The staircase wasn’t very long, so wherever we were going, it wasn’t that deep underground. The lamps on the sides of the concrete walls made the stairway just dim enough to feel like we were in some sort of horror movie. It felt like we were going into a cellar where a murderer in a clown mask was waiting for us. Sadly, I wasn’t too far off. Emma reached the bottom of the steps first and froze where she stood. She didn’t make a sound. She then slowly put her hands up. This terrified me, but there was no way I could just leave her there, so I swallowed my fear and stood next to her on the bottom of the staircase. What I saw was scary, but I guess not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Andrea was sitting in a desk chair which was turned to face us, and she had her pistol pointed right at us. The room was much more lit than the staircase, but this was almost certainly due to the twenty or so computer monitors that were lit up all at once above the desk Andrea was sitting at.

“Wow, I didn’t think anyone would find this place,” Andrea said. “Especially since the switch was War and Peace. Who in their right mind would want to read that goliath of a book?”

Andrea had a big smile on her face that made me very uncomfortable. She seemed almost happy to see us, which I didn’t like at all.

“Now…What to do with you two…” she said. “I wonder if I can just kill you both right here. You are trespassing after all.”

“Y-you can’t!” Emma squeaked. “We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Ha! You think so?” she responded. “I bet I could get away with taking you both out right here. I’ve been really itching to see some bloodshed; that’s the whole reason I’m here. You are all taking too long to kill each other, so I’ve been waiting for my chance to kick off the party myself in a way that wouldn’t have Levi at my throat, and it looks like Christmas has come early! Beating that bitch’s face in wasn’t nearly enough.”

“When they see us with bullet holes, they’ll know it was you! You’ll never get away with it!” Emma said in a shaky voice.

“There are no cameras in here. I could make up any story that I want! I just have to say you both assaulted me, and as outlined in the handbook rules, you will be punished accordingly.” Andrea gave us another scary smile.

Then, suddenly we heard slow footsteps coming down the stairs from behind us. Andrea’s smile vanished once the creator of them was in sight. It was Levi.

“Andrea, Andrea, Andrea…” he said, putting himself in the middle of both of us with arms around each of our shoulders. “The students are allowed to search to their heart’s content. You know that.”

“Y-yeah! I know that! B-but they were threatening me!” Andrea said, looking as terrified now as Emma and I were.

“Not only were you going to break the rules, but now you’re lying to me?” Levi said.

He let go of us and walked over near Andrea who was terrified and shrinking in her seat.

“I-I’m sorry! It won’t happen again!” Andrea said.

“I give you so many chances, Andrea…” he said. “You assaulted poor Carmen and now you were going to kill poor Ryder and Emma?” Levi was towering over her.

“I-I swear I won’t hurt a hair on any of their heads anymore! Not unless you permit it! I promise!”

“Oh boy…” Levi said, placing his hand on the front of his space helmet. “I’m such a softie. This is your final warning, Andrea. No more mistakes. Now…leave us.”

“You’re so gracious! That’s why you’re our glorious leader! I swear you won’t regret this! I’ll take my leave now,” Andrea said. Looking back, I saw her shoot a murderous glare at us on her way out.

“I apologize, Ryder, Emma,” Levi said. “We’re not supposed to interfere with you all without good reason, especially in a way that physically harms you. I swear I’ll have her on a tighter leash from now on.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, and Emma seemed to have the same issue. He did save us, but he’s the reason we were in danger in the first place. It’s not like we can thank him without admitting that we have succumbed to Stockholm’s Syndrome. We knew we had to say something, and Emma finally broke our silence.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“I suppose I at least owe you two an explanation in exchange for what happened here. You both went through so much just to get here after all. First, I’d like you to guess. Go ahead and take a look at the monitors.”

Emma and I went up to the desk and started looking at the monitors and it was immediately clear what this place was. We saw one screen showing Conrad pulling the stairwell door to the next floor as hard as he could with Amber cheering him on from behind. We saw another where Carmen was in the gym looking under the stage with Mia on the other side of the room inspecting a part of the wall. There was another screen showing Atticus and Sienna inside their dorm room seemingly arguing. Sienna was throwing pillows at Atticus who was just crossing his arms near the entrance of the room. Sienna ran out of ammo after two throws, and then just proceeded to point at the door. Atticus didn’t move an inch and had a calm expression on his face like he was trying to win the argument through his words, but it seemed to be to no avail.

