Running water.

That’s all Thena Suna hears.

Is Thena at the beach?

With a pounding headache, her eyes flutter open. She squints to let a minimal amount of light in, so she doesn’t blind herself.

With a quick glance around, it’s the faucet. It’s running. So no beach.

She has a moment of remembrance when she and her siblings went to the beach. Tayden and Tula goad her into the sea just to tackle into the waves.

Where is she?

It’s clear that she’s in a kitchen, but she’s never seen this place before. The cold tiles under her are checkered like an old 50’s diner. The cabinents are a rich dark oak. It’s fairly modern. Counters are white, maybe marble.

Not much otherwise. No stove or oven or microwave. She’s laying in the middle where an island could have been or a table. Right in front of her, above the sink where a window normally would be, is a painting of a beach. It’s beautiful, with such fine details as if reaching forward, she would feel the grains of sand.

So she wasn’t that far off with guessing a beach.

“How did I get here?” She asks herself. She doesn’t remember even leaving her house. Standing up on shaky legs, she leans onto the counter and twists the faucet so the water stops running.

Without the constant sound, she notices the quiet. No one’s around.

That is until someone speaks, “Thena Suna, you have been chosen.”

It’s like a person voicing a commercial. Perfect pronounciation and pace. Most likely a recording.

“You have been chosen to escape this room. You have exactly twenty-five minutes. If you do not escape in the given time frame, your opportunity to escape will be terminated.”

Two things stick out to Thena. The time limit and termination.

If this is an escape room, those are usually an hour. And doesn’t end with any terminating!

“Is this an escape room?” She asks, hoping the voice would confirm her hope.

“A game of sorts. A serious game with serious consequences. Good luck. Your time starts now.”

A clock on the counter blinks to life. It is a black square box with red numbers not counting down from the given time limit.

Immediately, she springs into action, taking in every detail she can. Having been in an normal escape room before with her siblings, she knows that she can do this. There’s just never been this kind of pressure before. The life or death kind of pressure.

The sink works. There’s a fridge across from the sink. A pretty old looking one that is white unlike the stainless steel faucet. Those are the only amenities in the kitchen. There’s no exits. There aren’t even places where any doors were covered or anything.

The fridge doesn’t open, so that’s a dead end. Opening a few drawers and cabinets is fruitless since they are all empty.

It’s pretty barren. The standout item being the beach painting.

The only things in this space that are extra seemingly are a few books stacked on the counter.

Three books.

Laying them out to see all the covers, they are all hardcover, travel books with beaches prominent on the covers.

Ok so the beach is important.

Glancing at the time, she sees just about five minutes have gone by. Just as she sees the 20:01 turn to 20:00, the voice speaks.

“Twenty minutes remaining. Good luck.”

Staying calm is key. That’s what Tayden would say. Take in everything. She hears her own words echo in her mind when she and Tayden and Tula were in one together. She said, “Nothing is insignificant.”

She needs to listen to herself.

“Ok, Thena, look at the books,” she coaches herself. They are the only real option for clues. Because clues leads to revelations and revelations lead to possible escape. Or a vehicle for escape like a key.

In a quick fan of the pages, she doesn’t see anything abnormal in any of them. No highlights or underlines. No words bolded or crossed out.

Taking note of the amount of pages of each book, there doesn’t appear to be any significance to them. There are so many parts that could be hints in books. What details matter in this escape room?

“15 minutes remaining. Good luck.”

The last part sound mean spirited. She tries to ignore it and keep going with her inspection of the books.

As she goes to check the table of contents of one book, something is nagging at her.

The title on the page is _Best Beaches: 100 of the Most Incredible Beaches_. Flipping to the cover, the words don’t match. _Wish I Was Here: The Most Extraordinary Places on and Beyond the Seashore_ is what the covering reads. The plastic outside isn’t with the right book.

Taking all of the covers off, it brings the biggest clue. Underneath each three cover are engraved numbers. Each book has one number. Her fingers run over the indents.

24, 1, and 19

What do these numbers go to? Are they a combination? A date?

“10 minutes remaining. Good luck,” the voice warns.

Her jitters increase, but she tries to tamper it down. She needs to get out of here. See her family again.

