ZERO ESCAPE: Last hope. Ch3
Author's note: Consider this chapter as if it was a paralel history for the previous chapter blah blah blah... Different choice, blah blah blah...Summary at start so you can skip already read text blah blah blah... aaaaand enjoy!
Also, this is a work of fanfiction, as the website name implies. Zero escape, its plot and characters don't belong to me.
Edited with the help of a beta reader.
Summary of repeating events for this chapter:
Sigma wakes up in a cell. From MARS? Voice threatens to kill unless escape. Solves the puzzle and gets out.
Join 8 more people: big guy Omega, labcoat Delta, overly suspicious Phi, moto suit Iota, old mole lady Theta, kid Mu, bald businessman Beta and asocial Lambda.
Their kidnapper Zero speaks about the nonary game. One exit. Explosive bracelets. 9 hours.
Bracelet dial shows choices for doors. 2 choices: Heracles door and Hermes door. Chooses Hermes alongside Omega, Theta, Beta, Phi, Iota, and Delta. Mu and Lambda chose Heracles.
Communications room solved!
5 hours left...
Everything becomes blurry...
"I think my dial might be wrong…" I started to explain her but she just urged me to choose a door already. I made a face and pressed the dial, "Fine. Then I'll choose the door, ok?"
"Actually-" but she didn't finish the sentence, as both Phi and I stared at the screen of my dial until it landed in the Eta symbol. She raised her brows, "I guess you did chose…"
"Eta, huh…" I looked at the doors. One had a fat guy drinking and on the other one was a guy with a hammer and a fire behind him or something.
Phi noticed me looking at the doors and decided to make it easier, "Dionysus and Hephaestus. Gods of wine and craftsmanship."
"So I go through the Hephaestus door… who with?" I asked the rest. I looked at Delta, "Not with you I guess."
However, she smiled, "Actually, I didn't get a Delta. Quite the irony I would say," she nodded to herself, close to the right door. Beta went there too.
I walked towards there, glancing at the rest, "You all guys have a Delta?"
Great, I'm stuck with the doctor and the creep…
Theta got her dial almost touching her sunglasses, "I'm not sure what's written here… what does it say?"
"It's a Delta too, grandma," Omega checked it for her
"Hey, watch your mouth, you punk!" she growled at him threatening with her cane.
"Uhhh… the granny is about to cane me, see how much I tremble. Or well, I'm not sure you can SEE me with the eyesight from hell you have, ha ha ha!" he mocked her
"Come on, let's be friendly, we don't need to fight against each other…" I tried to calm everyone, but Iota decided to talk. His voice sounded deep behind his helmet and I could almost notice a bit of anger.
"Friendly? Hah! As if I could trust any of you. Who knows who of you will end being Zero!"
"Who of us? Wait, you mean…"
"That Zero is one of us. That makes sense," Phi agreed in a calm serious tone.
"Sense, how so?" I asked her. But she just bit her thumbnail, lost in thought. It was Beta who answered.
"The room puzzle was automatic. So were the announcement and the bracelet functions."
"But that doesn't prove it's one of us, I mean…"
"Don't be naïve Sigma. If you trust people that easily, you'll soon find yourself dead," stated Iota, "In fact," he added, "You're the most suspicious one!"
"The hell I am!" What the hell, man? Now I'm glad I didn't have to go with him.
"Hum! How stupid. Young people nowadays think they know everything! In my times…" Theta started complaining but we ignored her.
"We are losing time." Beta announced, opening the Hephaestus door and getting inside, followed by Delta. I followed them, not wanting more trouble with the rest.
It' not because I was hurt or anything that they found me suspicious.
Even if I had reasons to be, since nobody defended me from Iota's nonsense.
What an Idiot.
Ok, I admit he had a bit of a point in not trusting and ok, Zero might be one of us, but… but still…
Then I heard a lock after I had closed the door. I hadn't noticed before that the entrance door stayed locked until you solved the puzzle, like the exit one.