“These are security cameras…” Emma said after a moment.

“Correct,” Levi said. “We use these to keep tabs on you all to make sure you’re not breaking any rules. They’re also in place for when a murder is carried out so we have an idea of how it happened.”

“There are even cameras in the bathrooms!” Emma yelled. “You guys can’t do that!”

“Not to worry, Emma,” Levi said. “They are angled only towards the entrances. We wouldn’t want to watch any of you do anything unsightly. We’re not perverts.”

“I find that hard to believe!” Emma yelled.

“Madam, you wound me!” Levi said, clutching his chest. “It’s for your own safety in the end. If we can’t find out who killed someone then we won’t be able to give you information to catch the culprit.”

“Information? I thought the whole point was to not interfere?” Emma asked.

“We only give you basic information such as cause of death, time of death, etc. And we only provide them if we see fit. If you start being nice to me, then maybe I’ll give you the info every time,” Levi said.

“No one’s going to kill someone anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” Emma said. “You might as well take these bracelets off and let us go home, or you’re going to be really bored.”

“I beg to differ,” Levi said. “A few of your friends are already on the brink. I can tell. The bracelets really were a great idea. I outta give myself a raise!”

“Everyone’s just a little on edge, no one is going to go so far,” Emma said.

“I disagree,” Levi said. “And, if by some miracle, you’re correct, then I’ll just come up with something better. I’m quite the problem solver.” Emma looked pissed. She clearly was having enough of Levi’s shit. “Back to our original topic, yes, these are security cameras and it’s Andrea’s job to make sure and police you all by using them. I have cameras in my office as well, but I only use them when I’m bored, or when Andrea needs a break. The Department of Labor is a bitch.”

“Like you’d ever be certified as a real workplace!” Emma barked.

“We may not be ‘legally’ but I’m not a monster! All of my employees get breaks, and they don’t have cameras in their respective quarters,” Levi said.

“Does that mean there are two more hidden rooms on this floor?” Emma asked.

“Oh ho! Trying to get more information out of me, eh? Sorry, but I’ve given you all the information that I owed you for the little blunder of my employee. Also, you two are not allowed to be back in this room. I am giving Andrea permission to maim anyone entering this room beyond this point in time, so you better tell all your friends. You are dismissed.”

Emma looked at Levi for a second and then touched my shoulder and pointed towards the staircase. We both left the room and were back in the library where we saw Andrea waiting outside the door.

“You two are very lucky,” she said. “Maybe that luck of yours is the real deal, boy.”

“Luck isn’t real!” Emma yelled before storming off towards the exit of the room. I followed her out of the room.

“Well, we sure learned a lot,” I said as we walked down the hallway.

“Yeah…” Emma said. “It doesn't feel like we gained any information that was very helpful though.”

“We should see what the others think about it all.”

“I agree. Let’s head back to the cafeteria and wait for the others.”

We did learn a lot of information, but Emma was right in saying that not a lot of it helps us in the grand scheme of things. We learned that the library is divided into sections based on each of our talents, or lack thereof, but it didn’t teach us much of anything about what Cyrus’s talent was. We also found a hidden room, but all we learned from that was that there are cameras in most areas of the building, which we already assumed. That was also something that Jane had told Marin and I earlier. Also, we’re not even allowed back in the room now since, by the order of Levi, Andrea will be waiting for us with a hot trigger finger. The only things that we learned that were remotely helpful was that we have a large amount of entertainment sitting in the library, and that there are indeed hidden rooms in this building. This information doesn’t put us that far ahead of where we were though. Emma and I entered the cafeteria and saw two people in the room sitting far away from each other. It was Atticus and Louis. Seems Atticus lost the argument from earlier. We went up to Atticus first.

“Hey, Atticus,” Emma said.

“Finally, someone intelligent,” he said. “I’ve had just about enough of that witch I share my dorm with. She doesn’t listen to a thing I say even when my argument always trumps hers.”

“Yeah, we saw you guys arguing earlier,” Emma said.

“What? How?”

Emma explained to Atticus what we saw as well as what was in the library.

“I guess it’s nice to know that we have some books to keep us busy,” he said. “It’s truly a shame we can’t use that surveillance room to our advantage though. Maim us, huh?”

“That’s what he said,” Emma said.