Taking a deep breath, she sets out to find what the numbers mean. She’s not going to go through the drawers again. It would be a waste of time. These numbers have meaning. Everything has a purpose in escape rooms. Whether it is a hint to lead you to a clue or a red herring, it is there for a reason.

The only thing she hasn’t physically checked is the beach. The painting of the beach.

Going up to it, she concentrates on all the strokes of sky and water and every piece of sand. In the corner, it’s signed. A cursive _C.M. _is in light ink. She keeps those initials in mind. Nothing else stands out to her as odd.

Without her siblings here, she feels off balanced. Whatever one of them lacks, another one makes up for it. She’s missing something.

Well she’s missing a lot of stuff in this moment, but she longs for something that doesn’t quite know.

It takes her a precious minute to realize how quiet it is in the room. That’s it.

She’s longing for Tayden’s commentary and ideas and Tula’s constant need for noise and movement.

Remembering Tula’s fidgeting that helped them complete a much less dangerous escape room, Thena moves her fingers across the wooden frame. She feels along all the sides, hoping for a crease.

When her fingers reach around the right side, there’s a groove. It’s big enough to get her fingernails underneath and pry. A pop echoes in the room as the painting swings open like a little door. Behind it is shiny metal. It’s like a safe with a keypad for a combination.

24, 1, and 19

What order do they go in? She tries the way she found them. Each press of a button makes a beep.

The litte digital screen shows the numbers as she inputs them, but when she has them all in, nothing changes.

There’s a little underscore behind the 9. She’s missing a number.

“5 minutes remaining. Good luck.” It actually startles her this time and she almost jumps from her position of being hunched over the counter, staring at these numbers.

Her little alarm bell goes off, a big siren inside her head. If this were _Inside Out_, all her emotions would be running around frantic.

Several minutes until termination. She needs to get through this. She _has_ to.

“Look at the big picture Thena!” She hears Tula say, enthusiastically in her mind. “Not everything is in the teeny tiny details,” Tayden jokes.

They’re right. She needs to take a step back. After putting the beach picture back in place so the room is how it was when she got there, she literally moves to the far end to view the whole space. “Ok, big picture, Thena,” she chants to herself.

A different viewpoint doesn’t change anything. At least at first.

Her eyes sweep the room but continue to land on the beach. It’s just so eye catching.

But lingering on it from a distance, she sees something. In the sand, there’s something. She wouldn’t have seen it up close, but there’s an illusion of a number. It’s like one of those weird illusions that hurt your eyes if you look at it too long.

You have to look at it a certain way. And she was.

0

With renewed energy, she outs it in, but the screen shows incorrect in red. Ok, so different order. Taking a glimpse of the clock, she had 2 minutes and 27 seconds.

The grouping of these numerical values have to mean something.

24, 1, 19, and 0. The new number has pair with one of the others. She can feel it.

Does it go with the 1 because it’s the only single number? Is that too obvious?

But when she does add it to the 0, making it 10, it clicks. It must be a date.

10/24/19 or 10/19/24

Immediately, she presses the numbers in trying to be quick but efficient, being careful not to hit the wrong ones. The first combo she tries produces the incorrect label.

She tries to calm her heart from its rapid beat and her hands from shaking. 40 seconds left. If this is wrong, then this is the end.

Tapping on the 4, she holds her breath, waiting for the decider. Existential Crisis incoming.

**_Correct_**

A click sounds. But not from the safe. Behind her, the fridge is open. It’s a door.

Running away from this horror room, she yanks the door to create a bigger gap and rushes through.

Thank goodness. She escaped.

Except, she’s in another windowless, doorless, exitless room. It makes her want to cry.

But what shocks her more is who is in the room with her.

“Tayden? Thena?” Tula says, incredulously.

Her sister is favoring one side and is lugging a small gold horse statue.

She meets Tayden’s gaze. This is the first time she has seen him have that look of confusion on his face. He is usually so calculated and confident. But now he seems so unsure.

Whoever brought them all here isn’t done with them.

Not by far.

———

(This is a different perspective of 25 Minutes. In that one, I wrote about Tula and her escape room. I do eventually want to write about Tayden’s view.)