Clues
2055 Words
I feel the oxytocin surging inside me. Irene... her clinging is... I can't explain but it gives me a lot of this... GOOD FEELING!!! That's right, I'm a genius! Bwahahaha!
“Okay!” I tell her as we stand up. She's still holding my arm—my God!! We're like a real couple now! But she lets go when I walk to the desk to put the head on it. I want her to hold me more.
“How do we get the combination?” she asks.
“Hmm...,” I hum, trying to think. “Oh, right! The animal figurines on the shelf.” I point at the corner where they are. She looks that way. “They must be some kind of a clue to solve the combination.”
“How?” she asks, looking at me, smiling with her eyes shining. She wants to know what I think but I don't have a clear idea yet.
“I don't have anything yet but we might have if we could connect them to another clue we can find.”
“Let's go!” she cheers. Looks like she's enjoying this more than I do.
So, went on to find clues from every part of the room. She is so focused on looking at the walls and chairs and desks, not missing an inch to check. I can't focus because she looks adorable like this. *Ahem*
We gotta focus on the goal. We have to get out of here before the time runs out. We barely have enough time left—I suppose. It has been 15 minutes so that gives us 15 minutes left to get out. I don't want to lose because “Gamers Don't Lose.”. Also, I don't want to disappoint her.
I'll run 100 percent of my brain even just for this time!! Here we go!
Animals, bulletin boards, books, head, desk, newspapers, threads... I feel they're connected. There must be something I could make out of them. I'll check the bookshelf.
One by one, I skim through the pages of each wildlife book. I found nothing. All I know is that they're about animals of different continents.
To the bulletin board, I search in the hope to find something that will connect the things that we have discovered. That's when I realized there is a map of Africa pinned on the board with pinned notes, connected by red threads. The notes are saying something about the animals they found.
Wait... Animals, Africa, threads, wildlife books...
“I got something,” I mutter.
“What is it?” she asks, standing beside me.
“These routes on Africa, they're talking about the animals they found and all the animals they found are cheetahs, elephants, warthogs, and hippos.”
“Just like the figurines!” she adds.
“Yeah, so they're connected.”
“Let's go and check.”
I follow her there and we check the figurines one by one. As expected, there's a clue. Under them, there are numbers. The Jaguar has the number 48, the elephant has 12, the warthog has 73, and the hippo has 671.
“This is it!” I exclaim. “This could be the combination!”
“But the hippo has three-digit numbers,” she reasons. “The safe only has 0 to 100 numbers on it.”
“Oh, you do have a point.”
“Hmm...,” she hums, thinking and looking at the figurines.
My head is getting tired by the second. I have to finish this puzzle before I get completely drained. I look at the time on my phone. We got 5 minutes left! Gotta hurry! D*mn, the pressure!
Maybe these numbers are not for the locks. “They're page numbers!” I realize.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
“Let's find out.”
So, we grab the books from the shelves and open the pages. We check every book because there might be clues among them.
Then she goes, “Here!” looking at a particular book. I think it's the African one. “Its page 48 is nothing but pictures and a few notes. Could there be something that we can deduce from it?”
“Maybe...” but I'm not sure. “Let me see.” She gives me the book and I have a clear look at it. It's only artwork of an artist that depicts the African biodiversity. “There are only 8 cheetahs in here.”
“Maybe that's one of the numbers in the lock,” she remarks.
“Could be,” I nod. “But in the map, they encountered the cheetahs thirdly.”
“So, the number 8 is the third number in the lock,” she figures.
That actually makes sense! “That's right!” I agree with her.
She gives me a hi-five before saying, “Let's arrange them together!”
“Okay.”
It's easy to find the pages but the hardest thing is counting the animals that correspond to the figurines especially the hippos! I had to start over a couple of times because I thought the two humps are two hippos but actually one. She counted it in my place because it'll take me forever. At last, we have our numbers and it's time to open the lock. The problem is... how do we open it?
“How do we open it?” she asks me.
“I don't know,” I dumbly tell her as I rub the back of my neck. “Actually, I've never opened a safe before.”
“We could search on the internet.”
“Oh, right. Hang on.” I phone my phone and mobile data, search how to open a 4-digit safe then the results pop up. “Oh, it says, ‘For the first number, turn the dial counterclockwise four times and stop on the number.’” She did what I said. It sounds like the timer on washing machines. “‘For the second number, turn clockwise three times. For the third number, turn counterclockwise two times. For the last number, turn clockwise once.’”