“Things are truly disintegrating quickly,” Atticus said. “I think of myself as quite the intellectual, but even I can’t see a way out of this as things currently stand. Especially with the new time limit these asinine bracelets give us. There’s no way I can die here. I’ve been practicing my whole life to make my living by winning game shows, but I got stuck here before even attending one. It would truly be a waste.”

“It would be a waste for any of us to die,” Emma said.

“I suppose. Although there are some people here I think the world is better off without.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Don’t say that.” Emma glared at him. “We don’t win unless everyone makes it out. Just think of this whole situation as your first game show where you only win if we all make it out.”

“Why don’t you think of it like a calculus problem and get us out?” Atticus snarked.

“I’ve been trying,” Emma said.

“And so have I,” Atticus said. “I know you all think I left your group because I agree with Cyrus’s point of view, but I have my own way of doing things. I do appreciate you sharing your information with me though. I’ll make sure to share my own if I have anything worth sharing. I wouldn’t want to be in your debt. That’s not my style.”

“Do you know where Cyrus is?” Emma asked.

“No, I don’t. I haven’t seen him since we left the gym after receiving these bracelets.”

“Oh, okay,” Emma said. “So, how long has Louis been here?”

“He was here before I was. He’s been tinkering with his bracelet the whole time. He’s an electrician after all, maybe he’ll find something useful for us in the mechanics of it.”

“He was messing with it during the time we were in the gym too,” I added.

“Let’s see what he has to say then,” Emma said.

“I’ll come too,” Atticus said.

We walked up to where Louis was sitting, and it was like he didn’t even notice we were there. He was poking at areas on the bracelet with his fingers.

“Hey, Louis,” Emma said softly. It seems like she was afraid she’d scare him.

Louis looked up at us and his eyes lit up immediately. He grabbed Emma’s wrist.

“Let me borrow this!” he said.

“Woah!” she said, startled. “Borrow for what?”

“Hold on,” he said. “I’m testing something…”

He was poking and feeling the same areas on Emma’s bracelet as he was his own. After about thirty seconds he let go of her and grabbed Atticus’ wrist. He was also startled by this.

“Hey!” Atticus said. “At least ask first!”

Atticus was much bigger than Louis so the courage to grab him out of nowhere like that was almost commendable. Atticus didn’t really seem like that violent of a guy though. It was just strange to see that confidence from Louis of all people. He did the same thing to Atticus’s bracelet as the last two, and then finally he let go and it was my turn. He grabbed my bracelet, and I jumped even though I knew it was coming. After a bit of pressing and messing around with my own bracelet he slowly let go of my hand and looked dejectedly down at his feet.

“What’s wrong?” Emma asked.

“W-why…” he said softly, grabbing his head.

“W-what’s the matter?” Emma said nervously.

“I-I can tell the b-bracelets apart…” he said. It seemed like his stutter was back.

“You can?!” Atticus yelled. “That must mean one of us has the poisoned one, but how can you tell?”

“Th-the bracelets are made of a l-light aluminum alloy making them susceptible to p-pressure if pushed on when a cavity is hollow,” he said.

“I see where this is going,” Atticus said. “All these bracelets have a cavity where the poison goes, but only the one with poison is full.”

“Which means that we can tell which one is the deadly one through pushing on the cavity and seeing if there is resistance or not,” Emma said, putting her finger to her chin.

“C-correct,” Louis said. “M-mine is the poisoned one…”

We were all silent. We weren’t sure what to do with this information. Now that we know exactly who was going to die, what were we supposed to do now? We can’t just let him die. Everyone else will surely be happy it’s not them, but what will happen to Louis?

“I’m sorry, Louis,” Emma said. “We’ll find a way to save you, I promise.”

“T-there’s nothing that can be d-done…” Louis said. “The time’s already almost h-halfway through, my end will come here s-soon.” He had tears in his eyes.

“Right now, everyone is doing their part to find a way out of this place,” Emma said. “Once everyone arrives here when dinner is served, we will find a way out of this.”

“Is there no way to remove the bracelets?” Atticus asked.

“Not w-without the poison going off,” he said dejectedly. “I don’t have the c-correct tools for it a-anyway.”

Just then we saw Carmen and Mia walk through the entrance. They spotted our group and sat down next to us.

“Wow, this is a strange group,” Carmen said. “If you were to give me a million guesses, I don’t think I would’ve guessed you’d all be in a group talking in the cafeteria.” No one reacted to Carmen’s joke. “What’s going on?” She seemed to start to feel the disheartened atmosphere.

