Zero Escape: Chambers of Nightmares

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.

.

"Mmph."

So warm.

...

Huh? What... happened?

"Miss Silver? Are you awake?"

I open my eyes. "Bramble? What happened?"

He digs his muzzle out of my chest. "Well, when I opened that door, you freaked out. You started screaming at the top of your lungs, ran to the door, and started hitting it. You passed out after Mister Gallus held you for a bit."

The... door? ...! That's right! "Where are Smolder and Rain?"

"Um..." He shifts a bit. "Over there."

I look where he's pointing. Sure enough, they're both on side-by-side beds. I get up and walk over to them.

"Miss Silver?"

... They look like they're sleeping. Very different from how they looked when that door opened. "How did they die?"

Bramble is looking away. "We don't know yet. Ocellus is looking into it."

I look back at them. Nothing I see on them looks like it would kill them. For that matter, they don't even look dead right now.

"Silver, I wanted to talk about Cozy Glow."

Eh? "What about her?"

"She's... different."

"Different how?"

"Well, when I went through door 2 with her, she looked ready to pull off something that could kill us. Going through door 3, though, she seemed like she was focused on getting out with me and Ocellus, and seemed genuinely worried when Ocellus got trapped."

"Really? I don't know why... Actually, I think that might be because she got her memories back."

"Huh? Why would that change anything?"

"The Cozy Glow I remember from school didn't seem to really understand certain emotions, like empathy. Maybe something from our lost memories caused her to fully understand those emotions."

"That's a nice thought. Especially since it proves Rain wasn't lying when she said she got her memories back."

"Ahem!" Oh? Ocellus is standing in the doorway of door 1. "I figured she wasn't given how she was talking."

*DING DING DING DING DING DING*

!? Wasn't it hour four? I was out for that long? That's not good.

... What's that sound? It sounds like a stampede.

"Silver!"

The others just entered the room.

"Are you okay? When we saw you lying on the floor, we were worried."

"I'm fine." I look at the bodies. "Physically."

"Silver was the first one to see the bodies." Gallus is moving towards-! So soft... "After that, she started screaming and didn't stop until she passed out."

Sandbar is moving towards the bodies. "Speaking of the bodies, do we have a cause of death?"

Ocellus nods. "It took a bit of reading and looking in the room they died in, but I can say what killed them without a doubt. Rain suffocated and Smolder drowned."

... Eh? How does that work? "Details please."

"I think they made a mistake that effectively became "choose how you die." Smolder inhaled a gas called Emoja 16, causing her to cough up blood while her mouth was covered by a breathing mask. That means that her blood had nowhere to go but into her stomach or back into her lungs, and her body desperately needed air."

Bramble is shuddering. "That sounds like a horrible chemical."

"It's not usually that effective at killing. Victims typically lose only half a pint of blood. Not enough to cause any adverse effect on its own. It was typically used to scare others away from somewhere since there are poisons that do the same and then some."

Sandbar puts his hoof on Smolder's stomach. "Or if you can cover their mouth."

That makes- wait. "I'm sorry, does that gas literally make you cough up blood and do nothing else? What's the point of it?"

"Emoja 16 was created as a way of scaring opponents during battles. Like I said earlier, there are other chemicals that have the same effect of coughing up blood, but they do more on top of that. As a result, they can use one or the other, and the opponent wouldn't know which they got hit with. It became restricted because robbers were using it in banks, waiting for everyone to clear out, then robbing the place blind. Or, as Sandbar said, you can cover someone's mouth then administer it to cause that someone to drown in their own blood."

"It exists for some reason. Just accept that." Pffft! Gallus! I was able to understand half of that!

"Moving on, Rain apparently chose to remove her mask, keeping her safe from drowning. However, the room must have been flooded with some other gas, likely carbon dioxide. As a result, she died by suffocation."

Yona's biting her lip. "They not have a chance to get out?"

"There was. There were two panels on opposite sides of the room they were trapped in. I think they needed to press a button on each, but couldn't. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the ties on the tubes connected to their masks. They couldn't move a certain distance away from each other." Ocellus draws a deep breath. "But that's where I draw a blank. I didn't find anything that would prevent either of them from moving in any way."

"We don't have to find out all the details now. What we need to find is the exit." Gallus moves towards the door. "Let's go."

