House of Trap

18 | Q&A (Part2)

The available categories were all unfamiliar to the seven players remaining. They could've easily obtained a perfect score of 100 if everyone else were still alive, owning up to their own majors they excelled in. But with their absence, the current survivors just had to hope for the best. Maddie didn't think much when she picked out the next category, culinary arts. It was a tribute to Harvey whom they lost during the very first game.

What is a culinary term referring to the organising and arranging of every ingredient a chef requires during cooking?

The confidence faltered from Bree's smile. Whatever sense of hope she had came crashing down like a bursting bubble. Instead of thinking of the answer, she now wondered what would happen when she chose the air element as her punishment? Would the glass chamber recreate a typhoon?

Seconds ticked by, and the red 'Give Help' button appeared on everyone else's screen monitor again.

"I don't know the answer." Bree looked at them with slight panic. Some stared back with coldness, some with confusion, and some with doubt. A part of her wondered whether anyone was willing to help.

Suddenly, a loud ping resonated through the room. The big monitor in front displayed a new text stating 'you received help.' Someone had pressed the red button.

Bree's eyes quickly flickered to the rest, staring at whoever was now busy writing down the answer.

It was Maddie.

"Mise en place," the younger one spoke at the same time as she wrote, a habit. When she submitted the answer, it was signed as the correct answer, and their score increased to a perfect sixty.

"Thank you so much." Bree would've gone over to give the girl a hug if she could, but the glass boxes separated them.

As everyone else were cheering at the increased score, Damon was the one who stared at the young girl skeptically—amazed, but still skeptical. "How do you know this?" His question interrupted other's cheering.

"Mise en place means putting everything in place in French. We use this term too in psychology whereby it means that a person's stance towards an environment will place constraints to the perception of what they should and can do," Maddie answered flawlessly. He was testing her, but she proved she knew her stuff.

"It's a good thing you knew the answer to it," Bree said, still smiling at the fact she was saved by Maddie. The younger girl truly stood by her principles to help one another out.

Bree hesitated for the next question she would give to Damon, but finally settled for pharmaceutical science. She wasn't sure what the guy excelled in aside from criminology and being an annoying jerk.

What is this the chemical formula of C21H22N2O2?

"What the..." Damon trailed off before cursing a profanity. He turned to Bree with a glare.

"I'm sorry. It's not like there was anything else you could've answered anyway," Bree shrugged apologetically.

"Might as well drown me now. I won't be able to answer this," Damon mumbled.

"Only Shirley could've answered it," Ashlyn said, remembering the time when Shirley had shown her that bottle with a similar mind numbing formula on it. They were at such a loss without the rest.

"My red button is gone!" Maddie suddenly yelled. She had waited several seconds, knowing this was around the time when the button would appear on her monitor. But there was none.

"I guess you can only help everyone out once," Ethan said. He'd like to press the button, but could not think of the correct, or a possibly correct answer.