Chapter 1, Absurd
Waylen Whitaker woke as a briefcase careened toward his skull.
Half asleep, he rolled to the side. The heavy black box thudded against the ground, just missing his windpipe. His heart hammered in sudden panic.
As he pushed himself up, he began to make sense of his surroundings. Where did that attack come from? What the fuck was going on?
There were five strangers in the strange white room, two asleep on the ground and three standing. Waylen’s eyes locked on the one in the business suit, who seemed to have thrown it. The Suit was breathing heavily, and looked panicked.
Waylen didn’t give a damn and locked both his fists in front of him. He had his work jacket on, but didn’t have his utility knife like usual. He didn’t give a shit–-his fists could do harm if they had to.
“Good response for a civvy,” a mystery speaker said. “Stand down, I was the target.”
Waylen turned toward the voice. This stranger was a man in gray fatigues. He was tall and wiry, maybe in his early forties. Waylen’s eyes darted between him and the Suit who attacked him.
“We had a disagreement,” fatigues said to Waylen, levelling a sharp gaze. “The Suit threw the briefcase at me. This space is tight. It was a mishap. Breathe.”
Waylen kept his fists up and his eyes on the others. But the glow of the walls made him more than aware of how strange this place was.
He didn’t remember falling asleep in a white cube. There were no windows, no doors, just a hospital sterile white that made it impossible to tell the time. This wasn't home, this wasn’t work. This was wrong.
Did he get hauled in by some organ harvesters? There was a letter saying the hospital transferred ownership of his mom’s medical debt? He swore he’d paid the next three installments in advance.
Breathe in.
He clenched his fists, pushing the panic down. He had to think.
Breathe out.
He lowered his hands. All five strangers were awake now.
Fatigues kept a steady eye on them, his boots polished in contrast to Waylen’s dirty brown ones. Close to him, a forty-year-old brunette in grimy overalls tapped the white wall.
For being strangers, they stood very close together.
The Suit dragged his briefcase to himself. The clasps gleamed silver, worth more than a month of Waylen’s pay. Those movements woke the teen in the corner who immediately scooted back for personal space.
The pink-haired young woman who just jumped awake—Kayla, according to the tag on her smock—looked about as confused as Waylen was.
Through the sides of his eyes, Waylen tried to remember if he had ever met these strangers, or saw a serial killer alert with their faces on it.
Overalls grimaced. Her brown eyes darted to the wall in front of her, which was on Waylen’s left.
Words appeared on the wall like a blank white monitor screen—as if typed.
Welcome, participants. Prepare for your first Mission.
"First mission?" Waylen muttered under his breath. He pushed a hand against the wall, half-expecting it to have a hidden door somewhere. But it remained fixed in place. Were the walls one way transparent like mirrors in an interrogation room? Who was on the other side?
A charge in the air tingled Waylen, like the moment before lightning struck.
Kayla spun to face the others. “What the fuck’s going on? An escape room? And why did they choose fuckass Helvetica?”
From habit, Waylen looked at his phone. It had no reception or service. He tried to make an emergency call, but couldn’t get a signal.
Fuck, it was Monday 11:59 p.m. He’d missed work. He hated his boss almost as much as he hated how much he needed that job. They were understaffed to the bare bones and every week he was heaped with more duties and the same damn pay. Promise after promise of hiring that never came to anything. He had to stop working up his blood pressure.
“This has to be some sort of prank.” The Suit let out a nervous laugh. His briefcase was still splayed open but he didn't seem concerned with packing the paper back up. “You guys can come out now, haha. Where are the hidden cameras, maybe a social experiment? Please, let me go—ahh, my wallet, it's here.” One of his hands was outstretched with the item, the other dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.
“Well, shit,” Fatigues said, his voice harsh like grating sand. He leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. He didn’t seem worried about kidnappers. Was he too shocked to care, or too aware of something else? That brought to mind the disagreement; what had that been about? “It’s no prank, I woke up here just like the rest of you. Unless someone here is hiding a shitload of information, I don’t think any of us signed up for this. I’m Dean, Army Staff Sergeant.”
Didn’t the military have the right to conscript people or something? That and Dean could be hiding rank?
“What the hell is this?” Kayla clenched her fists. Her dull brown smock was smeared with various paint hues that matched the streaks in her hair.
Dean shrugged.
“Let me the fuck out of here,” she said, glaring at the rest of them. She twitched and punched the wall.
“Fuck. Fuck,” she said. The cold, unyielding white didn’t budge. She jerked her arm back and paced in a tight circle.
