“An unfamiliar ceiling…” Or rather, lack thereof. I found myself still in the enigmatic white room.
I couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of my mouth, easily the most cliché thing I’ve ever said.
While recognising that I was beginning to make a habit of waking up places that weren’t a bed, I stood up and tried to recall what had happened.
“Right… the roulette table… I spun it and-” Cutting myself off I had recalled the plethora of information I had received that caused my unconsciousness in the first place.
“Lockpicking.” I stated to nobody.
All sorts of information I couldn’t have known related to the topic was relayed into my head all at once, resulting in a massive headache that put my drinking spur of last night to shame.
As I stood in place recalling things bit by bit, I let this new knowledge wash over me. Brand new topics and concepts were among them, I learnt every flaw in locks and how to manipulate the interior components to pry them open.
I was practically a walking encyclopedia now! If that encyclopedia had only one topic and it was lockpicking…
I was certain now; I could unlock any lock with the knowledge I now had on hand.
But this happened when I spun the roulette wheel, right? I’m not even asking the questions I should be right now. Like how did a magical roulette wheel give me knowledge on lockpicking? How was the book on the podium able to tell that I ‘broke into a place’? and where the hell even am I?
Walking back to the podium, the spins were listed as ‘zero’ meaning I had used it when I spun the roulette wheel. I once more glanced at the cover of the book. ‘Mastery Roulette’ it read, that certainly explains my newfound mastery in lockpicking, but that was the least of my concerns right now
I was currently stuck in the white room.
There were no exits either. All surfaces were pristine white, like a room in a video game that hadn’t been lit properly.
“Hmm, I did get in here somehow. So, it stands to reason I should be able to get out too…”
I walked past the podium and continued on into the room void of colour, holding my left hand out in front just in case…
*thud* “Ow.”
Lucky I had my hand out in front as I had run into a wall if I didn’t I would have smashed my face onto it instead. I begun feeling around the wall but still couldn’t differentiate it from the floor and other walls visually, it too was a perfect white.
This proved that I wasn’t in an infinite white void but instead a room like I had assumed. I took out a spare pen I kept in my pocket and drew an ‘x’ on the wall so I could tell where the wall was. Unfortunately, the pen didn’t work, it slipped off the wall as if I was trying to write on stainless steel. So much for that idea…
For the next few minutes, I wandered around the sides of the room and traced where the walls were with my hand. It seemed there were no secret exits, but I had successfully calculated the dimensions of the room.
The room was surprisingly smaller than I expected, it seemed to be about 10 metres by 10 metres. Only 100 square metres, deceptively small compared to the infinite void it seemed to be.
I pulled out my phone again to check the time.
“11:43 AM… I’ve spent the whole day in here?” It was afternoon when I had made it back to ‘my’ apartment and ‘broke in’, so that means that after passing out I slept for a bit under a day.
“Again, how do I get out of here?” This was my biggest concern right now. It’s not like I brought food or water in with me, and I’m already starting to feel the need for both…
Suddenly a thought occurred to me. ‘If I don’t make it out of here there was a very real possibility I could die in here.’
“…I’ve gotta get out of here.”
To my shock, I was instantaneously transported back to the empty apartment I had started in.
“That… solves that I suppose…” Come to think of it, those were the same words I said when I was crying and wound up in that place? Is it linked to me individually? Can I enter and exit as I please?
“I’ve gotta get out of here.” And I’m back in the white room.
“I’ve gotta get out of here” And back in the apartment.
Easy enough, I suppose.
Incidentally, it doesn’t seem to work by just thinking of the magic words, I had to actually say them vocally.
“What to do next?”
I needed money to live, everyone living in the city does. I need a job. My previous employer doesn’t remember me like everybody else, and I’m probably not on payroll anymore.
The only thing that comes to mind is using my newfound lockpicking mastery. I could probably do odd jobs around the city to pay for food and stuff, as for sleeping arrangements, I think I’ll just buy a sleeping bag and an eye mask to block out the eternal white lighting of the white room and sleep in there, I could also use it for storage. Very convenient.
Deciding on my future plans, I set cautiously stepped out of ‘my’ apartment, making sure that nobody saw me leave. Then left the keys inside, with lockpicking, I probably didn’t ever need keys again.
Thinking so, I made my way back to the station to get to the most well-connected person I knew.
Old Joey, of course.
