Escape Room Horror Cafe (3) — Entry
The president's eyes were pleading.
I opened my mouth.
"Hide and Seek — this one looks fine."
Yeah. Whatever. I was going to pick whatever seemed okay to me. We weren't even close. What did it matter?
The president shot me a sidelong look, but I didn't care.
The attendant smoothly gathered the list along with the papers for The Witch's Gathering in the Forest of the 13th and Suspicious Neighbor's Dinner Invitation into one white-gloved hand and slipped them into the first envelope with practiced ease.
Having handled everything with meticulous care, the attendant now drew seven sheets of paper from the second envelope and held them out to us.
"These are the contracts."
?
...Ah. A liability waiver, then.
The paper was ornamented with elegant gold flourishes, its surface covered in tiny print detailing various clauses.
...I wanted to read it, but it was written in English.
I was just starting to stumble through it when the president began rummaging through his pockets, fretting that he had no pen to sign with. I tugged my bag closer to dig one out myself.
As if he had been waiting for this exact moment, the attendant suddenly produced a quill.
"Please use this."
The club members signed one by one, then passed the quill to me.
I examined the quill that had come into my hands.
Something about it felt wrong.
It was the same feeling I'd had right before leaving the house today — that bone-deep reluctance to step outside.
In that instant, I realized what was off.
"There's no ink."
"That is quite all right."
The unease kept growing.
The longer I hesitated, the more the others stared at me — faces flushed with anticipation for the escape room, as if urging me to just sign already.
...The pressure was considerable.
Still, I signed slowly, reluctantly, rolling my eyes this way and that, doing everything I could to read the contract without being obvious about it.
...Ugh. My eyes were going to fall out of my head.
The print was ridiculously tiny.
Hmm... I shook the thought off and signed with the quill.
Scratch. Scratch.
The quill scraped across the paper's surface, and the signature took form in red.
The moment I lifted the nib from the paper, the contract vanished right before my eyes with a sharp swish.
When I looked up, the attendant was already tucking it into the second envelope with one hand.
Those hands were remarkably fast.
From the final third envelope, the attendant produced seven brown paper packets, each marked with an ornate number from one to seven — one for each of us.
We each received a packet, and I took the one marked with the number seven, giving it a light shake.
Judging by the way something protruded from it, and by the texture and sound when I shook it, it seemed to contain a small notebook or writing implements, along with other small tools.
"These are the items you will use at the location you have selected."
Ah. Clues, then.
"Please follow me."
With that, the attendant turned and walked from the reception room toward a long corridor lined with various doors.
As everyone trailed after the attendant, I brought up the rear, hunched over, glancing sidelong at the feet of the person ahead to keep my bearings.
Following carefully like that, I began secretly searching online for the English words I'd glimpsed on the contract.
Fortunately, we walked for quite a while, turning left and right around corners of the corridor, so I had enough time to search.
First... Æ..l..d.gie..dd'.s?
...Not a real word?
.....Then P..l.ed..ge..
...Pledge?
Thud.
I suddenly collided headfirst with the back of the person in front of me, who'd stopped abruptly. I nearly dropped my smartphone but managed to catch it between my fingers.
At the small commotion, I reflexively looked ahead, but fortunately neither the attendant nor the club members seemed to have noticed.
The attendant was already gesturing toward the doors set into each wall.
"Please enter your respective rooms and change into the clothes prepared for you. Once you are ready, please turn off the light inside your room. When everyone has extinguished their lights and is prepared, the entrance will open, and that is when it begins."
...Change clothes? Do escape rooms usually go this far?
Before I could fully process the question, the club members were already opening their doors and disappearing inside.
I followed suit, and the door shut behind me on its own with startling speed.
Turning naturally to look back, I could see through the narrowing gap — far down the corridor, the attendant staring fixedly at the already-closed doors the members had entered.
In the final instant before the door sealed completely, the shadow that had never once moved across the attendant's face suddenly writhed, revealing a portion of that face.
And then... the attendant's face was very slightly exposed.