“Louis has the poisoned bracelet,” Atticus said.

“What?!” Carmen yelled. “How can you tell?!”

Atticus explained the situation and after that, Emma explained our findings in the library.

“Sacré bleu!” Carmen responded. “Well, I can definitely say that you two win when it comes to who had the most interesting excursion.”

“Did you find anything of note?” Emma asked.

“Not at all,” Carmen said. “It felt like a big waste of time. Hopefully, the others have some better info for us. I’m sure everyone will be happy to know they won’t be dying though!”

“Carmen!” Emma said. “Have a little tact.”

“It’s unfortunate, but it had to be someone,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m sorry about your situation, Louis.” He didn’t react.

“We’re going to save him,” Emma said.

“I don’t see how, but go ahead and try,” Carmen responded. “I’ll help if you need me to but this seems like a lost cause now that we know that there are hidden rooms on the floors.”

“How does that correlate to anything?” Atticus asked.

“That’s right, you weren’t here when we first talked about it,” she said. “We agreed that Levi and Andrea must have access to this floor somehow and our hypotheses were that either there were hidden rooms, or that there was a hidden elevator or something to get to the above floors. It seems very unlikely now that this elevator exists since we have proved that Andrea has a hidden room on this floor. Hidden rooms are cool and all, but they don’t get us closer to the exit of this place.”

“I see,” Atticus said. “We can’t say with one hundred percent certainty that it doesn’t exist though.”

“No, but it’s highly unlikely,” Carmen responded. “It seems like whichever floor we’re on is the one they will be stationed as well.”

After Carmen’s statement, we saw Alex enter the cafeteria. He gave us a wave and made his way back to the kitchen.

“We should sit further away from the kitchen,” Emma said. “We don’t want him overhearing us.”

Everyone got up from their respective spots, except Louis who was frozen where he sat. Atticus had to pick him up and bring him with us. Luckily, Louis is quite small and looks pretty light. It was still jarring to see Atticus pick him up like he was nothing though. Looking at the clock it was now just about ten minutes before six o’clock.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Carmen said. “Why is he here?” She pointed straight at Atticus. “He’s a traitor as far as I’m concerned.”

“He’s not bad,” Emma said. “He already told us he doesn’t really agree with Cyrus.”

“We’re sharing information,” Atticus said.

“I thought Keon was clear on leaving them all in the dark?” Carmen said. “Unless he commits to working with us from now on, we need to kick him out before we discuss everything with Keon and the others.”

“Fine,” Atticus said. “I’ll play along for now. You’ve all figured out much more together than I have myself after all. I’ll admit when I’m wrong, even though it doesn't happen very often.”

“Always so confident,” Carmen snarked.

“I have every right to be,” Atticus snarked back.

“Now that that’s settled, let’s catch Atticus up to speed on where we’re at,” Emma said.

We told Atticus about our partnership with Jane, and our plan to go through all of the floors at once.

“I doubt we can trust that woman,” Atticus said.

“We mostly agree with you,” Emma said. “Keon and Marin will hopefully be able to tell us for sure if she can be trusted because otherwise the partnership will only hurt us in the end.”

“Also, this plan about going to the top floor in one fell swoop will never work,” he said.

“We’re all a little skeptical as well,” Carmen said. “It’s the best thing we’ve got for right now though.”

“It seems like something that will get us all killed very quickly,” he said. “There’s no way they are going to make it possible for us to easily break through all those doors one after another. They’re not that dense.”

“You’re probably right, but we don’t have any other options right now if we want even a slim chance of everyone getting out,” Emma said. “We have to assume that they won’t want to kill us. They want us to kill each other. That’s the whole point of these bracelets. They want to push us to the point where we might go through with a murder plot.”

“It’s possible, but there’s no way they’d just let us go,” Atticus said. “You have to imagine there’s a failsafe of some kind.”

“Let’s just hope that we can come up with a good strategy once the others return,” Carmen said.

Just then, we saw Marin and Keon come into the room with Amber and Conrad following behind them.

“Speak of the devil,” Carmen said. “Welcome back guys. We have a lot to discuss.”

“I take that to mean that the search was fruitful?” Keon said.

“We’re not sure what we gain from this information, but we definitely learned a lot,” Emma said.

