The room was pitch black, with no source of light. I figured this was part of the malfunction and due to the audio signal not triggering. The lights must have obviously not followed through.
This does happen from time to time, that's why these days most creators give you a mini walkie-talkie radio that lets you communicate directly to the workers just in case you need a hint or something is wrong. They usually respond immediately just in case there are health problems or more importantly if something breaks.
The problem is, you need light to solve an escape room puzzle no matter what because of how humans need light to take in visual cues. It's just one of the funny quirks of being a person. You need to see or else you can't really process anything. Being in the IT industry I can respect the engineers that deal with malfunctioning parts of a system so without laughing or giggling too loudly, I pushed my thumb on the little black walkie they gave me.
"Uhh, hi. Something seems to be wrong in the main room. The lights won't turn on, and there is no audio or sound playing. If you could come and fix it that'd be great." all the while in my head I'm just hoping they subtract all this wasted time from our overall time limit.
The walkie immediately replied with this loud static sound. I just waited for a response. It was nothing but static over the air. It was sort of like a vinyl record playing with a loud fan in the background.
The next thing I noticed was that no one was around me and even after calling out it seemed like there wasn't anyone in the room. I needed to justify what was happening here. They easily could have sneaked out while I was waiting, or maybe they are just playing a practical joke by not responding. OR they simply were moved to their own rooms which we all have to solve in order to meet up with everyone after, which is a fantastic (and new!) way to start your puzzle.
Pushing the idea but there we go, friends missing has been fully explained.
So I guess I should start solving this room if I'm going to meet up with them. I just didn't know where to start. I mean, it's a pitch black room. There was no usual backstory or explanation. There's really not much to do when you can't see or hear anything. I tried feeling around for a light switch or a lever, or in the case of most escape rooms with a "theme" they've got some sort of latch or magnet attachment of which I couldn't find either. I started pressing and pushing on the walls while walking and they moved back a little bit.
Wow. Real subtle creator, real subtle. Usually, a good room creator teaches you a skill which you can later use (kind of like a well-designed video game). So I just start pushing the wall further back and it stopped and clicked into place, which is a fantastic sound to hear when you're the one that made it. I figured I had to do this with all the walls so I pushed the next one on the right in the same fashion.
After about 2 seconds an alarm goes off and a green light flashes in a strobe like pattern at the corner of the wall. Which is honestly the worst colour choice for a "wrong move" alarm. If it was not a wrong move then why the alarm sound? If I made a mistake then why the green light? This thing bothered me so much, I just wanted it off.
I started feeling around some more. I noticed reaching up as high as I could, the ceiling was extremely high. I'm about 6' 1'' the last time I checked, with a jump I should hit a standard 8-10 foot ceiling. I took a small jump to gauge the height of the room. It's almost as if the ceiling didn't exist.
You know that weird claustrophobic feeling you get when surrounded by a lot of physically close objects? I started to feel that in the exact opposite scenario. As if this room was just empty space. It sure was as dark as space is. I started to get a little rattled, so I shot down to the floor and started feeling around on the floor with my hands. It was mostly a rusty cement texture. I imagine plenty of people must have walked all over this floor before me.
I started to get this weird feeling that someone was watching me. Not in the ghost-like aura sense, but more like there was someone in the room with me.
Suddenly, the walkie started murmuring with that static sound even louder than before. It stopped and then started again with this foggish haze ringing in my ear. It sounded like a microwave was running indefinitely.
Then, silence. Immediately after that, a male voice clears his throat and starts to speak.
"Don't. Move."
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