We all share a look and follow. Gallus leads us to what looks like a waiting room.

"Er, Mister Gallus? Where are the doors?" Bramble is right. I don't see the doors here.

"They're all scattered around this time. This is just the most convenient place to discuss who's going where. And this time, we have something else to consider." Gallus puts his claw on a table, next to two bracelets.

That's right. Even though Rain and Smolder are dead, we still need their bracelets.

Gallus looks at the rest of us. "First thing's first, who's comfortable with going with one of these bracelets?"

... Am I? I don't know.

"Yak is fine."

"I mean, I was examining their bodies earlier. In detail."

Sandbar lets out a big sigh. "I'd rather not, but I will if I have to."

"I'm sorry. I can't." Bramble is looking away from Gallus.

"So we just need to keep the bracelets away from Bramble, right?" Cozy Glow isn't showing any fear right now.

"Seems like it." Gallus pulls out a piece of paper and starts writing on it. "Ocellus and Cozy Glow take the 2 bracelet through room 6, Silver and Yona take the 7 bracelet through room 4, and Bramble, Sandbar, and I go through room 8. That sound good?"

I look at the bracelets as the others nod their heads and make sounds in agreement. Gallus picks them up, hands one to Ocellus, then hands one to me.

Smolder's bracelet...

Smolder...

...

"S-Silver?" I look up. Gallus is looking at me. "You dropped the bracelet."

"I... I can't. I can't do it."

"What? But you said-"

"She didn't say anything. We cut her off before she could say if she was comfortable or not."

Hearing Ocellus say it, I realize I was trying to figure out if I could when they all decided I was fine with it. But seeing the bracelet makes me remember what I saw through that door. I don't want to see another dead body. Ever.

"I'll go with Miss Silver." We all look at Bramble. "I know it'll change things, but I don't think Miss Silver is able to handle the original set-up anyway."

Gallus nods. "That means you two have to go with Cozy Glow through door 4 or Ocellus through door 8."

"If you guys don't mind, I would actually like to go with Sandbar this time." Ocellus seems... fidgety.

Well, I don't see why not. "That's fine."

"It's not."

We all look at Gallus.

"Given the circumstances, only two combinations can go through door 6. One is Yona and Sandbar taking bracelet 2. The other is me taking both bracelets on my own."

Wait, that means-

"Or you could wait for us to finish then tackle the room with someone." Cozy Glow has a point. He can just-

"We have less than three hours left. Do you really want to risk having some of us waiting around?"

"I think it's better to have full teams going through each door. We already lost two of our members. We can't risk more of us dying pointlessly."

Cozy Glow's statement was followed by silence.

"Fine. It's Silver, Bramble, and Cozy Glow through door 4, and Yona, Sandbar, and Ocellus through door 8. I'll just wait here for you guys to come back." Gallus sits himself down in one of the chairs, looking like a child that didn't get his way.

"Silver, Bramble, this way!" I follow Cozy Glow out of the room.

It may not be the time, but... "Hey, Cozy. Back when you touched that orb, what did you remember?"

"A lot. I can't go into details now, but it was a lot."

"Enough to change your whole personality?" Glad to know Bramble is just as inquisitive.

"You could say that." She suddenly slows to a stop. "I just remembered what I said to you two. This is... a bit awkward."

I look at the door to my right. It has the number 4 on it and a RED next to it. "Well, we can talk about it later. For now, we need to get through."

We scan our bracelets and go through the door. Once through, we see the DEAD quickly and rush over to it. Once our bracelets are deactivated, I look at the room.

"HAHAHA!" That's funny.

"Miss Silver?"

"Sandbar said they couldn't make a cafeteria into a death trap. I think he was wrong."

Cozy Glow covers her smile. "Well, the cafeteria looks like it has a puzzle in it at least. There's stuff in the back they could use. Though that would technically be the kitchen."

"You just recreated the rest of Gallus and Sandbar's conversation."

"Miss Silver? Mind if I ask why you were talking about cafeterias?"

"Gallus made a sarcastic remark about it."

"You know what sarcasm is?"

"H-hey!" Great. Now Bramble is joking about my attention or whatever.

"Could you two stop? We have to get through here."

I look at Cozy Glow. She doesn't look like she's in a joking mood right now. "Right."

TIME TO SEARCH!

There's a lot of trays on the tables, some stacked with food. "Mind if I eat? I'm starving right now."

