“Anything?” Andy asked.

“I think I got a Pokemon,” Brian answered.

“Hm? Oh yeah, it does look like a Pokemon,” Zed commented.

“Eh, looks more like Digimon to me,” Alex shrugged.

"Anything that’ll help us get out of here?” Andy, boringly, amended his question.

“No,” the trio chorused.

As soon as they combined the list, their group found a table in The Left Room and tried to make whatever sense they could out of the numbers they found. 

Andy is attempting to turn the numbers into letters in as many languages he could remember, apparently he knew three and forgot three.

Zed’s approach was turning the numbers into puzzles and seeing if they match with anything.

Alex tried to see if adding or subtracting, or something mathematical, based on the table’s arrangement would work. Both rooms had tables arranged differently with a different number of chairs. Again, something Brian failed to notice.

Brian just tried to see if he could do anything at all. In this case, turning the numbers into an image. Something he used to do in math class back in middle school...and the first two years of highschool….

it wasn’t hard, just arrange the numbers into a way that a shape emerges. He made some pretty interesting looking stuff, but nothing that would help. So he ran to the bathroom, looked at the printed paintings, then ran back and tried to see if he could arrange the numbers into one of the creatures on the painting.

There was the dragon fighting the knight with the princess. After that was the horse with the two horns comforting a crying girl in the woods under a moonlit night. There was a painting of a glowing underwater city with a giant turtle with a beak in the foreground along with a person clinging to its shell. A fourth printed painting had a woman flying behind some winged deer (or elk, Brian wasn’t sure) using some steampunk looking wingsuit in the sky with clouds and mountain tops in the background. Then there was last painting, it was somewhere underground with a burly man with a pick-axe mining glowing crystals next to a giant sleeping furry animal.

He really didn’t know what trying to replicate the paintings would accomplish, but he felt better doing something rather than nothing.

Eventually, though, he got bored.

With a sigh he stood.

“Hey, I’m going to walk around for a bit,” Brain said running his hand through his bald head, not even bothering to be surprised at the loss of hair this time. He received some acknowledgements but no one really said anything, too consumed with trying to figure out what to do with the numbers.

Brian stretched as he went to grab some crackers. Zed wasn’t kidding, they were dry as all hell but they had a good flavor. Better than the peanuts anyway.

He looked at the packet of crackers, wondering where the hell do they keep coming from, before he grabbed a packet that was mostly gone and popped a cracker into his mouth as he looked around.

Had someone noticed? Had someone escaped?

Thoughts like that ran through his mind.

For a moment Brian thought about telling everyone that there might be a way out. Then he shook his head.

He wasn’t normally the type of person he was acting right now, really, he wasn’t. But there was a nagging fear at the back of his mind that he couldn’t ignore. A numb sense of desperation, some buried animal instinct telling him to keep his mouth shut. He’d only incite panic anyway...or was that just what he told himself to feel better?

He shook his head.

He looked around and decided to go to the video game corner. He had already given up on the idea of getting a turn, but hopefully looking at someone else playing could help take his mind off things.

He was never really interested in video games, at least not the story aspect of it where you have to go around and collect a hundred items for no reason. He mostly preferred to play against other people like first-person shooters, races, and the like. As he got older and found himself with less free time, usually sports or work. By the time he moved out and got a full-time job, his interest in gaming had dwindled down to free games on his phone for when he was really bored.

He knew his little sister was really into gaming. She always followed the latest trend in gaming, constantly begged him to buy her something (to which he’d eventually cave-in to). Every time she’d visit him and use his TV, she’d always brag loudly to him about some streamer she followed. He never got into that, watching another person play, it was about as exciting as watching another person catch a fish with a regular fishing rod. He’d poke fun at his sister for that and she’d defend her hobby.

If only she could see me now, Brian grimmly thought as he mindlessly watched people drive karts through some sort of road made of rainbows in outer space. Who came up with such janky-ass map?

The crowd was loud, either cheering, jeering, or shouting commands that rarely get obeyed. It was like being a kid all over again; kids hanging out at the one spot with a console, crowding the TV, all hoping to get a turn to try the game out. He'd like to say he was mature, but Brian was feeling the enthusiasm slowly infect him.

Everyone started cheering while others booed. Most of the controllers changed hands, Brian assumed that the winner didn’t. The new batch of players got settled and the game began a new.

The map changed followed by a small little montage of the stadium played. A simple one this time. It did one loop but it was five laps. It looks like in one section the players go up a spiral ramp, drive off it, and then drive up the way they came while avoiding drivers going in the opposite direction. 

I don’t know how I feel about this, Brian thought as he heard a bunch button smashing right before the countdown started, guessing the players wanted a speed boost.

Nostalgia, that was it, he couldn’t help but remember how competitive he got when played Micky Karts when he was younger. How’d he sneak away from the house and run down the street to the only kid on the block with the game and play with the other kids who happened to be there. But, like it or not, he wasn’t a kid anymore and he really shouldn’t be wasting his time on this.

