I awoke that morning along with everyone else, and hadn't had to wait long for the ever anticipated envelope. "We should wait by the door to see the face behind these envelopes," suggested Duncan. He seemed more interested in the unknown face behind it than the actual letter.

"I think the mystery makes the competition more fun," I commented in reply as Duncan picked up the envelope.

"Who knows, it's probably just a delivery guy," said Victoria, ruining our fun. We all gave the suggestion some thought before realizing how true that it could've been.

"How about you read it," suggested Amberline, talking to Duncan. He stared at the envelope for a little and shrugged.

"How about someone else? I just like listening to the letter, not reading it," he replied. Nobody seemed to give his declining the opportunity a second thought as Victoria reached for it to read.

"Okay," she said, tearing it open. When she finally got to the letter she read aloud, "Dear Gamers, in today's competition you, again, won't be directly fighting another team. This time your score will be accounted for by speed, level of success, and how well you all seemed to work together. Todays competition will be called Escape The Room. I hope you all do well, pay special attention to your surroundings, have patience, and as always; good luck gamers."

"Short and to the point," said Duncan. "It's kind of disappointing."

"Hm," said Amberline, seeming to reread the letter. "I didn't expect anything but shooting games in a virtual reality competition. Especially this one, where the pain is so real."

"You have to admit, it would be really cool to actually be in the room," Parker said, not sounding nearly as excited as his words alone would have made you think.

"Do you guys play these types of games?" I asked with curiosity. Looking around I saw people shaking their heads, except Parker. He was too afraid to stand out like that, he wasn't prepared to embrace his inner nerd in front of us. At the same time he hadn't wanted to lie about something that could cause us the game.

"I've played a few in my lifetime," said Duncan, breaking my train of thought. I looked away from Parker and saw that Duncan's face showed that of last nights. Whatever emotion that he displayed, I still couldn't tell.

"Great," said Amberline, probably noticing my inner turmoil and smartly changing the topic. Well, almost. It wasn't the change I needed, but it was enough for a distraction. "Seems how you're the only one who holds wisdom in this type of game, enlighten us. What should we do?"

Amberline wasn't being mean, she was just genuinely curious. Those jokes were just a part of herself and though I liked that she was being real I couldn't stomach how she'd said it. She wasn't mean, but it seemed too kind. I brushed off the thought, telling myself I was thinking too far into things and I shouldn't be concerned about her like that. She was her own person, entitled with rights like everyone else. She could say what she wanted how she wanted and it really shouldn't be my concern.

Duncan gave as much advice as he could, trying to sound experienced when he really wasn't. I assumed 'a few times' really did mean just that. A few. So his knowledge was limited, though we took his advice seriously as not to ruin his confidence, which I also assumed was a show. We all got suited up and arrived at the lobby just in time.

"Gamers!" said the voice overhead, properly getting all of our attention before continuing their speech. "We haven't much to say, only that you should have good communication and be aware of your surroundings."

The people in charge had seemed to want to talk to us less and less as the competition progressed, and before I knew it the ritual began and I found myself in the white box again. They hadn't given us a weapon or armor, so we were just in our plain orange suits. Part of me was glad there wouldn't be any respawning; though I had liked the familiarity of choosing a weapon and armor. Once we were all there, the lights started flashing and we seemed to be sent to the scene earlier than all the other times. It probably had to do with the fact that we were directly sent to the room, no waiting for others to finish.

Around us, we were in a sort of office. We all dispersed instantly and started looking around. We knew that speed was the biggest thing, and the other categories were only so they could choose who won. After winning last time I think we all accepted Duncan's theories more openly. Together we found a door that led to a garage, a computer with a note written on it, and a bunch of seemingly pointless books surrounding us.

"Man, am I glad we have Parker on our team," joked Victoria.

"I'm sure there's a smart person on every team," he replied with his earlier insecurity. "Let's read the computer first."

We all agreed and Amberline read, "Four shapes that attach to one bar. Find them all and thou shalt be set free," she looked around, probably for any visible shapes.

"This isn't the sixteenth century, why the fancy wording?" Asked Victoria, I was sure she didn't care if her facts were right, so long as her point was exaggerated.

We looked around some more and found that behind an old bookshelf was a large vent. We all worked together to move the shelf in a way that would allow us to move freely in the relatively small room but still have access to the vent. "There's shapes on this," commented Duncan. "Like screws but different shapes."

"That just has to be our exit," exclaimed Amberline, noting how large the vent was. It was no wonder they hid it behind a bookshelf, it was so big this part would've been too easy.

"Find anything suspicious, I'm sure that there won't be shapes just laying around," I said and we all started looking around. Victoria and Amberline decided to search the garage for anything, while the rest of us stayed in the office. It was weird how we all -for the most part- got along but when given the chance we always divided in the same two groups.

