12 Days of Christmas Capers ✔️

『Episode 9』

December 22nd

"This is a bad idea," I muttered to myself.

On that crisp winter morn, on December the 22nd, I could have been reading, or writing or playing Scrabble, or something. But my dear cousin and her friends decided that it would be just fantastic to go to an escape room.

Hestia and Hannah, along with their close friends, Aggie and Markus had planned this back in late November. But then Hetty and I had made our plans to do something every day until Christmas.

After a bit of reorganising, it worked out that I (as well as Mateo) would also come to the escape room too, and that would be mine and Hetty's thing to do that day.

I realise that escape rooms probably aren't the most Christmassy thing ever, but neither was being trapped in cinema, and we still counted that.

*

The escape room company was appropriately named, 'So You Think You Can Leave?' and was situated in a labyrinthine underground building. The walls were brick and the couches situated around the waiting room were black faux leather.

It was these couches on which we were all sat, patiently waiting to go into the escape room. I was tapping my feet and biting my lip nervously.

I'd never been to an escape room before.

Were you really locked in?

Could I be stuck there for hours?

Was I too stupid to understand what we were even supposed to do?

Hestia noticed this and squeezed my hand affectionately.

"It'll be okay," she whispered.

"We won't actually be locked in, will we?"

She huffed a laugh, "No, you're never actually locked in."

Phew.

Hetty, Hannah, Aggie, Markus and Fujika (who was currently in Japan) had completed some escape rooms, so they had some idea of what to except.

A guy in a plaid shirt and thickly rimmed glasses strode over to the couch and smiled at us.

"Hi," Plaid Shirt Guy said, in a particularly deep voice, "I will be officiating your escape room today." He handed Hetty a walkie talkie, "If you need any clues, or if you need to leave early you will use this to contact me."

"So, what's the actual premise?" asked Mateo.

"The basic premise, is that you all are 'Space Samurai,' who are in the middle of an intergalactic war. To defeat you enemy, Master Yoga, the supreme Space Samurai, has tasked you with finding the 'Death Sun' plans. The Death Sun is a weapon that has the power to kill suns. Finding the Death Sun plans will defeat your enemy 'Kurai Otosan.' To find the plans, you have to search a captured enemy space shuttle. But the plans are well hidden, you have to solve all the clues to find them." Plaid Shirt Guy spoke mechanically, as if he had recited this millions of times before.

"Isn't that basically Star War?" Markus asked, sceptical.

"Yeah," replied Plaid Shirt Guy, "We can't actually do Star Wars, for copywrite reasons."

*

Plaid Shirt Guy lead us to a large silver door. Grasping the handle, he swung the door open.

"Right," he said, "I'm going to 'lock' you in here for fifty minutes, remember to contact me on the walkie-talkie if you need any help."

It's okay, I silently told myself, you're not actually going to be locked in here. You can leave whenever you want, it's okay.