“WOOOO!” a girl next to him roared loudly as one of the players got a speed boost while the other players had a misfire that ended with their karts shaking with black clouds wafting up from the karts. Exhaust maybe? He couldn’t help but let out a small laugh as he covered his ear. He didn’t like it but he couldn’t help but laugh. It really has been a long time since he’s been around a proper console.

There were four players, but he decided to just follow the person who was in the lead.

The player hit some floating see-through cube with a purple tinge and another display appeared in the corner of their screen, it had a bunch of objects scrolling down like a lottery machine. The image settled on a mushroom then a mushroom appeared on the player’s in-game character’s hand. The player made a corner, aimed for a ramp, used mushroom by eating it which caused the kart to accelerate…. Brian just shook his head, it’s a game, logic didn’t count.  

It was mostly the player fighting for first place, so he looked at the other screens. One of the other players in last place had turned into a giant chomping ball with sharp teeth and a chain for tail, bulldozing through the other players. Another player threw a basketball-sized baseball at another ingame character, causing the entire kart to flip over forward. The last Player got some sort of old school remote controller for a toy car that is shaped like a gun with a trigger and a wheel on the side, the player activated it and a small toy car shot forward to a group of ingame characters and blew up, sending a few karts flying.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Brian really wanted to say he was mature, but he couldn’t help but smile at that. Odd items and characters aside, the game did look fun.  

He looked back at the player who was in first place, third place, reaching the ramp, hitting some sort of rainbow speed boost that sent him flying off the ramp that deployed some sort of glider(?) for some reason. Brian shook his head but he was smiling. As the kart glided, he spotted a billboard in the background made up of squares, five horizontal and five across.

“YESSSSSSSSS! GET SOME! GET SOME! GET SOME!” One of the players shouted, prompting brian to look at his direction. Which did nothing. He searched the screens and saw a player in seventh place tossing flowers like shurikens at other characters, causing heart animations to come off them and turnaround. Another player groaned, probably the one on the screen that got hit by the flower. It seems the player lost temporary control of the Kart.

A laugh escaped him despite how much he tried to hold it in.

He looked back and saw that another player had passed the player who used to be in the lead.

The first couple of laps went by like that, everyone using weird items on each other. There was the banana that caused a kart to slip out of control with a spin, a can of oil that left a long line of oil that made a part of the road permanently slippery. A boomerang that was reusable but could be stolen. Just a ton of stuff. Some he was familiar with, others not so much.

His sight was drawn to the player who hit some weird star and started flashing like a rainbow while a weird theme started playing. That player bulldozed through everything in the way, even parts of the map! The player sent another character flying before it reached a ramp. But just as the player flew off, some blue shell with wings collided with the player causing a huge explosion. Said player cursed loudly while people cheered and whined. Brian couldn’t help but smirk at the misfortune. But that changed when the player started driving to catch up to the other ingame characters.

Once more, Brian noticed the billboard in the distance. It was tucked away on a sandy part of the map that has another ramp that requires a boost to get to.

Brian scrunched his face. Part of the billboard was filled in with black squares, numbers were added outside the squares (left and top only) while some squares had red Xs.

He tried looking at the other screens to see if anyone else was coming up on the ramp, but they had all passed it.  

He looked at the lap counter. They all had one more lap to go.

This time he watched the player who was in the lead, first place actually, and patiently waited until the player made to the ramp.

“EAT MY DUST, HOES!” One of the players shouted.

The player in the lead activated a silver a mushroom and was able to spam it at a bunch of times, giving the in-game character constant burst of speed! A sort of tunnel vision was created on the screen, blurring everything outside the tunnel, including the bill board.  

Quickly, Brian scanned the other screens to see who was coming up next. The second player in the lead (4th place) was already flying off the ramp while tied to a spiked hornet that pulled it forward like horse, damaging other in-game characters and stealing their items. He barely had time to glance at the billboard much less observe it in detail.

He looked at the third player in the lead (5th place), no help there.

The left the last player coming up dead last (last place). The player was about to reach the ramp. Brian didn’t know if he could trust himself to get a good glimpse from just passing by, so he made a decision he was very sure he was going to regret a lot immediately after.

He quickly moved through the crowd, pushing people aside, immediately earning their verbal ire (even physical), but he ignored it and made his it to the players.

He didn’t have much time, he stood behind the players. The four were sitting down in chairs with a bit of cushion to them, playing as best they could. He couldn’t get a good look at their faces so focused on their fingers. He glanced at the screen to see the person in last place was already halfway up the ramp and noted no obstacles in the way save a single giant banana peel, he glanced back down and tried to match the motion to the fingers. Three people were frantically moving their fingers, one person not so much, a guy to the far right. Brian quickly reached over and grabbed the controller!

“EY! WHAT THE FUCK!” The guy shouted, but Brian didn’t give it any mind.