I checked my bracelet dial. It said 5:16. Fuck, Creepy beta was right. We're running out of time!
Then I heard a girl's voice, "Brother!"
It was Mu! She was happily jumping around Beta.
"Wow, where did you come from?" I asked her.
She pointed behind me, I followed the direction and saw another door next to the one we had just passed through.
"I see. The Heracles room connects with this one too, same as the Hermes one," Delta deduced.
"I wonder if it connected with another one, same as our door connecting also with the Dionysus room."
"Yep, the other idiot went through the Demeter door," Mu mocked him, until Beta pated her head not in a nice way.
"Manners…"
"Au… ok, ok. I'm sorry."
Seeing them acting that way, made it almost impossible to think any of them being Zero. Not that I agreed with Iota or anything…
Well, better if we start already.
Looking around I could see we were in a kitchen with a place for eating too. Behind me, there were just the 2 doors we used to enter so we couldn't get out through there. I looked to the opposite wall and as I thought…
Actually, no. There wasn't any other door.
I wasn't the only one thinking that, everyone else was searching for another door, but there wasn't ANY other door.
"Crap, we're trapped here!" I left my frustrations to work.
"This wasn't how this should work…" Delta looked defeated when she mentioned that. Although her mood wasn't exactly what surprised me.
"What do you mean? How's this supposed to work? Better question, how do you know the way it's supposed to work? And why?"
She didn't look at me as I continued asking her. Instead, she was looking down.
"Is it possible that you are…"
But she didn't let me finish, and stared at me with fierce eyes, "That's not true! I would never risk lives this way! I would have never helped in this kind of way to test…" Then she put her hands on her mouth.
Say whaaaat?
I got closer to her "Help? To test what? What do you know?"
She looked really scared but I didn't care at the moment. However, I wouldn't be able to continue, as Beta stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
"We can't lose time with this. All of that can wait until we're out."
"Out? And how do you exactly suggest we get out? There is no other door!" I snapped at him, angrily.
"Just because we can't see the exit now, doesn't mean there is none." He calmly said.
RARGH!
Ok, he's right. Or I hope he is. But I don't feel like agreeing with this guy. He pisses me off for no reason. No wonder Omega had trouble with him.
I sighed. I looked at Delta, who couldn't look back at me, then at the siblings, who looked back at me stoically and I turned my back to them.
"Whatever, let's search for a way out," I shrugged.
I looked around. The room was rectangular. On the wall on my back, there were only the two doors we have entered from. At my left, there was a fridge with two doors, a counter with a sink, some cupboards, and drawers. At my right, there was a furnace or oven and some more drawers. Further away and in front of me was a big round empty black table with one large bench surrounding it. The wall in front of me only had 2 posters pasted on it. There was something in between the posters and I was going to get closer when I glanced at Mu opening the fridge.
I looked over her shoulders. Inside the fridge, there were 7 small bottles with juice in them on 3 shelves. Mu took them out one by one so I could read the labels. First, there was grape juice with a purple color and with it in the upper self-was a red liquid filled bottle of what it seemed tomato juice. The second self-had a bottle of green apple juice and another one with orange juice. The lower one had a bottle of yellowish lemon juice, another one with dark blue liquid, whose label said blackberry and the last bottle had a light blue liquid in it. I couldn't guess what it contained in it, but it looked poisonous. A quick glance at the label let me know that it was… water? It seems, in this case, the plastic bottle was in itself, tinted blueish and the liquid inside had nothing to do with the color it showed.
"Hum… What to drink…" I got alarmed when I heard her say that.
"You shouldn't. Maybe we'll need them to get out," I advised her.
She pouted and nodded. I decided to let her alone for the moment and looked next to the fridge. There were several fragments of broken glass on the counter.
"Was this broken before?" I asked out loud, looking at Delta and Beta. Delta shrugged and Beta glared at Mu. I followed his gaze. Mu looked about to throw a tantrum.
