Eyes Closed

Third

We gather over him.

"It's just nothing." Aria mutters, holding the binoculars.

"Look closely." Helios says.

I grab my own set, looking at what Helios is pointing at.

"Zig-zag?" I ask. He stares at me ridiculously. I think deeper and my eyes widen at the realization. "Patterns!"

"Yeah. I noticed that each bed had the same pattern but different numbers of zig-zags in each row and column."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Nate asks lamely, obviously not catching the gist.

"Does this have some kind of message we have to crack?" Callum asks Helios gruffly.

"I don't know." Helios answers dismissively.

They turn to observe the other mattresses not convinced with Helios' finding. But I think it's our solution to whatever is happening.

I jot down every measurement and number I can find from the mattresses. The rows, columns, intervals while also doing my best to keep a safe distance.

After a few hours, I get #7F00FF. The F is purely experimental since F is number 6. I also have #760066, #GFF00FF...

"Find any?" Aria asks.

I glance at her then back to my notebook. "I'm not sure. I have these numbers and letters but there's no anything for entering a code.

There is only a small wiring compartment in the side of the bed, probably for the heat comforter.

She looks at my notebook and immediately says, "Violet."

I look at her weirdly and she simply laughs.

"Oh, I kinda had this weird obsession about color violet when I was ten. I saw it when my mom was taking me to a flower shop and then I fell in love with the color immediately. I then studied every information I could find about it, including its hex code #7F00FF." She explains.

I nod then looked down. It does kind of make sense, I thought to myself, a bubble of hope forming inside me. "If it did mean the color of the wire, how should we know if we should cut it or leave it?"

"Why not try it all? It often means to cut it, so might as well try that first."

"What if it explodes and we end up dying before we even figure anything out?" She stops for a minute, imagining also the worst events.

"I'll call on the others." She says.

Once we've gathered, I explained to them what I found and our theory about the code.

"So you're telling me that we're just going to cut random wires based on random numbers knowing that it might kill us?" Nate tilts his head at me, giving me an 'are you serious' look.

"What choice do we have? I think cutting the wire is a go." Ella tells Nate.

I glance at Callum and Zade whom seemed to have a conversation of their own and agreed to the plan. They are now wearing their protective gears.

"Yo, my men, halt! Even I think this is a bit crazy!" Helios stands up trying to stop them.

"Like she said, what choice do we have?" Callum answers, referring to Ella.

"This has been unhinged the moment we stepped foot here. How is anything considered safe or harmful?" Zade adds.

"To those who don't want to do it, there's a panic room underground." Aria speaks.