ESCAPE FROM BABY ISLAND

Episode Three - Part Two

The inflated obstacle course loomed large in front of the contestants, bigger than it had appeared when they were standing up. From their low vantage point, crawling on all fours–or, rather, all sixes, bound to each other hand-and-foot–it was difficult to see the best route through the course.

"Come on," Sam groaned, dragging Katie forward.

"Hold it!" Katie said. "I'm trying to figure out which way we should go."

"We should go forward," Sam insisted. Her dominant hand and foot were strapped securely to Katie's non-dominant hand, giving her an advantage when it came to towing her partner forward, but it was still a lot of dead weight.

...

Sam: "I'm trying to get us moving, but I've got this b***h dragging me down. We're not going to win if we just sit here!"

...

To their side, meanwhile, Benji and Miranda shuffled right on by.

"Left, right, left, right," Miranda puffed, keeping their movements in sync.

"I think there's a cluster of obstacles to the right that'll be hard to get through," Benji said.

Nodding, Miranda steered to the left of a pillar, navigating the forest of inflated latex as best they could. Even when the obstacles were thin, it was hard to see more than six or seven feet ahead, and certain areas had rods placed incredibly close together. A single standing contestant might be able to force their way through without trouble, but crawling in tandem, there just wasn't room.

"This way," Katie hissed, pulling to the right.

Sam hesitated, then moved along, jerking against her partner's arm. "Keep up!"

"You keep up!" Katie shot.

They managed to mostly get into sync, building speed right up until they hit a dead end. The clustered rubber pillars grew denser and denser, until there was no room to keep progressing.

"This is your fault," Katie grumbled.

On the left of the course, Benji cheered. "I see the ramp!"

"I see it too!" Miranda replied.

...

Miranda: "I wanted to hurry up, but we were making a good pace, so I stuck to the rhythm we'd made."

...

Sam stared up at the obstacles in front of them. "We have to turn around. Dammit, I told you–"

"No," Katie said. "We go through."

...

Sam: "So I'm thinking, 'what is Katie smoking? There's like two inches of space between the pillars. We can't fit through that!'"

...

"We're going to get stuck!" Sam protested. "There's not enough room."

"There is if we crawl over," Katie shot. "The rule was to crawl, not that we had to stay on the ground. We can just push these over and get on top of them."

Without waiting for acknowledgement of her plan, she started crawling forward, tugging on Sam's locked mitten. Sam followed, dubiously.

Ahead, Miranda and Benji reached the base of the slope. Big, puffy climbing grips were spaced every few feet, and the angle wasn't too intense, but it was a long ways to go from the bottom to the top.

Miranda reached forward to start shuffling up, and immediately slid back. "What the–"

...

Benji: "It's slick. They oiled it down or something, I can barely get any traction."