"It wasn't me! That jar was broken before I arrived!" she defended herself from our silence glares.
A… jar? I checked the shards of glass more carefully. Indeed, there was something with the shape of a handle but not easy to see. I guessed she had checked it before, because there is no way to know it was a jar with a single glance, broken as it was.
Well, it might not even be part of the game, probably. Just wishful thinking, since it was broken. Looking at the rest of the counter, I found inside the sink (the faucet didn't work) a dish that had a brownish color with a big spot in the middle. Odd decoration. Following the counter to the right, I could see the ending. Just before it, there was a circular marking with a message written on it in red ink.
A jar of Mars
"What the hell is a jar of Mars?" I asked to no one in particular. The rest came and checked it, but didn't know what to answer, so they went back to their own investigations. Delta was checking the oven and the fires while Beta was checking the table. Mu was trying to open the second door of the fridge, supposedly the freezer, but it was stuck. Or locked. You never know in this place.
Below the circle mark was a drawer. I tried opening it, but it didn't move. The one behind it didn't move either. The part of the counter next to the fridge also had a drawer underneath. It opened easily. Inside were another dish, a big pot, and a white paper. I though I could see something shining on it, but getting it close to my eyes only made it to smell. It smelled like milk. I left the three items on top of the counter, next to the small shards of glass. The dish was yellowish with 2 darker rings in the outside. More odd designs. Not that I cared about that. I went further to check the table. It seemed that Beta had gotten bored of it and was checking the posters instead.
Before joining him, I looked at the table. Surprisingly, it wasn't as empty as I had thought at first. There was a dish already in the middle of it. It had yellow flames printed on its surface. The rest of the table didn't have anything in particular. It was black with some little shining dots here and there, like the outer space. If I got even closer, I could see a very faint grayish line. It was a circle. No, more. 2, 3… 8 concentric symbols surrounding the center of the table. Hum… what did that remind me of…?
I just shook my head and looked at the wall. There were 2 posters. Now that I was close, I could see better what was in between the posters. It was a hole. Narrower than a finger.
"What is that hole for?" I asked Beta
"How could I know?" He replied without even looking at it, or me.
I looked at the posters. One was really big and had the solar system drawn in it. The sun with its planet elliptic orbits around.
I blinked. It was so obvious. The sun was a flame circle. Like that dish. In the middle of space with orbits around!
"The other dishes!" I exclaimed and went back to the counter. The one with the big dot looked like Jupiter and the one with rings had to be Saturn. I checked the poster. Jupiter was in the 5th orbit and Saturn on the 6th. I looked at those orbits and saw in different places of each one a little dot. I put each dish on each dot. However…
"There are 6 more dishes left." Beta said.
I don't need you to tell me, baldy. I went back to the counter and looked again, but there were no more dishes. I went to the other side, where Delta was and told her about what I had found and she showed me what she had found. 2 more dishes. One was deep blue and the other was light blue with green spots. That one we supposed it to be the Earth and the first one to be Neptune, being the name of the god of water. I asked her if there were more, but she just shrugged.
"I didn't found anything else," she said, "What about you?"
"Nothing else except a pot and a piece of paper."
That seemed like it interested her a lot.
"Something written on it?" she asked
"Nothing. It was blank, but… it smelled"
She pondered for a bit. Then she went to the counter in front of her and checked the paper. She smelled it and smiled. Maybe she liked the smell.
Or maybe not.
"Did you know there are certain substances like milk and lemon juice, that are reactive to heat?" she asked me.
I think I recall something like that from a novel. Oh! I knew what she talked about! "A hidden message?"
She nodded and put the paper o top of the electric hobs, and lighted them on. We stared at the paper for a couple minutes and after a while, its started to get darker, but only in certain areas. As if it was magic, a text started to appear and in less that 5 minutes it was complete.
