JELLYFISH

DOOR 005

Everyone was drenched from head to toe. With each step, their shoes made disgusting noises, which made some cringe. Emil and Kei unzipped the top portion of their jumpsuit, typing the sleeves around their waist. [name] thought about doing the same, but ultimately decided not to. There was no reason for it, they just decided so.

020 was one of those long, red-lit halls, but there was the sound of some hissing in the air, and then it stopped with the hissing being further up ahead. [name] squeezed by Vanessa and Kei to get a better view of what was ahead to only find hot steam nearly inches from their face. That was the hissing noise.

"We'll have to be careful," Emil commented, hand coming up to tap the pipe on his left, which was the one running alongside the wall, "the steam could leave a nasty burn." His eyes met [name]'s, his crinkled with amusement.

They turned their head away to focus on the task in front of them. They could, of course, crawl underneath the steam to avoid any type of harm, but there were also gaps between each hole where two people could stand at once to wait for the steam to stop.

Once the hissing in front of them disappeared, [name] jumped forward to the safe gap between both. They could feel the humidity in the air due to the times the steam was released, it only made the wetness of their jumpsuit all the more uncomfortable.

[name] and Kei reached the end first fairly easily, and there Kei found a wheel to halt the flow of steam. He turned it, grunting as he did so. The bubbling sound of hot water could be heard in the pipe just as it was stopped.

"Good work," Emil patted Kei on the shoulder quite hard, then on [name]'s shoulder as well. It wasn't as hard, they could tell due to the audible slap that could be heard when Emil's hand came down on Kei's damp prisoner shirt.

021, a small, octagon-shaped room. The group spread out like always and began searching, rummaging through desks, while [name] went a bit ahead, circling the entire room. There was a doorway at the center of the room that led to the inside of the octagon, but it was only a straight hall, leading to another door on the other side. There were only three lockers in this room, and aside from that middle hallway, there were no other places for their big group to hide.

"Oh! Look at this!" Aisha exclaimed, waving [name] over. Unfortunately, Oz also came over to Aisha, interested in her find. Aisha held a red keycard in her right hand, but the bottom end of it was metal, buttons lining the right side with a switch and two, glowing red dots near the corner with a same colored wire attached on the side.

"What is that?" Oz muttered, pointing at the illustration on the upper part of the red keycard, "and what is that?"

The picture was a tad bit disturbing, a black skull-like face with dark eyes in the center. There was no rhyme or reason for it, probably just a design choice or just there to fill up empty space.

Aisha pulled the card away from him, "how would I know? I found it though, so I get to keep it," she stepped back and away from Oz, hurrying off before he could speak any further. Oz huffed, crossing his arms. He muttered something to himself, eyes falling on [name], who turned their head away.

"You doing okay, [name]?" The male didn't seem to care that [name] had turned away, he just stepped in their peripheral instead. It felt like he wanted to remind them he was there, but [name] couldn't outright claim he was doing something that could possibly be an accident or subconsciously.

They nodded quickly, pushing their damp hair back, "yeah," they turned their attention up ahead, down the bending hall, "yeah, we should get to the others."

[name] marched forward before he could have a say, just like Aisha. It felt good to brush him off like that, but [name] knew just because he did something in the past...or, more accurately, in their past life, didn't mean they could pin this on the Oz of now. Yet, [name] couldn't forget who these people were. All these double negatives, meanings, and truths, they were messing with their brain. They wished it could just be given to them straight, rather than danced around.