. A little compartment opened and revealed another key inside.

"It's another key", Sarena said, getting out from under the desk and showing the key in hand.

"It looks similar to the key Maria found", Tanisha said, looking at the key Sarena held out.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Guess there's only one way to find out if it's the same", Delilah said.

"and that's how we escaped".

"that's a totally different way from how we escaped".

I hear fuzzy voices. No, my dream. Let me stay in my dream. I still wanna be in my dream. I don't wanna wake up yet. This dream was good. Wait, what was the dream about again? I can't remember. All I can remember was that it was good.

"We were worried we weren't going to find a way to escape".

Fuck sake. I can hear the voices clearly. I'm awake now.

"Mhhmm", I lifted my head off the table. "Who escaped? I heard that's how we escaped", I said, rubbing my eyes.

"Dude, you've been asleep for so long", William told me, who was sitting next to me.

How long was I out for? When did I even go to sleep? I just wanted to close my eyes.

"Bro, I was having a good dream, and you woke me up", I said, still rubbing my eyes.

"What was it about?"

A girl's voice? I know that voice.

"I can't remember, but it was a nice dream". I opened my eyes and saw five new people at the table. "When did you lot get here?"

"A while ago", Delilah replied, sitting across from me.

"What place did you get?" I asked while taking my hood off.

"Fourteenth", she replied.

I smiled, "Only four places behind me", I arrogantly but playfully said. I fixed my bed hair with my hand while I looked around.

This place is packed out now. "Has everyone escaped?".

"Yeah, they made an announcement that a teacher will come in half an hour to talk to all of us", Benjamin replied, sitting to the right of Delilah.

"When did they make that announcement?".

"Like half an hour ago".

Tch, I guess I did wake up at the perfect time. I always wake up a few minutes before my alarm. This was bound to happen. Anyway, lemme see what's going on. I looked around the lobby, and a lot of people were standing up; all the tables were taken. Some people were staring at me. Nothing new. What else is going on? Tanisha is side-eyeing me. Nothing new. Ray is talking to Maria. Something new. Oi, go on Ray. We making progress now. Maybe I don't have to wingman him that much. He can seduce her on his own. They look happy, I wonder what they're talking about.

Yawwwnn.

"How long was I asleep for?" I asked.

"About two hours", Lucas replied, sitting on the other side of Delilah.

"Two hours?" I mean, the sleep did feel good.

"What time did you sleep yesterday?" William asked.

"My normal time".

"Which is?" Delilah asked.

"Like 2".

"Go sleep earlier, dude", Lucas said.

"What do you think I try to do?".

"At least you don't snore", Delilah said.

I've been told I'm a silent sleeper. "I guess that's a good thing. My future wife will be happy with that".

"Hello, everyone!" A new voice came into the room. A short, cheerful-looking lady with short brown hair. She had a microphone in hand while she walked onto the stage. The people on the stage had to get off to give her space.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"I think it's 1-B's homeroom teacher", David replied.

She walked to the centre of the stage and said, "I'm Ms Harper, class 1-B's homeroom teacher. Mr Miller had some important business to attend to, so I will discuss your results with you".

"What's there to discuss? We can see the results", Lucas said.

"Should we go stand near the stage?" William suggested.

"Yeah", Delilah, David and Benjamin agreed.

"Why man?" I complained. I cba to stand up.

"Mally, come on, it's better if we go closer", William urged me.

Guess I have no choice. Everyone's already standing up. It looked like other people had the same idea. A lot of people were standing in front of the stage, and many were leaving their tables.

We got up and walked closer to the crowd.

"This feels like a concert", Lucas said, looking around. "Have any of you been to a concert?"

"I've been to wireless", I said.

"What's that?" William asked.

"It's a music festival in London".

"I've never been to a concert", William bitterly said.

"Concerts are overrated anyways", I told him.

Ms Harper was waiting for everyone to settle down. It's kinda hard to see. There's too many people in the way.

The life of being short. Thanks, Mom, thanks, Dad.

"Who wants to put me on their shoulders? I wanna see better".

"No, if you can't see, that's your fault for being short", Lucas replied.

"I wasn't asking you. I was asking Ben or David, you're too weak". That'll piss him off.

"What do you mean weak?"

Yep, got him.

"Go on, you can get on my shoulders", David said, squatting down.

"My guyyyyy", I slowly got onto his shoulders. He grabbed my legs and carefully stood up. "Don't drop me".

"Don't move around too much, and I won't", he told me.

Woah, I'm so high up.

"Is this how you feel, David?".

"Kinda, you're probably like 10 feet high. You're seeing something completely different to me", he replied.

He's right. This feels surreal. Everyone's looking at me. Nothing new. Who can I see? I can't turn my body, or I'll fall off. There's too many people; I don't know where to look. I can see Luna and her group. I should be able to see Nada, she's got pink hair. I can't see her, she might be behind me.

"Ben, you're gonna have to catch me if I fall".

"I'll try", Benjamin casually replied with his hands in his pockets.

"How are you going to catch me like that?"

"Don't worry about it", he said.

"Are you going to stay up there, Malakai?" Ms Harper asked, looking straight at me.

I looked back at her. "You know my name, Ms?

"Who doesn't?" she happily replied.

She's nice. She looks older than Ms Green. I wonder what she thinks of Ryan. Probably only positive things, he does act like a model student. It's kinda weird that everyone knows about me; well, it is my fault for being an idiot. Is what it feels like to be popular. Wait, am I popular? A lot of people hate me. Does everyone have to know you AND like you to be popular? Fuck.

Eh, who needs strangers? I've got some people that like me; that's enough.

"It looks like everyone is ready, so I will continue", Ms Harper said. "Challenge 3 is over, and everyone escaped within six hours. No one got zero points, which is great".

If anyone didn't escape, that would be embarrassing. Getting no points is bad. There is no coming back from that. Your hopes of finishing in the top ten would be over.

"Here is the order in which everyone escaped".

A screen came out from the wall and was switched on. It showed 1st to 30th place.

"I'm sure you all know what position you got and how many points you will get. I want to congratulate you all for your efforts today, no matter where you came". Ms Harper started clapping, which led to a chain reaction in which everyone clapped.

Challenge 3 is done like that. It was a fun challenge. The last one was better, but I guess not every challenge can be like that. I'm glad I came here. What would I've done if I didn't?

"However, there's one more thing I have to say", Ms Harper said, disrupting the applauds. "One team got the secret exit. I say one team, but it was one person", she continued.

"Malakai Junior got the secret exit".

Eh?

"I did?".