She probably wasn’t an undercover kidnapper. Her phone was in her other hand. He bet it was useless. Fuck, he left the A/C and lights on. If this place didn’t kill him, the electric bill would.
“I don’t know either, so don’t go ballistic on me, kid—” Dean said, earning a few glares but waving them off.
“I have money, however much you need!” the Suit shouted, fixing his glasses on his face.
The stocky teen in a hoodie sat hunched in the outer left corner. Frantic, he tapped away at his phone.
“Um, hi?” the teen asked, finally looking up from his useless device. He looked like he was about to throw up. “This… this is so weird.”
“We must keep our heads,” overalls said firmly. “Let’s start by introducing ourselves and pooling what we know. My name’s María. Anyone?”
The Suit finished going through his pockets and scanned the room. He probably noted there were no visible weapons. He was dressed in a navy blue suit. It was at the level of big money where Waylen couldn’t even begin to guess its price.
“No. Fuck you. Free me!” He gripped his briefcase like a hammer.
Dean chuckled and stepped forward. He stared down the Suit, like a transfixed cobra. He loomed over the smaller man with steel-straight posture. Eventually the Suit’s arms wilted.
Dean’s mouth flattened. He nodded at María. “Got no clue what’s happening, but we need to stay calm.”
Waylen didn’t believe him.
Kayla crossed her arms. “Kayla. That’s all the shit you'll get. Seriously, someone better explain fast.”
“Ya… Y—” The teenager stumbled over his words.
“Out with it, kid,” Dean boomed.
“Yashin,” the teen said, gulping. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Well, technically Yash but uh everyone calls me Yashin. Friday afternoon. I was in class, pre-calculus. Uh… I don’t know anything.”
He gestured with his hands as if in surrender.
The Suit backed into the corner, a tired frown creasing his face. His eyes flicked to Dean. “Alan Hayes, I’m in home insurance, Kalmino and Associates. I was driving home from work. If this is a nightmare, I’d really like to wake up now.”
“And I’m a mechanic,” María said. “My last memory was at the shop, Tuesday morning, working on a hatchback.”
They all turned toward Waylen, the last one to speak, like usual.
“Waylen Whitaker, warehouse worker, certified forklift operator,” Waylen said. It was weird how clearheaded he was even though he had been kidnapped, and missed some sleep. “I was trying to sleep before work tomorrow. That’s about it.”
Whatever the kidnappers wanted from the six of them, it didn’t change the fact Waylen had to get back home. No one else was going to pay his bills or stop his apartment from being cleaned out, stuff thrown to the curb—or more likely, stolen. His mom was a veteran, her care should have been paid for, but she slipped through the cracks. He would not let the same happen to him here.
María nodded. “Good. We’ve got names. Now we figure out what the hell this is. What exactly was the time before everyone got here? It seems we all remember different days?”
The brunette opened a hand toward Dean.
The man shook his head. He raised his eyebrows to Alan.
“Monday afternoon, trying to get home then go to my daughter’s softball game,” Alan said, fixing his tie.
“Well–” María started.
“Whoever threw me here is gonna have hell to pay,” Alan interrupted. “A rescue is coming, I’m sure. Then we'll have words and lawsuits.”
María glared at him. Alan took a small step back and she continued.
“I’m more concerned with the air supply,” María said. She knocked on the walls. Waylen wondered how much earlier than him María, Dean, and Alan had woken up. More info they were keeping from him. “I see no vents. Is there water? How long were we asleep?”
Waylen was an old hand at bottling up his thoughts and feelings, but an idea he couldn't snuff out wormed its way to the front of his mind. If it meant the difference between staying in this clusterfuck, or seeing his mom and friends again, he would drive his forklift over everybody in this room, except maybe the teen.
María turned to Kayla and Yashin. The teen wilted under the gaze then spoke.
“Maybe this is like a YouTube game show. We follow along and get thousands of dollars at the end? Or a yacht? Or a sports car on a yacht? Um. It could also be some live roleplay? Uh. Y’know, maybe there’s a yes button, or a verbal command—"
Before he could continue, the text on the wall shifted. The words reshaped into new ones.
Mission Objective: Escape the Mansion.
Time Limit: 2 hours.
Kayla stepped back. “Mansion? What mansion? We’re in a—”
Her words were cut off as the light from the walls went out. The floor shook like a shoddy rollercoaster and then surged at Waylen from all sides, sucked like paper into a vortex. Just before the wall squished them the room vomited them out. Waylen tried to grab onto something, but the air itself slid out of his grasp.
***