Cozy Glow lets out a sigh. "No. The food might be part of the puzzle. Or poisoned."

"That's a shame. I'm hungry too."

"We'll eat once we're out of here, Bramble." Cozy Glow floats over to a metal panel. "Well, I think this has to do with our way out."

It looks like there's a number pad on it with a display with six lines on it. Above it is a message. "Find the nines, and you may find your answer." ... Eh?

Cozy Glow reads it, then looks around. "Maybe... the trays with nine different foods on them?"

Hmm... I look at the trays with food on them. This one has three foods. This one has six. This one has a mountain of pasta on it...

"Wait! I think it involves the ones that don't have food on them!" Eh? Bramble's waving us over.

The tray doesn't have any food on it, but it has two lines of numbers printed on it.

378/226/459
654/298/771

"Oh, I get it. It's digital roots again. See the top corners? They add up to 9."

Hmm... Ah. I see it. 3+7+8 and 4+5+9 each make 18, which becomes 9. "Maybe the tray where all three of the top numbers make 9 is the one we want."

"Maybe, but we should get any that has a nine on it to be sure." Cozy Glow picks the tray up and floats over to the number pad.

"Something weird happened earlier."

I look at Bramble. "What was it?"

"Miss Ocellus... seemed to be angry at me."

... Ocellus? "Why do you think she was mad at you?"

"I don't know. I just asked her a simple question."

"What did you ask her?"

"Can you two save it for later?" I think that's a tray Cozy tapped my head with. I hope it is. "We need to find those numbers."

"Uh, right." I start looking around. I'm no math wiz, but I know how to add three numbers together.

...

"Uh, Miss Silver? Why did you leave this tray here?"

What is Bramble talking about? "It didn't have any nines."

"But it does." Bramble points at the numbers on the tray. "See? There's a nine there, and a nine-"

"None of the combinations add up to nine."

Bramble looks at me, then the tray. His ears fold back. "I... don't know math. I just grabbed all of the trays I came across."

I sigh and pat him on the head. "That's fine. Just let me handle this."

"... Okay." He sits off in the corner.

I glance at him and head over to Cozy Glow. "Hey, Bramble apparently doesn't know math."

"Yeah, I figured." She tosses a tray into a pile of them. "This can't be good for his self-esteem."

"Huh?"

"I've been with him through all of the doors. In every one of them, he wasn't able to do anything. I wish he was able to do more."

That's odd. "That's... not something the you I knew would say."

"We aren't going back to what I remembered, are we? I understand why you're curious, but we have more pressing issues right now."

"If you don't want to tell us, you can just say so."

She looks me in the eye, then away from me. "... I don't want to tell you because you would never believe me. I'm still not sure I believe it myself. But it's clearly affected me in some way. Could we leave it at that?"

"Um... How sure are you that I wouldn't believe it?"

"Very. Very sure. You'd have to be pretty much insane to believe it. Or a quantum physicist."

Quantum physicist? "Alright. I'll let it go for now."

"Now go comfort Bramble. I have enough trays to go through right now."

"Alright, Cozy." ... Hehe. The way she blushed was cute. With how she acts sometimes, it's hard to remember she's a child.

I watch the tiny pegasus as she shifts through the trays, putting the digital roots of the numbers on them into the number panel. I turn and go to Bramble. "Hey, are you okay, Bramble?"

He shakes his head. "I'm guessing she told you."

I bring him into a hug, similar to the one he gave me earlier. "Being useless or useful isn't important here. What's important is that as many of us get out alive as possible. And we still need to go through the 9 door, so you still have a chance."

He smiles at me. "Thanks. I just need a bit of time to cool down."

I'm not about to let go either way. For a small while, all we hear is the sound of Cozy trying different combinations.

"Hey, Miss Silver? Can we go raid the kitchen?"

"Sure thing. I could use a snack right now." I wonder what they have in the fridge here.

I take another glance at Cozy as I move towards the door to the kitchen. Inside, it looks like, well, a kitchen. Ovens, stoves, refrigerators... yeah, we had those at the school, from what I remember. I open up one of the fridges. "Oh, yummy. A key." I pull it out.

*Slam!* *Click*

... That was the door again, wasn't it?

*CLANG* *FWOOOOM!*

"M-miss Silver! The oven!"