For a split second I thought a great many scars covered that face — but then every scar split open, and between them, teeth like thorns ground and shifted against each other. I cried out in shock.
"—!"
Fortunately the door slammed shut at the same moment, so the attendant never looked my way — but I slumped against the door and slid down to the floor.
..
...Wh... what the fuck.
....
What the actual hell...
I kept muttering to myself in a daze until a thudding sound from the wall made me yelp and scramble to my feet.
For a moment cold sweat poured over my whole body at the thought that the attendant might open that door and come in at any second — but the sound was coming from the room next door.
"The door still isn't opening! Whoever isn't ready, hurry up!"
That was the president's voice.
I flinched at every little thing, but once I realized nothing was actually happening, I took a deep breath.
Right...
Hoo...
I'd only seen it for a split second. It could have been my imagination.
I was on edge today. Maybe I'd just seen something that wasn't there.
People were still making noise, but nothing had happened, so it was probably fine.
...Like hell it was.
I forced my mind — gone white and refusing to turn over — to keep working, thinking about what came next.
Bolt into the corridor and escape through the door we came in?
Obviously not an option.
I didn't know what the attendant was, exactly, but even that one stolen glimpse of part of its face had made one thing crystal clear.
There was no running from that attendant. No escaping this place.
And even if — though I barely believed it — I really had been seeing things, that would be an even bigger problem.
.
..
...Seeing things, my ass.
Next option: do nothing. Just sit here.
Sit tight in this space for an hour, three hours, whatever.
If the club members kept raising hell because nothing was progressing, I could slip out in that moment...
...That wouldn't work either, probably.
They might move only the members who'd finished preparing somewhere else.
And the person who never finished preparing... might get dealt with. That thought settled into my head.
More than anything else.
That word pledge on the suspicious contract I'd signed myself kept bothering me.
If they just wanted to harm us, they could have done it. Why go through the trouble of getting our consent with a contract that said "pledge," and then kindly guide us along?
So if I just followed the rules as specified in the contract... maybe they couldn't hurt me either?
...Ha. I had no idea.
For all I knew, the contract could say something like I hereby pledge to offer myself as food(?) from this moment forward. Please enjoy your meal(?).
....Fuck. All I could do was swear.
When I finally managed to pull myself together and look ahead, I saw a white dress shirt, a pair of black suit trousers, and a single card laid out on the table.
Thud thud thud!
"Seriously, get ready already!"
Goddamn it.
I cursed under my breath and scrubbed my dry face a couple of times.
I looked at the card on the table first.
1. Please put on the clothes.
2. Once you have finished preparing, turn off the light.
3. Exit through the door on the wall opposite the one you entered.
4. After it begins, open the envelope you received.
I flipped the card over, wondering if there was more, but the back was blank.
I examined the prepared clothes.
The sizes were very generous, and the fabric was thin like silk — I could wear them over what I already had on without any problem.
I put everything on quickly and moved around. No major restriction on movement.
I roughly straightened my clothes and picked up the envelope I'd set on the floor while changing.
Then I went to the door on the opposite wall, took a deep breath, and put my hand on the light switch...
...No. There was nothing saying to leave my belongings or put them down, so I should take them with me.
I sorted out my thoughts and turned around — but my bag was nowhere to be seen in the room.
I moved around, searching every corner, and only then spotted my bag half-wedged in a gap in the sofa far across the way.
Wordlessly I pulled the bag free, dusted it off roughly, and slung it over one shoulder.
A few short steps brought me back to the door on the opposite wall. I set my finger on the light switch.
I'd already felt far too much, but I prayed desperately that all of it had been my imagination — prayed and prayed again — and pressed down with my finger.
—Click.
"...."
—Clack.
With the sound of the switch, the light in the room vanished, and at the same moment came the sound of the lock on the door in front of me releasing.
It had been fine while the light was on and the room was bright — but now, with the light out and nothing but pitch-black darkness where I couldn't see an inch ahead, a chilling dread washed over me.
I awkwardly stretched out my hand, groping for the doorknob.
I hesitated a moment, then pushed the handle and stepped inside.