Exodus
After a moment or so of suspicious eye-darting, Adam stuttered out, "Th-this room? I don't get it. Why would I die in this room? And that's just … vague." Pensive, Adam stared downward at his feet. Then, suddenly his breathing became hurried and his manner more manic. "This—whoever this is—is wrong. I'm not gonna die in here. Because I can just leave."
"No you can't," Lawrence grumbled.
"Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do to stop me? There's nothing. There's nothing you ca-"
"You can't leave," he reprimanded Adam, "because you're the only one who can get me out of here."
Adam just whirled his head in one direction and then another, and questioned, "So? So what. I can just leave you here."
Lawrence was fighting to stay calm in the face of Adam's flightiness. What could he say to keep Adam from leaving him alone? What?
"What about the guilt?"
"Wha-? Oh, that's great." Adam nodded, all sarcasm. "An emotion I don't even have yet is going to keep me from leaving—the room that I might die in. Yeah."
He wasn't moving, though.
Lawrence studied him for a minute, before deciding to ask for the tape player.
"Doctor Gordon.
"This is your wake up call. Every day of your working life you have given people the news that they're gonna die soon. Now you will be the cause of death. Your aim in this game is to kill Adam. You have until six on the clock to do it.
"There's a man in the room with you. When there's that much poison in your blood, the only thing left to do is shoot yourself."
The dead man thought of when he received the news of his cancer, and his drive off a cliff. Then he heard himself cough on the tape.
"There are ways to win this, hidden all around you. Just remember: X—marks the spot for the treasure. If you do not kill Adam by six, then Allison and Diana will die, Doctor Gordon, and I'll leave you in this room to rot.
"Let the game begin."
Finally, Lawrence did hear the words "follow your heart" end the tape in a whisper.
"Follow your heart?"
Adam looked at the man in front of him who had just been assigned the task of killing him. He thought to feel fear at the idea. But it all just felt unforgivably stupid, considering he was on his feet and free to walk out the door. That was, if the door wasn't locked, which felt stronger a possibility by the second. Adam should just run, though, run rather than be-
Adam was yanked from his thoughts as Lawrence shouted and pointed him to a brown heart smeared onto a toilet.
"That must be what the tape meant."
Adam gave him a look.
"Well go look!" Lawrence insisted.
"Why should I?" Adam asked, obstinate.
"Well, it's not as if I've laid a trap in the toilet!" he cried, getting impatient. "Maybe there's something in there that can help both of us get out of here."
Adam could have argued that he himself didn't need any help getting out. But Lawrence was right on two counts: just maybe there was something they could use to get him out, too; and the guilt really wouldn't sit right with him. So he complied, for once.
From his advantageous position as an unchained man standing over the toilet he opted to remove the lid. Subsequently, he removed a black bag from inside and checked the bag's contents.
"What is it?" Lawrence asked. He was hopeful, even if it didn't look like there was a key in there.
Adam revealed a hacksaw before dropping the wet trash bag.
Lawrence stared for a few moments, then shuffled around, and finally said, "Bring it here; I think I might be able to saw through this chain; bring it here!"
Adam silently turned away, walked back to what had been his own chain.
"What are you doing?"
He knelt down, grabbed it, and tried cutting through it with the saw.
"Will you quit messing around and just bring-"
"No!" Adam shouted all of a sudden and shot up. Then he scratched the back of his head and said, "It won't even do anything, anyway."
Lawrence stared for another moment and then started huffing through his nose. His eyes darted, and then he muttered, "What else did he say?" He picked up the tape player again.
He rewound. "Let the game begin." And rewound. "And Diana will die." He whimpered; rewound. "X marks the spot." He gasped.
"There! What could that mean?"
"Well, considering what we got from 'follow your heart,' we should find a big brown 'X' and then something else you'll try to kill me with."
Lawrence would have told him to quit being smart, but Adam's attitude was somewhat understandable, and he let it go as his eyes perused the room. He continued looking around, racking his brain for possible alternative meanings, until as he was urging himself to think his brain refused to do anything; it had practically numbed. Looking again at Adam who stood simply and seemed to be idly glancing around, Lawrence almost came out with, "Find anything?" But he realized the answer was obvious. … Then again, perhaps it wasn't, and maybe Adam was being smart in a literal sense.
He decided to ask anyway.
Adam immediately came back with, "No; you?"
Lawrence's eyes repeatedly swept the floor in front of him, and in a low voice he answered, "No."
Lawrence could feel himself growing more desperate. He had come to a conclusion, and it was one he didn't like. There was something he could do, and he knew once he vocalized the idea he would have to go through with it or forget it. Out of other ideas, he couldn't just sit on it.
So he needed Adam to leave.
"You know what?" he spoke up, and Adam's eyes flashed over. "Why don't you go outside and have a look?"
"What?"
"Y'know. See what's out there. Maybe you can find something to break me out of this chain—or a phone! Or if you can escape you can send help. Something."
"You're saying I should leave now?" Adam asked, sounding suspicious or as if he didn't understand. "After how hard you had to try to keep me here?"
"Yes," Lawrence pronounced, trying to remain patient. "I am. Isn't that what you wanted? Just look. Open the door and look out."
Adam just looked at him for a minute, unmoving, and Lawrence stared back.
Then, he just shrugged. "Alright." He headed toward the door. "If you say so." And as he stood in front of it, he could see it had no handles or holds of any kind. He placed his palms upon the wooden door and pushed. Finally, it slid open in Lawrence's direction.
Adam groaned, covered his nose. As bad as the smell had been in the bathroom he had managed getting used to it, but he found it smelled terrible outside as well, and for opening the door and moving the air around, the smell hit him again.
And as he had been expecting something different, as after all they were in a bathroom which is a room all houses have, he was surprised by what he found outside the door. He burst out with the lightest laughter. "We're in the sewers."
He looked back at Lawrence for a second, then glanced at the whole bathroom, before he wordlessly walked out.
Author's Notes: I don't know if it's necessary and regret having to say this, but I'd like to prevent being told Adam could not have opened the door.
Exhibit A: Lawrence only pushed the door in the wrong direction. Exhibits B&C: In Saw II when Amanda and Daniel run to the bathroom, and in the flashback in Saw III of Amanda taking Adam into the bathroom-no way of locking the door is seen. Exhibit D: In Saw III Eric leaves the bathroom. Oh look, and it's Adam's turn, finally.