It was some weird purple controller with three handles, Brian didn’t have the time nor the opportunity to get a detailed look outside of finding the joystick, the guy had a death grip on the controller and was attempting to wrestle it out of Brian’s hands. Brian didn’t care about that, he just hoped he didn’t pick wrong. 

“THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

“HEY!”

“THE FUCK MAN!”

Right away the crowd came to the player’s defense, pulling and punching Brian, but he ignored it as best he could. Turns out he guessed right. He moved the gliding cart to the sand-covered area with a small ramp and the billboard tuckaway in the background. It was filled out now, aside from the red Xs, the squares colored black resembled a weird smiley face. He did his best to memorize what he could but he wasn’t that strong at spot memorization to begin with, especially with his body being jerked around.

Smiley face, one [3] bottom left, no number higher than a three, Brian told himself mentally as he let go of the control, sadly it was a little too late. One of the players from his left got done and landed a punch on his face.

“BACK OFF ASSHOLE!” The player shouted.

It wasn’t a strong punch, not surprising given the state everyone’s in, but for that same reason he didn’t have much padding, if at all. Weak or not, it hurt like hell!

Thankfully he didn’t see stars or get woozy, but it still stunned him.

Before he could get his bearings, he was quickly pulled away from the players, people still throwing punches with a kick mixed in the that thankfully failed and turned into a bad stump. The pair of hands holding him tossed out of the are, like a good two feet.

“Get the fuck out of here!” someone said followed by a string of insults from the crowd. But Brian didn’t care, he just wanted to get whatever he memorized to his group.

He pushed himself up to feet. He felt foot on his back that propelled him forward. He didn’t topple though, he managed to catch himself.

“Dumb fuck!”

“Who does that asshole thin-”

The voices disappeared completely, he was out of their bubble and in his own. It was a bit unreal to see no one else paying attention to him. He nearly got his ass handed to him by a mob of skinny, bald, pissed off gamers and no one even noticed.

He shook the thought out of his head. It didn’t matter. It was probably better this way.

He quickly made it back to the table he was with. Alex and Andy were talking while sharing a page, Zed was still absorbed in his work.

Brian didn’t even bother saying anything, either by desperation or adrenaline, he was focused on doing one task and one task only. He just grabbed a mechanical lead pencil and a sheet of paper.

“Ey, welcome back,” Zed said before he looked up. He paused. “DUDE!” he said loudly, getting to his feet. The loud shout prompted both Alex and Andy to look at him.

“Oh shit!” Brian heard Alex let out.

“Brian, you alright,” Andy asked in concern, Brian spared them a glance and saw the two move around the table.

Brian just shook his head, more concerned by the grid he made, five by five.

“Dude, what happened,” Zed said.

“Video games,” Brian explained as he filled it out the squares, “saw something, needed a better look.”

“Wha-” Zed looked at what Brian assumed was the spot where the videogames were set up, “you pissed off the gamers?”

“Huh, didn’t think they had it in them,” Alex said in surprise.

“Here, let me see,” Andy said grabbing Brian’s head. Brian grunted and shook his head out of Andy’s grasp.

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

“Brian, you’re bleeding,” Zed stated.

“Look, does this mean anything to anyone?” Brian said when he was done. It was a weird smiley face.

The grid was made up of twenty-five squares, ten of which were filled in with black. The top two rows of five had two vertical rows of two squares filled in black with a single row of space in between to create the illusion of eyes. Underneath the eyes, in the middle row, in the space between the eyes was single filled-in box, the nose. Then there was a smile made up of five filled in boxes, three on the last row of five and two at the very edges of the fourth row became the edge of the smile.

“Oh right, numbers,” Brian said, writing a [3] right beside the last row of five with the three filled-in boxes. “Um.. fuck I don’t remember the others, it was a bunch of ones in twos. It also had Xs in the other boxes for some reason.”

Alex, Zed, and Andy were silent after Brian explained.

“You found this in the game?” Alex asked.

“Huh,” was all Zed could say.

“You said there were more numbers,” Andy asked grabbing a random pencil.

“Yeah, ones and twos, but each row mostly had a one beside another one, the number I mean.”

“Like this,” Andy said as he began writing numbers beside each row.

“yeah-YEAH! Exactly like that!” Brian said as Andy quickly finished.

“This a puzzle?” Zed asked as he looked at the drawing.

“Yeah,” Andy nodded. “How did I not see it before,” he questioned himself.

“Oh wait, I’ve seen this before,” Alex said.

“You have?” Brian asked. Alex nodded.

“Yeah, can’t remember the name though. Starts with an N.”

“Nonogram,” Andy said with a small smile, “it’s a puzzle where you fill-in squares according to the number. The spaces you don’t fill in get crossed out with X, it makes filling the puzzle easier.”

“Right,” Alex said, “and if you do it correctly, you get an image,” she motioned at the smiley face.

“So then that means….” Zed trailed off as the group all turned to look at the pages with the list of numbers. “...this is gonna take a while, isn’t?”