The Trapped

1-5- Time Kills (In-game)

Hint: Forget the prize, and water will rise; look with antennas, not with the eyes.

The mist cleared, allowing us to see for the first time the new addition to the room. 

Above us loomed a gigantic clock face, positioned delicately on the top of a vertical steel ramp. The clock face was unusual, as it had no arrows. Instead, the murmured shouts of an upright, duct-taped, blonde-haired woman, dressed dashingly in insane-asylum white, replaced the usual pointers. The muffled shouts alongside the chinking of her chains, which tautly snaked behind the clock, were the only indication of any time passing at all.

"Time kills?" Craig asked, turning to me. The blonde woman continued struggling furiously against her chains on the wall behind Craig.

My fear again jolted me into action as speakers hidden in some unknown place began blaring "Fly Like An Eagle."

Craig's face alighted in excitement. "I love this song!" he exclaimed.

"N-now's not really the time for that, Craig," I stated, rubbing my hands obsessively.

Craig looked at me in disappointment. "But it's a good song!"

"Craig, these people kidnapped us!" I almost yelled. "So what if they have good taste?"

"Just because they kidnapped us don't make the music bad," Craig protested.

While we were arguing, the clock began ticking a few degrees to each beat of the song.

I pointed to the clock. "Look! The lady's rotating!" The woman on the clock looked extremely concerned.

Craig's mouth fell open. "She don't look very well."

I grabbed him by the shoulders. "You have the index card, right?"

Craig pulled it out. "Yeah."

"The water's still rising," I said. "We can't get it wet."

"Hey! This card said something about the water, right?" Craig whipped the index card out of his pocket, reading the back again. "It says, 'Forget the prize, and water will rise; look with antennas, not with the eyes.'"

"The prize?" I looked at Craig questioningly.

"I don't know what it could mean," Craig said.

"The card says we're forgetting something. A prize. What is the prize? Is it our survival? It is the man?" I was baffled. I knew we had limited time. The woman was almost sideways, and she did not look happy.

"Could be," said Craig. "But wouldn't it make sense if the prize is something in this room?"

"You're right!" I exclaimed. "So what could it be...what could it be?" I paced around the room a few times, clutching my chin, trying to think of something. Scanning the area, I realized the lowered tiles were collecting the water droplets. This created a massive puddle underneath the man, which was quickly filling to its brim. If the water kept rising at a rate like this, she would drown: and so would we.

"Them ants are starting to creep me out, Mal," Craig said, a disgusted look smearing his face. "At least the old radio-music in here ain't that bad..." He paused for a second. "Radios have antennas, don't they?" He asked.

"Yeah, and so do the ants." I looked at Craig. He looked at me, then down to the card. 

The ants. "The ants!" I exclaimed.

"Look with antennas, not with the eyes," Craig said, repeating the card. "We should look the way the ants would!"

"How are we supposed to do that?" I asked. "The water is covering out view of the ants. We can't see what it is they're doing."

"We don't need to see the ants, as long as we know about their antennas," Craig dropped to the floor, feeling around for something. "Ants use their antennas to talk with each other, but they also use them antennas to sense touch," he said. "My mom taught me that when I was little. That means we might find the prize if we use our own sense of touch," Craig looked up, at first smiling; but a depression quickly entered his gaze. He stopped talking and turned to the ground, focusing on feeling the floor. I wondered what kind of relationship Craig had with his family, and how it must've changed when they sold his life away to pay off debt.

There was no time for those questions to be answered right now. I dropped to the floor with Craig, feeling for any strange crevice or ledge-

"Found it!" Craig said. "One of the tiles is higher than the others." He gently pressed it, and nothing happened. "Guess pressing it won't be enough. But a little force should do the trick!" he said, promptly standing up and stomping on the tile.

Something clicked into place, and within a few moments, the water stopped running down the walls. 'We did it!" Craig shouted, holding out his hand for a high-five, which I returned. 

The song had finished, and the woman was now facing downwards, with an annoyed look on her face. And during the time it took to solve the riddle, the pool beneath the woman had reached its brim.

"We did solve it, but this isn't ideal," I said. "You see how she's facing downwards?" I said.

Craig looked at me quizzically. "So?"

"If the clock falls, she's going to drown."