I look at the oven. Flames are shooting out of it like it's a dragon!

I start banging on the door we came through. "Cozy! Cozy, we need-"

*Bzzt*

*Pssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

WABLARGH! Well, the fire's out.

"Oh, man." I look at the drenched deer. "We just got so wet."

I look at myself. "Yeah. I mean, it's nothing I'm not used to."

"Really? You get this wet regularly?"

"Oh, yeah. I was this wet all the time at home."

"Guys, context." Eh? Why is Cozy blushing so much? "I know what you're talking about, but context."

I have no idea what she's talking about. "Thank goodness you got the door open."

"Well, let's say I found the right tray."

"Oh! Oh, wow." Now Bramble is blushing. For some reason. "Yeah, now that I think about it, that did sound pretty bad."

... Is he talking about being wet? "How?"

Cozy's eye is twitching. "How do we get it and you don't? You're the oldest one here!"

I don't know how to respond to that without asking what they're referring to.

"For that matter, how do you know what I was referring to, Bramble?"

"Our elders see no shame in discussing those things with the young."

I'm still confused. "What are you two- Nevermind. We need to get looking."

"Right. Was there a key back here?"

"Yeah. I've got it." I move past Cozy and head to the exit door. I unlock it and open it to find... more hallways.

"Let's split up. We're looking for a door with a 9 on it."

Bramble and I nod at Cozy and head off. I run around the hallways for a few minutes, but I can't find anything.

I head back to the door we came through. Bramble and Cozy are already there. "Anything?"

Bramble shakes his head. "Nothing."

Cozy's hoof is pressed against her head. "I didn't find anything either. What a waste of time."

I look at the steam in the cafeteria. "I guess we have no choice but to go back."

Bramble folds his ears back. "That's not good."

*DING DING DING DING DING DING DING*

"That's really not good." Cozy grabs us. "Come on! We can't waste any more time!"

She almost drags us back through the cafeteria and to the room Gallus was in. As we get close, I hear something... concerning. We round the corner to an even more concerning sight.

Ocellus is crying her eyes out, Yona is patting her on the back, and Sandbar and Gallus are nowhere in sight.

"Ocellus?" Cozy finally lets go of me. "Where are Sandbar and Gallus?"

Ocellus looks up. "Sandbar ended up in a death trap. We couldn't get him out, and he... he..."

... What? Sandbar is... dead? How? Why is this happening?

"We came back here to get Gallus' help." I look at Yona, who's still trying to comfort Ocellus. "He wasn't here. Neither were the bracelets."

Why did he leave? Where would he have taken the...

...

A chill runs down my spine. He didn't.

I rush out of the room.

"Silver! Wait!"

I round each corner until I find it. The 6 door.

Busy.

"He went through by himself."

I look at Bramble and Cozy.

"Silver, we shouldn't waste any more time. We can always."

"No. I'm waiting for Gallus to come-"

...

Vacant.

...

It switched to vacant as I was looking at it.

...

159.

"Wait here! I'm getting Yona!" I push past them.

"Miss Silver!"

"Hurry!"

I round corner after corner, making my way back to Yona. There's the door.

"Yona! I need-"

... Huh?

R-red?

Is that... BLOOD?

What happened? Why aren't they moving?

"Ocellus? Yona?" I move towards them.

Once I'm next to them, I nudge Ocellus. AH! It's the same look... Smolder...

Are they... Did they die? How?

...

GALLUS!

I grab the 1 bracelet and start making my way back to the 6 door.

"Cozy! Bramble! Something bad has-"

... No.

This... is a joke... right?

It... it has to be.

No one... no one would... kill them... right?

I move closer. "Guys... this isn't funny."

They'll... they'll move... any... any second...

I put my claw... on his head... and shake it a bit... "Bramble? This... this isn't... funny... Ocellus... and Yona... died..."

He's... he's... not responding... He'll... respond... right?

"G... get up... this... this is a... a joke... right?"

...

Why...

Why me...

My eyes drift towards my claw...

My bracelet... 5... I...

"I guess... I don't need this anymore."

I grab my bracelet.

*BOOM!*

... Huh?

Is there... more blood?

I'm feeling... weak...

What is... that pink stuff?

I... I'm taking... a... nap...

...

Gal... lus...

...

.

.

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Ending 1:
DEAD End