"Zeus, due to his position, and Aphrodite, to his vanity, like to be on top. Ares will check on his wife looking up at her so Time won't be checked. Hermes will fly in the Sky over the Ocean." She read aloud
"What in the world?" I asked
"It's a riddle," she explained, "Those are the greek gods and for what I can see, it talks about positioning them higher or lower."
"Then, Zeus and Aphrodite on top, Ares below and Hermes up too?" I tried
She shook her head, frowning, "No… If Hermes was up too, it would have been mentioned with Zeus…"
My headache was coming back, so I decided to place the dishes we had in their place in the table. The Earth in the 3rd orbit and Neptune in the 8th. There were still 4 dishes left. Mars, Venus, Mercury and Uranus. Earth, Saturn, Neptune and Jupiter were done. Oh, wait. Jupiter… what did it remind me of?
I had to left the thought to go due to my headache and I pressed my hands on my forehead. Looking forward, I could see the posters. Oh, I haven't looked at the other one. Is that a rainbow?
I got closer to it. It wasn't exactly a rainbow. It had a thick line with the 7 colors starting with red and finishing with violet.
"It's the frequency spectrum or color spectrum. It's used in Astronomy to notice movement in celestial objects," Beta said.
"So if they catch it with different colors over time, it has moved?" I asked
"Exactly. If the color moves towards the red, it's getting further away and closer if it goes towards violet."
"He, so when Mars goes further away due to its orbit, we see the red planet redder?" I joked
He just nodded. But didn't laugh. Meh, not my fault if the guy lacks a sense of humor.
Aaaanyway, so color means distance somehow… red is the furthest… violet the closest… and… 7 colors… oh, like in the fridge… Wait, that can't be a coincidence…
I went back to the fridge, and after getting Mu out of the way, I took the bottles out and ordered it like colors starting with Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. And… now what?
"You know, I think there is something odd in the riddle," Delta chose THAT very moment to distract me.
"Well, it's a riddle, what did you expect," I replied with sarcasm.
"I mean, why Time, Sky and Ocean and in capitals?" she pointed out.
"Maybe they represent something…" I guessed
"Well, we know what the other represent. Zeus and the others were greek gods and…" but that, that she had just said rang a bell from earlier.
Zeus… and Jupiter. They are the same!
"Maybe those 3 represent gods too," she was still following her line of reasoning "Ocean is Poseidon, god of the sea."
"The blue sea that is also Neptune…" I thought aloud.
"Yes. The Sky should be Uranus and the Time Cronus."
"Was Cronus known by another name?" I asked.
"Saturn by the Romans," she answered.
Bingo. 7 gods that are 7 planets ordered in a position somewhere… I glanced at the open empty refrigerator… wait, it's not empty.
I got my hand inside and reached to the furthest place inside. There was a… dish! It was white so I didn't see it at first. I left it on the counter next to the pot.
So anyway… 2 posters, one with planets, the other showing distances. A table representing the solar system with the sun in the middle and the planets at difference DISTANCES… this starts making sense. Just a bit more…
So, distance from the sun. Mercury is the closest, so violet for him. Neptune the furthest, so red for him, and the rest as they were situated. Now the only thing left was solving the riddle…
"Got it!" Delta exclaimed.
Now, that's some timing. I explained my reasoning and she explained hers.
Zeus (Jupiter) and Aphrodite (Venus) on top. Since Ares is looking up to Aphrodite and doesn't notice the time, Cronus. It means Ares (Mars) is in the middle and Cronus (Saturn) down. Then Hermes (Mercury) and the Sky (Uranus) are as up as they can be without topping Zeus. So they go in the middle and Oceanus (Neptune) down with Saturn.
If we change the names for the colors we have associated…
Upper self: Green and Indigo
Middle self: Blue, Violet, and Orange
Lower self: Yellow and Red
I rearranged the bottles and the moment I inserted the last one, we could hear a click in below the fridge.
"Oh! Maybe the freezer can be opened now!" Mu exclaimed.