“Is that it?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“It's not opening.”
I take a look at it and there's a button under the dial. “Maybe you have to press on that-” She presses it and it pops open.
“Yes!” we cheer together. She opens it and we're just in time. Then we found out there's nothing in it. “What?” we ask, confused.
“That can't be right,” I contend, utterly confused. “Maybe there's a false bottom.” She checks it and answers with a shake of her head.
“There's nothing in here.”
“Let me see.” She gives it to me and I confirm that there is nothing but an empty space inside the wax head. I check the time and it's already past 30 minutes. We lost. “Maybe this was only a decoy and I fell for it. I'm sorry, Irene,” I apologize.
I thought she is disappointed but then she smiles at me, saying, “No, it was fun. It was you who had a lead. I couldn't have done something myself.”
“That's not true. You connected the clues. You're very smart.”
She smiles, her teeth showing and her eyes squinting. Her cheeks look squishy that almost entices me to bite them. Not that I would but I'm just saying. The way she smiles with her glossy lips... kinda makes me... wanna kiss her.
“It's taking them too long to get us out of here, no?” she asks.
I'm startled, realizing that I almost leaned my face towards her while she looks in a different direction. “Oh, uh... yeah, ” I stir. “Why are they taking too long?” That would've been so awkward if I actually leaned. She would think badly of me. I hate myself!
“The guide said, 30 minutes, right?”
“Yeah, he did and I timed it well. Maybe it's just that their timer is a little late. We should wait a few more minutes.”
“Okay.”
So, we wait here sitting on the desk, she's at my right. We talk constantly and I feel glad that we're able to talk eye to eye without much awkwardness. I feel I'm on a roll today. My social skills are blooming. This must be the phase that I finally get rid of my awkwardness. I'm talking to my crush normally—the thing that I wasn't able to do before. I wish we could talk forever! But...
What the heck? It's been another 30 minutes and they're still not opening the door for us! What's happening?
“It's taking too long,” I remark. “Maybe we should knock so they'll let us out.”
“Okay.”
I walk to the door and knocked three times. “Hello? Thirty minutes is over!” I shout. Nobody answers. “Hello?!” I knock again. It's until a couple of tries when Irene joins me to knock. Then the lights turn off. It's pitch-black in here.
“Isn't there someone?!” she panics while I turn on the flashlight of my phone. “Anyone!”
Still, no answer. What the f*ck?!!! We're locked in here?! Wait, the time! It's already 10 p.m.! This is the time that the mall closes! Oh, my God! If no one's gonna let us out of here, we're gonna be stuck here until the next morning! What do we do?! Maybe I'll message Eli. That's right!
I open my phone and I realize, the signal here is so poor, I couldn't send a message! It just says it's pending! There are walls around us—that's why! But I used my mobile data earlier and the signal was good! Why can't it get a signal now?! Oh... the LTE relays!! They've been turned off now that the mall is closed!
“I can't get a signal,” I tell her.
“What? Wait, let me try.” She pulls out her phone and shakes her head right. “There's no signal,” she groans. “What are we gonna do?”
We could kiss- Argh! What am I thinking about?! “If there's nothing else we could do, I'll try to destroy the door.”
“But would that make you pay a fine for the damage?”
“Well, we have a reason and it's not our fault but that lazy guide.”
“You do have a point.”
“Okay, so stay back, Irene. I'm gonna bust this door open.”
She stays back and I give my phone to her so she could light my way. I step back a couple of steps. *Sigh* Here we go. I kick my feet to run as fast I can and slam my right shoulder against the door.
Painful! “Argh!!” To the ground, I fall sitting, feeling my arm and shoulder in pain! Sh*t!!
“Kev! are you okay?!”
Irene saw how pathetic I was! Argh! I hate myself! I couldn't even get her out of here!
“I'm okay,” I tell her, although my shoulder is still aching. Every beat of my pulse, it aches.
“No, you're not. You're in pain!”
“It will be gone soon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, don't worry.”
“And it was partly my fault because I forgot to tell you that the door opens this way so you cannot push it.”
“Really?!” I hit my face with my palm. “I'm so stupid!”
“No, you're not,” she giggles.
Her face is simply lighted by the flashlight of my phone on the floor as she crawls over me. Even when it's this dark, her eyes are still shining... No, they shine even more. What's this feeling I feel inside my chest? Why is it drawing me closer to her? It makes me just want to close my eyes. So, I did.
And... warm—this feeling on my lips. Wet and sweet. Warm and soft.
- Writer
