Look Closer

Maze

"What happened Room?" I shouted, angry that I was just about to be able to read the note and then the lights were cut off on me.

"System override. I am no longer able to process your request. Goodbye."

"No! No! Wait I still needed that!" I slumped against the door, still keeping my finger on the letters so that I could find them, but felt like dropping it, wondering why I was even keeping it on there when it was pointless. That was my best plan, and now I'm left here trying to find pieces of something that I can use to make this work.

I thought back to when the room was bathed in light, and started thinking about the things that I knew were around me in the room. There is a door right behind me, and the entrance to the maze was right in front of me. I remember seeing something to left that almost looked like stairs, and the stairs were leading up to the top of the door, where a black block resided.

I heard a female voice cackling through the speakers and knew instantly that it was Julie. I dropped my finger and crossed my arms turning away from the door, waiting to hear what she was going to ridicule me with this time. "Want to learn something cool Gabrielle?" That was so similar to my father's choice in words that I could almost feel the steam coming out from my ears.

"What do you want Julie?" I snapped, standing up to yell at her.

"Wow someone's feeling feisty. I-"

"Well of course I'm feeling feisty, someone just turned the lights off in the room! I was about to read that message on the door!" I kicked the door and then realized that it was a terrible idea as my toe started throbbing.

"I just came to tell you that I was the one who cut off your access to the room. I told you there would be a clock, not that you could order around the room to do things for you. That's technically cheating."

"But I figured out what kind of room it was all by myself! I figured out what I could do with it and tried to solve my own problems! Isn't that the point of this?"

"No. The point of this is to get out of the maze. You can only use the clock."

I walked over to the left side of the room and felt around the part that I knew to be a wall, trying not to let Julie know that I knew where the stairs were. I knew that from here I could easily run up the stairs to get to the black object, which I figured was the clock. "So it shouldn't be a problem to keep the clock on for the rest of the time that I am in the maze, right?"

Julie scoffed and I knew that she started thinking that she could taunt me again just because I wanted the clock on. "Well sure you could, but wouldn't that just cause anxiety? The minutes ticking down and the red numbers stamping their image into your skull. You sure that you want that?"

I swallowed down all my worry, knowing that my plan was more important than letting myself overthink this one small fact. I looked back at the door, remembering exactly where the letters were, and made sure not to look up on top of the door. I needed to keep this plan to myself, so that I could do what I wanted before she could stop me.

"Do it. Keep the clock on for the rest of the time. And don't ever turn it off."

"What, do you have some kind of plan with this clock. I'm just gonna tell you right now that it won't work, the clock doesn't light up your note, so stop this foolish plan before you hatch it."

I waited until the clock came on, bathing the room in red, before I made my move. Time seemed to slow while I was moving at breakneck speed up the stairs. One foot pounded in front of the other and I was at the top of the stairs before I realized it. I turned to left so quickly that I could hear something crack, but didn't have time to check what it was. I reached the black box and saw that it was attached to a black cord. I shoved it over the side, seeing that the black box fell to about the height of the message and made sure that the cord was sturdy enough to hold it. I turned 180 degrees and sprinted back down the stairs, finally able to read the miniscule carved letters in the door.