I guess she had been fighting with the freezer for some time now and wanted it to open already.
"Do the honors then," I told her.
She opened it with no resistance. Inside there were 3 dishes (finally) and a dirty ice cube. It was about 5 inches across and long. The frozen water must have been dirty before cooling enough to solidify, as the inside couldn't be seen. I let it there, though, and took the dishes to the table. One was red so it was easy to guess it was mars, 4th orbit. 3 dishes left, Mercury, Venus and Uranus. Not difficult. The gray one should be Mercury (good thing the poster had images of the planets a bit bigger so I could see how they looked.) I put Mercury in the 1st orbit. The white dish should be Venus, being the brightest of them all, so to the 2nd orbit. The one that was left was the only one left in the table, so it had to be Uranus by default. To the 7th orbit.
Just like with the fridge, a clicking sound was heard and I saw the sun dish being lifted from the table. Looking below it, it seemed that a part of the table had lifted it. Beta took the dish so I could check what had lifted. It was a small cylinder. It could be detached from the table and opened in the middle. Inside there was a plastic piece. It was like a smaller cylinder, about 1 inch thick and 3 inches in diameter. It had a hole on one of the sides, with a helical ridge inside the hole. That seemed to mean it wasn't complete.
Which meant we needed another piece. But where to take it from? I went back to recheck the kitchen area. Things have gone well till then. It was a matter of time before we found the piece left.
And then we would get out of the room.
And THEN we would get some answers from Delta.
Hm, talking about her, what is she doing on the floor? And that dark puddle? Had the ice cube melted or something?
Then I froze on the spot. The puddle was red.
Delta was lying on a puddle of blood, her body looking like a puppet with its strings severed. The puddle of blood was growing, getting close to another, smaller body.
Mu was kneeling close to Delta. She was moving, so she was fine. But still…
What the hell had happened?
I couldn't look at the body, so instead I forced my eyes to check on the little girl. She had her hands covering her face and her shoulders were trembling. Despite the lack of sobs, it was obvious she was crying from the shock, even if no sound was being made.
Or maybe I had become deaf, as the death of Delta was affecting me too.
Next to Delta's hand was a glass piece covered in blood in the tip. It was a big piece from the jar we had found earlier, but I didn't recall such a huge piece. The woman had looked a bit down, but nothing could indicate she would commit suicide…
Damn it, not only that. She had promised to tell me what she was hiding! Maybe she had never planned to do so. Was it such a huge secret to give your life for it?
Mu was still trembling, so I kneeled next to her and did the only thing I could think that would help her recover from the shock, it was possible. She was so young…
Shit, I'm over 20 and I'm still not recovered from it!
So I hugged her.
It was painful being the one to have to express its feelings so others can feel safe.
It really hurt.
Ow, shit, it hurt so much… especially in my chest. It's like anything I felt before. If there was such a pain, it would be from being stabbed…
My… chest… I can't… breathe…
"Ugh… Wha…?"
I looked down. The piece of glass was piercing the left side of my chest. A little hand holding it with a red handkerchief. I am not sure whether the red was originally the color of the cloth, or due to my blood. Or Maybe Delta's blood, who knows?
Looking up from my wound towards the hands holding the glass and up to her face. Mu was still trembling, but her face was twisted in a hellish grin. Her breathing was fast and her trembling started to turn into a laugh.
I really wouldn't have expected to be her. There was something off.
I was started to feel cold and my arms weighed like a ton.
I collapsed. I wasn't seeing anything and the last thing my fading senses got was a malevolent cackle.
Had Mu killed Delta? Why?
And why had Mu killed me?
Why would she kill, at all? She's a fucking kid!
And what was Delta hiding? I guess I'll never know… If only I had made her explain beforehand… If only I had saved her…
It didn't matter anymore.
The darkness engulfed me and I started floating into the nothingness.
END (knife)
Author's note: Not really a knife, but eh, close. Also, still another bad end and not the (true) END, more coming soon!