THE FIRST CHAPTER: Reality or normality?
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
-Oscar Wilde
His eyes wandered over the colourless ceiling, searching for a spot he could fix on. The only somewhat interesting object that caught his eye was a small spider crawling towards the place on the ceiling above him.
He could feel nothing except emptiness, which was swallowing his mind as seconds passed. Therefore, the more he observed the options he had, the more he lost all sense of time. A circular black clock, standing on the wooden table opposite the bed he was currently sitting on, was his only connection to reality, but he did not see the clock as a gift he should appreciate; it was a reminder of the time he was slowly losing.
There were exactly six things in the room: a wobbly, cheap bed, a wooden table, a clock, a grey ceiling, and grey walls, and lastly, a note on the table. When he discovered the note, which contained three carelessly scribbled words, the clock showed 22:49. Exactly 32 minutes and 17 seconds had passed since then, and he still did not know the answer to the question posed. It must have been handwritten; the handwriting was messy, so it could not have been printed. Printers are perfectly neat; humans, on the other hand, are not. Or that is at least what he thought; the more he thought, the more his perspective changed. The note on the table was rectangular; the edges were sharp and clean, and there were no smudges of ink or other traces left on the note. It was written on expensive, thick paper that felt smooth to the skin, making him think the person at least put effort into it, but that did not matter at all. The only thing that mattered was that if a human being wrote the question, a human being put him in that room and somehow watched him struggling to answer the question. The problem was that there was not a single camera in that room. He was left in that room with no possible chance of escape.
Whoever did that is either a psychopath torturing him for something he did in the past or a psychopath who watched him suffer just for fun, not great either way.
And yet the note was the only thing that occupied his mind at that moment. It was a much easier challenge than escaping the room, so he wanted to solve it first. The problem was that finding the answer to the note took a lot of precious time, and was not as easy as it seemed.
THE SECOND CHAPTER: Fiery diary
"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity"
-Edgar Allan Poe
The first thing you should do when inspecting some space is look under the beed. He thought it would be too obvious to put something under the bed in this complex situation, so he started inspecting other parts of the room instead, but to his surprise, the objects were hidden under the bed. Victory took over him for a moment; he might be one step closer to solving the problem he was stuck with.
Some of you may wonder what he found under the bed, while others already know. If you belong to the first group, you should read this chapter from the beginning and continue to read the story carefully.
He sat on the bed, this time with a diary and a pen in his hands. Was the diary intended for him to write in, and if so, what should he write about? The room was emptier than emptiness; it was colourless, simple, and overall boring.
Since he had nothing else to do but sit and stare at nothing, he opened the first page of the diary, grabbed the pen, and started writing.
Dear diary, it's just me and my thoughts. I am trapped in this room all by myself, but I will find the exit and the one behind all this. I promise I will punish the psychopath behind this. I won't do it because it's fair, I will do it because he put that ridiculous clock on the table! Not only do I hate clocks, but I hate this one in particular. What is the purpose of it if it's broken? When it was midnight, it started going backwards, which annoyed me, so I wanted to remove the batteries. I would do it, but I couldn't open the back of it.
After he closed the diary and put it on the floor next to the bed, he lay down on the bed. he closed his eyes slowly, just to open them a few seconds later. He stood up quickly, grabbed the diary, and ripped one empty page out of it. With a piece of paper and a pen in his hand, he walked towards the table on the other side of the room. He put the piece of paper on the table and started writing his answer to the question. When he finished writing, he placed his answer below the question written on the note, so that whoever was watching him could see what they were not expecting. The psychopath was surely a smart being, but this was a game for two. He walked to the wobbly bed proudly, lay down, and let dreams take over him.
THE THIRD CHAPTER: Blood and thud
"To see what is in front of one's nose need a constand struggle."
-George Orwell
When he woke up, he felt even more exhausted than before, but this time with a brilliant plan in his mind. He rubbed the sweat of his forehead while thinking about how he could improve his plan, which could be described with a single word: simple.
