JELLYFISH

DOOR 019

Behind door 071, the group had to swim through a series of pipes. They followed the green flare that had been lit, who knows how long ago, and crawled back up to the room's surface afterward, drenched once again. They took a small break before moving on.

[name] had grown used to the sad feeling of being soaked and cold. Even after walking through a few more doors, that feeling would remain as they had to resubmerge themselves, now diving into underwater halls with floating furniture rather than endless curves of metal tubes.

They hated these places the most. [name]'s senses were dulled and they had a hard time hearing and moving; not as hard as Evelyn though. Her flailing and uncoordinated movements made it clear to everyone that she had no clue how to swim. Even so, some of them helped her where they could. This meant that Emil was helping her the most, giving her the closest locker to the two of them first, so he would have to spend extra time finding his own.

[name] wanted to tell him to stop. He didn't have to help her; he should fend for himself. But [name] also didn't want to do that. It felt wrong to stop him.

He could do what he wanted. If it kills him, then that's on him.

But [name] liked Emil. [name] liked Aisha.

078, and they were finally out of the underwater rooms. An Angler had passed by just one door ago, so they were fine to catch their breaths in the small room above.

[name] looked at their wind-up flashlight with curiosity, turning it on and off, then winding it up. Aisha gave a surprised huff, nudging [name] gently on their right arm, "glad these things are built different, huh?" She flicked her flashlight on, showing that it still remained unaffected by the water. They nodded with a curl of their lips.

Ezekiel opened door 078 with a keycard and [name] swallowed the lump in their throat, footsteps echoing heavily in their mind. It was so easy, walking and rummaging around before hiding when a monster zoomed on through. Door 079 passed so quickly, going onto door 080, the numbers [name] had never reached before.

This was the calm before the storm. What was waiting for them at the end?

Two doors, one fake. The door to their right flashed, the numbers on the screen of 081 spraying orange sparks before remaining still. They moved up to the one ahead since the door on the left was out of commission. It opened after a pregnant pause that caused [name]'s heart to grow warm with nervousness they hadn't felt in a long time.

Door 082 and 083, nothing notable, nothing that set them apart from the other rooms that they had passed. Complaints began to come from Kei, Oz, and Aisha, wondering when this would be over as the adrenaline and excitement they had relished from behind them grew dull and repetitive.

"Wouldn't it make sense if it was one hundred?" Emil hummed as they walked, "you wouldn't think it'd stop at ninety or eighty-somethin'."

One hundred doors. It made sense, but it didn't help their nerves.

"What if it goes on longer than that? Like, two hundred?" Aisha commented back, her head lifting to look at the lights that hung overhead as door 084 opened to a long, stretched-out hall. Nobody responded because nobody wanted it to go longer than one hundred.

Ezekiel found another one of those red cards and offered it quietly to [name], but they shook their head and urged him to keep it. They felt weighed down already by the wetness and two other items they held onto anyway.

With the attitude of a wet cat, [name] leaned against a corner of room 085, hoping and praying that there would be some sort of heating system up ahead or a fire hazard in one of those doorways that Vanessa and [name] had used as their personal heater. The sounds their waterlogged shoes made weren't all that pleasant either, it only made Aisha, Oz, and Kei laugh like crazy, trying to create more of the sounds.