“I see,” Keon said. He then looked over at Atticus who was sitting with us. “Do I take this to mean that you are joining our group, Atticus?”

“Yes. For now, at least,” he responded. “I can’t exactly stay in my dorm with Sienna refusing to let me enter it during the day. She’s truly one of the most difficult people I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet.”

“I’m sure she’ll come around, eventually…” Amber said.

“Welcome to the team, Atticus!” Conrad said. “It’s nice to see some people are finally understanding that teamwork is the only way to make the dream work.”

“That aside,” Keon continued. “Tell us what you all found.”

Emma and Carmen took the reins when it came to discussing what we’ve learned about the bracelets, the library, and the secret surveillance room. After hearing that Louis had the death bracelet, Keon and the others offered their own bracelets to try and solidify the answer even further. They all fell perfectly into Louis’ hypothesis, and it seemed as though he truly did have the death bracelet.

“I’m truly sorry, Louis,” Keon said. “We still have time to get out of here though and potentially have someone deactivate the bracelet before it’s too late. We just need a plan. Conrad and Amber, please share with us what you have found out about the staircases.”

“Of course,” Amber said. “It’s really really solid. We were inspecting it, pulling on it, throwing our bodies against it, it didn’t budge an inch.”

“With the immense amount of pressure this entire building is under because of how far underground we are, it’s not a door that can be taken down through sheer human strength.” Conrad added.

“What about the lock?” Keon asked.

“It’s a password lock,” Conrad added. “It’s ten digits, so there’s no way to luck into a correct answer. There’s also no keyhole to be seen. It’s virtually impossible to get through.”

“Are there s-screw holes anywhere?” Louis muttered.

“Uh…yeah! I think there were, but they were very small,” Amber said.

“Th-there should be a way to unscrew the front of the e-electronic lock to override it,” Louis said.

“Seriously?!” Carmen yelled. “Can you do it?!”

“I’ve d-dealt with electronic locks many t-times, it won’t be simple, but I should be able to d-do it.”

“We’re going to need a set of tweezers from the housekeeping quarters,” Keon said. “We should be able to use that as a screwdriver.”

“This plan just got a lot more doable,” Emma said. “If we manage to get the elevator code from Levi, and if Louis can override all the locks in succession we could really get out of here.”

“There’s still only a slim chance this is all going to work,” Atticus added. “How do we get Levi to give us the code?”

“We’re going to have to hope that it’s either written down somewhere or we can physically get him to tell us,” Carmen said.

“So, we torture him?” Amber said. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“We’ll figure that out when we get to it, but when the time is right, and it’s life or death, I am absolutely torturing that S.O.B.” Carmen said.

“We have an even bigger problem before any of this takes place though,” Atticus said. “How do we find Levi?”

“Based on the information we have, we can assume that he is in a hidden room on this floor,” Emma said.

“We don’t need to worry about finding him,” Marin said in a serious tone.

“She’s correct,” Keon said. “We know where his office is. You are correct in thinking it is on this floor. The entrance is concealed within the housekeeping quarters.”

“Did Jane tell you?” Emma asked.

“She did,” Keon said. “We also saw the mechanism for ourselves, so we believe her. It’s a good thing that he didn’t come out while we were discussing things. She told us that he had left a little while before we got there, and it seems like we know where he ended up going.”

“The library…” Emma said.

“And it seems like it was a good thing too,” Keon added. “I’m glad you’re both safe.”

“So, we now have a plan and all the steps that will make it possibly successful, so the last question is, when should we do it?” Carmen said.

“We’re going to go before dawn,” Keon said. “Everyone must be up by 4am to participate. It’ll be a good idea to go while it’s possible that Levi will be sleeping. He’s only human after all.”

“What about the others?” Amber asked.

“Those who aren’t cooperating won’t be joining us, but we will come back for them when we get help from the outside,” Keon said.

“What if we’re in the middle of the desert or something?” Conrad asked.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Keon said. “If we manage to get out, that's all we can hope for. Everything else is secondary and will be dealt with later. Okay, so is everyone okay with and clear with the plan?” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Then it’s settled. I’ll get the tweezers from Jane and let her know the plan, in the meantime, let’s eat and then split up for now. We’ve all worked hard today. Make sure to be present at the nightly headcount though. Also, Marin and Ryder, you’re both on lookout duty tonight.” We both nodded.