CRASH!!

The entire crate crumbles into possibly a thousand pieces; the sturdy safe it housed plummets to the ground with a resounding thud, sending a gust of wind that crushes some of the wooden fragments in its descent.

“Holy fuck! That safe is a beast…”

No argument there; that thing must weigh at least fifty tonnes, judging by the impact. Weird.

I stroll over to the wreckage, the remnants of the box scattered around. Among the debris, I spy two small chips of paper; just when I’m about to snatch them up, a sudden clatter interrupts the serene moment, and I jump so high I’m pretty sure I could have given a kangaroo a run for its money. We turn to see yet another tile plummeting down to the abyss.

Instinctively, my eyes dart to the timer on the wall, now displaying ‘8:27’, and dread crawled up my spine as the realisation hit me like a tonne of—well, safes.

“Uh-uhh… I—we need to move, now!”

Akagi looks at me with a mix of confusion and scepticism.

“The hell do you mean—”

I cut him off, not willing to indulge in a philosophical debate on the nature of falling tiles. Snatching the two papers, I explain to the red-haired idiot what’s going on.

“Every thirty seconds, a tile will fall.”

“So when that tile fell under me…”

“Yes, thirty seconds had passed, and you just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Akagi’s face turns pale as he realises the gravity of the situation. While I revel at the fact that three of the twenty tiles have already fallen.

“But how do you kno—”

“Just hurry up and tell us what the damn papers say!”

I glance down at the white sheets. One note has two numbers, 2 and 6, with an arrow pointing left underneath. The other note has what appears to be a code: ‘D3M7S9Z11’.

“I have an idea for the numbers, but the code is strange. Look.”

I pass the code to Shikaku and shove the other note into Akagi’s hands. Can’t trust him to hold it. Especially not in a situation like this.

Sensei squints at the code, while Akagi, on the other hand, eyes the note like it’s an alien artefact.

Pulling the note away from him, I rush over to the levers on the right wall. Above them is the painted numeric sequence: 6, 3, 8, 4.

Not dallying around, I pull the lever under the number six, the arrow points left and the second number on the note is six.

The metallic clunk echoes through the room, sending shivers down my spine. It’s not a comforting sound, and I can feel my palms starting to sweat.

“What the fuck did you do?!” Akagi’s voice is panicked, and I can hear the fear in his tone.

“I pulled the lever under six.”

“Shimizu-san, tell us before you do something. For all we know, that lever could have been an incorrect guess.”

“But sensei, it wasn’t a guess.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

Not wasting any time, I rush over to the other side of the room, taking a quick peek at the timer as I do so. The clock reads ‘8:13’, and I know that we don’t have much time left until the next panel falls.

Standing between two tiles, I urge the others to do the same and glance over at the sequence of the other set of levers: 1, 2, 7, 5.

I yank the lever under the number 2, hoping against hope that my hasty decision doesn’t lead us into some irreversible disaster.

Just moments later, a little hatch beside the doorway we entered from opens revealing… a first aid kit?

Akagi wastes no time picking it up and examines the first aid kit with a mix of confusion and curiosity,

“Look, I get it’s a first aid kit, but is this some kind of shitty joke?” Akagi mutters, his eyes narrowing.

“No jokes here. Just grab it and hope we won’t need it.”

As I’m about to ask Shikaku if he has figured out anything with that code. I notice a key in the hatch that was certainly hidden behind the first aid kit.

I grab the key, and it’s like finding a lifeline in this nightmare. My fingers wrap around it, the cool metal providing a strange comfort.

In this death room, a key suddenly feels like the most precious thing in existence.

“Hey, has no one noticed that the door we came through has a keypad?”

“There is?!”

Sensei exclaims, his eyes widening with a mix of surprise and hope. We all turn to look at the door we entered through, now realising that we might have overlooked a potential way out.

He looks at the code on the note and mumbles something.

“Maybe this is the key to our escape.”

“But have you deciphered it?”

“I may have an idea—”

A sudden and thunderous clattering noise reverberates throughout the entire room; before we can even comprehend what’s happening, we see Shikaku plunging in front of our very eyes.

“Sensei!!”

Akagi exclaims, his voice echoing through the chamber as he rushes forward to grab Sensei’s hand. I follow suit, reaching out to try and catch hold of Sensei’s other hand.

“Agh, this isn’t good…” Sensei grunts, his fingers slipping as he hands the note over to me.

Despite the struggle, Akagi pulls Sensei slightly up, and I breathe a sigh of relief. But then, without warning, something strange happens. Akagi suddenly releases Sensei’s hand, and he plunges into the darkness below.

“Sensei! Akagi-san, what have you done?!”

I scream, my voice trembling with disbelief and horror. Time seems to stand still as we watch Sensei disappear into the abyss. Akagi’s face is a mess of confusion, as though he’s just woken up from a trance.

“I-I… What the fuck…?! I… Something just—something took over me.” Akagi stammers, struggling to find the words to explain what just happened.

“Something took over you? That’s absurd!” I snap, unable to comprehend how he could do such a thing. My mind is racing as I try to make sense of what just happened. How could Akagi just let go of Sensei’s hand like that? What could have possibly taken over him?

The questions swirl around in my head, but there are no answers.

Antivoid

I don't think I'll continue this.