Escape Room Rumble - Ch. 4 (October 2024)

Loid checked his watch. “25 minutes left to beat the record. Think we can do it?”

            Yor honestly wanted to pass out in shame. She was so deep in thoughts of failure that she hadn’t been paying attention to what kind of room they were in.

            I’m such an idiot. I looked ridiculous back there! I wonder what Loid must really be thinking about me…

            “Yor?” he asked, approaching closer with concern.

            She loved how attentive he was, but she couldn’t bear to tell him the truth. Who would want a smelly, farty wife? Let alone a wife who could solve a single escape room puzzle? Words were stuck in her throat until she finally said, “I’m sorry. I think I’m holding you back.”

            Loid smiled warmly. “Nonsense. It’s only a game.”

            “A-are you sure?”

            “Let’s just give it our best, shall we?”

            They were standing on fake sand again, but this time they were on a beach. The walls were painted to look like they were somewhere in the Caribbean, with a beautiful blue horizon against an endless ocean and flying seagulls. In front of them were five wooden chests. Scattered around the beach were a large paper mâché boulder, a little pool that pretended to be a lake, a fake palm tree, and several campfires, one of which had a document made to look like old parchment.

            Loid picked it up and read it aloud.

            “Try to find Blackbeard’s treasure. But ye be warned! Four chests of the five chests have traps, and if ye open three booby traps, then the game is over!”

            On the back of the paper was a treasure map of the island.

            “X marks the spot, right?” Yor said. “That’s where pirates always bury their treasure. Right?”

            But the map didn’t have any X’s. Loid hummed and muttered to himself as he thought. Yor on the other hand, determined to prove her worth, went around looking for an X, any X. She looked underneath the boulder, in and around the campfires, and near the pool.

            She would have thought after all the farting that her stomach would finally ease up. But it didn’t. It was hellbent on making her feel nauseous and queasy, interrupting her ability to focus.

            She needed a moment to let the gas pains pass, and decided to sit against the fake palm tree. She watched Loid walk from campfire to campfire looking for the clues.

            As the seconds passed, her stomach wound itself into knots. She cringed, bit her lip, and clenched her butt cheeks as hard as she could. But that only made things worse – a lot worse.

            Keeping an eye on Loid, she leaned her butt up a little bit to prepare to fart. Whenever Loid turned around muttering to himself, she quickly sat back down. She did this once too harshly and hit her back against the palm tree.

            A coconut fell on her head.

            “YEOUCH!”

            At the same time, she happened to fart, letting off a loud abrupt, PRRRRP!

            It proved to be perfect timing, because Loid hadn’t heard it from all the commotion. He glanced in her direction and squinted when he realized that she was able to take the coconut apart in half…and inside was…

            “A key!” she shouted gleefully.

            Thank God, I’m useful for SOMETHING…

            Loid picked up the key and stared at it. “What luck! But which one should it open is the question…” He looked up at the tree and shook it violently. Four more coconuts fell, and each had a key inside.

            “We’re getting somewhere…” Loid said. He pondered over the map again and paced around the room thinking. They had all the keys but had to know which chest to open.

            Eager to help solve the puzzle, Yor went to one of the campfires. Each of them had plastic logs to sit on. She moved them gently to see if there was anything underneath. She couldn’t find anything after overturning every plastic log. She bit her lip. Ten minutes must have passed since they entered the room. That meant only 15 measly minutes to get through this room AND the next one if they wanted to try to beat the hi-score.

            Her stomach churned, much like the high seas.

            “Wait a minute…” Loid said.

            Yor perked up at his voice. He was pointing at the campfire in front of her.

            “That’s the only one that’s lit up.”

            Yor blinked. Indeed, it was. The other three campfires did not have a lightbulb underneath the fake fire; hers did.

            Loid rushed over and sat next to her, bringing the map up close to the light. Then he chuckled. “Would you look at that?”

A secret trail appeared that was light-activated. It led to the third treasure chest in the row.

Yor clapped. “Hooray!”

Her excitement turned to brief terror as she let slip another creaky fart.

PPrrrRRRRPRPPPppPPpPPppppp!

This time, it was unmistakable. It had to be. Loid stared at her with a blank expression. She couldn’t read him at all. Was he angry? Grossed out? Offended? The silence dragged on long enough until he finally said, “What was that?”

Yor’s quick thinking led her to rock back and forth on the cheap plastic log, making it creak. “These things feel like they’re going to break if we sit on them too long. Haha!”

Loid quickly forgot about it. “Oh, I see. Right. Well, let’s get a move on then.”

Yor could have passed out – that had been the closest call yet! She couldn’t believe he had fallen for such a lame excuse. Thank God the fart hadn’t smelled. She seriously needed a moment to take a breather and consider the fact that she was that close to possibly having Loid leave her!

Loid figured out which key to use based on the fact that each key had a color, and each treasure chest had a lock that pertained to that color. When he opened the correct chest, a chime sounded as they gazed upon hundreds of fake gold coins inside. The next door opened, and Loid hurried on through while Yor dragged her feet behind him.