Saving Time - A Caleo Story

Epilogue: The Future

The year was 2300.

A group of fourteen young women and men- all from different background and personalities -were guided inside the gigantic room without much information or even rules, except for one.

To find the recording.

Or so were told.

"Let's split, we'll find more clues that way..." One of the guys proposed. Seeing that it was universally accepted, they began pulling out everything that could hide some sort of clue. Many of them were very excited, almost no one had reached this level of training and they were privileged enough to try. Other were too focused on the task in hand.

"Found something!" One of the young women announced, after a struck of inspiration to check the floor. She pulled out a rectangular wooded piece, obviously made of different colors. It was puzzled together. "What do you think it is...?"

"Looks like a Chinese puzzle..." A man next to her suggested. He had seen some of them lying around his childhood home. "Mom had them as decoration but I'm sure they hide something inside..."

"Should we break it to find out?" A strong female hand was reaching out, before it was snatched away by two pair of hands.

"Are you-"

"-insane?! You could-"

"-have locked the-"

"-mechanism and we'll never-"

"-figure what's inside!"

"Enough twin talk, Stolls!" Two female hands found the back of the siblings' head and smacked them. "As much as it pains me to agree with the Terrible Duo here, I suggest we try not to break anything... if anything, this looks like an antique and do you wanna pay for it?" The woman seemed conflicted before dropping the idea.

"Got it!" The first one talking grabbed it from the siblings' hands and began playing with it. The group could hear how the mechanism was moving and fitting in the right place before the top of the piece snapped open and showed a small key, along with the number 3.

"That means we have to find one and two." Another young woman too charge and started to look around the room again. Soon, more different puzzles were found and, thanks to some team work, they managed to find number one and two, but also numbers from four to ten.

"The order means something, right?"

"It has to be, I don't see anywhere where ten keys should be put in order..." Everyone looked around, hoping that by some miracle a ten-key lock appeared. As that didn't happen, they were back to square one.

"I wonder..." One of the younger girls stared at the keys, placing them in order of number. Seconds later, she was piling them like construction bricks, each of them fitting inside the other. Everyone congratulated her, leaving a blushing lady with only one massive key in her hand.

"Still with the lock theory..." The search was now for one big key lock. Paintings and furniture were moved until they came across what seemed to be a decorated mouth that came out of the wall. "I'm not sticking my hand inside..."

"I'll do it." The taller of the male- and the one who had organized them in the beginning -grabbed the key and slowly inserted inside the hole before releasing a long loud screaming- that made everyone else scream in surprise. Soon, the guy was laughing at everyone. "S- sorry, I- I c-couldn't re- resist..."