"Got something!" I heard Victoria yell in the other room after a few minutes had passed by. We all rushed to her to see if it might be a lead. She was just closing the trunk of the red car that was there. In the hand she wasn't using to close the trunk was a moderately sized purple box. A closer examination showed us that there was a code, Parker tapped one of the white boxes and found that a mini keypad showed up.

"Great, another thing to find," commented Amberline. Already on our list was four shapes, and we didn't even know if this box was a red herring. For all we knew, this was just something set up to waste our time.

"Hey, they never said it'd be easy," Duncan joked. We all smiled in a polite manner but this competition was putting too much strain on us to really enjoy our time. Especially in a game so time sensitive, and all we were doing was sitting here examining a box. "Maybe this holds a shape, that means only three more," he suggested, being ever so optimistic.

"We can only hope," said Victoria wistfully.

"It actually makes sense," said Parker as he walked off around the garage. "These wooden totes seem really suspicious, we should find a way to break them. And Victoria, could you put the box you found on that table over there, so we have a collected space to put everything together?"

We all followed Parker's orders, we looked around to find the boxes and something to break the giant crates. I also kept the combination in mind, looking for that too. When Duncan found a rather large hammer we took it to the boxes and broke them one by one, searching its contents. We made sure to keep the mess minimal, though it was hard with all the random objects.

"Don't we need a bar?" asked Amberline, staring at an object she'd picked up that looked like it could attach to multiple things.

"If it looks suspicious, put it on the table," I told her. She had apparently decided it was a suspicious object as she walked over to the table.

We finished the last of the crates to find another box, blue this time. We put it next to the other box. It again had a six number combination, further assisting my urge to find them. We all agreed to keep an eye out for possible combinations but our primary focus would be finding the other two boxes. We agreed the boxes would probably be in the office, seeming how we found half of them in the garage. The room was too small for us all to be looking, the shifted bookshelf hadn't helped. Parker and Amberline offered to stay in the garage and try to figure out the combination, we would switch if it took too long because we were afraid that if we didn't work together well enough our points would be deducted.

Victoria, Duncan, and I resumed our search for boxes in the office; we hoped desperately that there weren't any boxes left in the garage. In the bookshelf we moved a large book had caught my eye. I picked it up to find it was strangely light. I opened it carefully and found an orange box. The only difference in this box besides its color was that the two last numbers were already filled in. I showed the others in the office before taking it to Parker and Amberline.

"It has numbers filled in?" Amberline asked, grabbing the box from me. Parker looked at it for a what seemed like a very long time.

"Go find the last box, when we have all the boxes we will talk together and see if these numbers hold any importance," instructed Parker. Again, seeing the logic in his orders I did as he said to do.

"Did those numbers reveal anything mysterious?" Asked Duncan as I walked back in. Victoria hadn't seemed to notice.

"No," I said, looking back at him. We all continued looking and Victoria was the lucky one to find the last box, which happened to be red. She was smart enough to realize that the computer was fake and the screen came off, revealing a box. It was such an easy trick, I had to give the people in charge credit for coming up with that.

We all left the office to join the other two, it was time to figure things out. I wouldn't be so hopeful if it wasn't for the numbers already filled in on that orange box. When we got outside Parker asked, "Where'd you find that?"

"Inside the computer," replied Victoria, proud of being so clever. She handed the box to the other two and after giving it a brief examination they deemed it exactly like the rest only red.

"There's only one thing we could come up with for sure about the boxes," started Amberline.

"What's that?" Asked Duncan, and eager look spread across his face. He longed to be part of this, but so far all he'd done was look for boxes -unsuccessfully- and break open crates.

"We know that the color on the boxes represents each number in a section. For us red is D1, blue is D3, orange is us, and purple is D4," Parker finished explaining. Amberline looked at him, she seemed to have really wanted to give the explanation. If I were in that situation I wouldn't overthink that look, but Parker's face told me that he would in fact be overthinking it. He regretted speaking and wished he could reverse time even if Amberline was only joking.

"Why is the forty two filled in on the orange box?" I asked, looking back to the two numbers that had been filled on our box.

"Our best guess is that it's a clue," Amberline replied. She, too, had gone into staring at it. Victoria was just next to her, doing exactly the same.

"Does the number hold any importance to any of you?" asked Parker, he was just as eager as anybody here, as fun as this was; we were still being timed.

Duncan got closer, though he didn't seem to read it. "Forty two is the year I was born,"

I hope you liked the chapter, I enjoyed writing the escape the Room game. The picture I put on this chapter is the story I plan to post in 2017; it's called The Savior of Souls.