The clock on the table showed 17:02, indicating that he had slept a decent number of hours and was now ready to carry out his plan. While cracking knuckles and stretching arms, he waited for the numbers on the clock to go down by 2, so that he could start at exactly 17:00, not a minute too soon. The fact that he lost two precious minutes did not bother him at all; he was a severe perfectionist, and everything had to be done perfectly, in his way.
One look at his own hands was enough for him to rethink everything that had happened in this room and try to remember the details when he first opened his eyes in that room.
His hands were covered with blood spots that had entirely dried up. He immediately started checking his body, trying to see the source of the blood. When he found not a single cut, he realised that the blood was not his, and that made him feel uneasy and even more sweaty. He was so nervous that his whole body started shaking. He reached his face, ready to wipe the sweat that built up, forgetting he had blood on his hands. Then he remembered, the blood was dried up. It could not be transfered to other surfaces, meaning his face should be fine. Where did it come from, and was it there before? He could not remember, but it was time to make his plan happen; if he failed, it would be a dead end.
He grabbed the pen lying near the diary and walked to the dusty corner of the room, trying to stay clear-minded and focus on the plan, not the blood on his hands. He turned the end of the pen so that it faced the wall, stood on his tiptoes, and extended his arm as high as he could. He tapped the pen on the wall a few times, trying to memorise the sound it made as it struck the wall. Then, he moved one step to the right and repeated the tapping. When he reached the other corner of the room, he lowered the pen and continued tapping the wall, noticing his hands shook less with each tap. He was listening for a sound other than a thud, searching for secret doors and exits. He planned to examine the floor in the same way as the walls, but when he tapped the wall above the table, he realised there was no need for that. A sharp, clear sound made him tap the pen a few more times just to be sure he had heard correctly; he had hoped to hear it but had not expected it.
He started stratching the surface of the wall with the pen ballpoint, trying to reveal what's hidden beneath the grey paint, already imagining himself running victoriously out of this cage. He thought the paint would reveal metal doors that the sharp sound came from, or maybe a vent of some kind, but when he saw a familiar man staring directly at him, he dropped the pen to the ground and opened his mouth as wide as his jaw would allow him to.
There were no doors, just a rectangular mirror, and his shocked reflection staring back at him.
THE FOURTH CHAPTER: WILL YOU ESCAPE?
"As long as there's light we're brave enough"
-William Golding
He could not understand. What was the mirror doing there? Was it a joke of some kind, or was there something hiding behind it? He carefully stepped closer to the mirror, looking at the edges of it. He was hoping to see a little smudge or even a crack that would tell him there was something behind that mirror. Minutes passed, and he was losing hope, constantly looking over at the clock. When the clock showed 16:02, he finally gave up and lay down on the bed, exhausted from examining the object. He could not think clearly; his mind was full of questions nobody could answer, and yet he still thought about the clock.
The key to this puzzle, if it had one, had something to do with the clock - he thought.
He was now sitting on the bed with the clock in his hands. This time, unlike the last time he tried to pull out the batteries, he inspected the front side of the clock, trying to find a crack in the plastic or a simple mistake that could help him.
And the he saw it. A small, circular hollow on the surface of the clock, just big enought for him to see. He pressed it with his finger, hoping to see the surface crack. To his surprise, it worked, and he realised the clock had a secret compartment. Inside the compartment was a small piece of crumpled paper with a few words scribbled with the same handwriting as the note on the table. The difference, thought, was that the paper he was currently holding in his hands, while shockingly looking at it, was not a riddle of some kind but rather clear instructions: CRACK THE MIRROR.
THE ESCAPE
Against all odds, he found the exit. The vent was small, and his body could barely fit, but it was enough for him to regain the once-lost hope. He did not know what was waiting for him at the other side of the vent, but that did not matter. The blood on his hands still bothered him, but not that much now that he had survived. He finally solved the mystery of the room he thought he was going to die in, and that made him feel relieved more than ever before. He never thought the thing that annoyed him the most would end up saving his life. Maybe that was the reason the psychopath put the note inside the clock - because he knew he would never look at it. But he did it. He escaped.
The corners of his mouth slowly lifted as he felt victory coming towards him.
THE END