I looked back and felt a shiver down my spine. What I saw did not make sense. I looked at Toby and locked eyes with him for two seconds.
During that short amount of time, we both confirmed what we had seen. The shelves at the back of the shop that we were just at searching for snacks suddenly stretched out endlessly into the darkness. Lights out. It looked like an entrance to a cave, but what made it weird was that I could barely notice that the shelves went as far as the eye could see; it was endless.
The creepiest part was that me and Toby saw a flash of light. It was as if it was beckoning us to follow and enter the darkness. An invitation to the unknown, an invitation for us to follow.
"Impossible," I thought. The store is not that big; it's a small local shop to pick out essentials, not a large supermarket. Respectfully speaking, I love the shopkeeper and all but I know he does not have the money to make a big store.
Curiosity aroused me, so I took a few steps towards the corridor of shelves that seemed to stretch endlessly.
I turned to face Toby to say, "We might as well see what's going on?"
Toby then looked at me and replied, "This is not normal. Not at all. Not ever."
He paused for a second and then gave a suggestion. "We should contact someone, okay?" I noticed that he sounded panicked. I can't blame him the situation is weird.
He phoned his mother, but then his phone made a noise which I dreaded to hear: it was denied. That noise of denial echoed throughout the shop and even towards the long shelves.
I asked Toby hastily, "What was wrong?" in which he looked back at me and said, "No service."
"That's impossible" I replied.
In my current mindset, this was concerning. This should not be a coincidence at all, as the first fact was that we are in a town and not a mountain, so there definitely *is* service. The second fact was that I know Toby's data renewed three days ago and that this is the first time he went out with it this month.
"Is this what danger feels like?" I wondered, and that thought pondered in my mind for a very long time.
"Let's leave the shop and ask our parents. Grown ups know what to do, right?" I said with a slight smile.
In my mind I was shaken and beginning to feel terrified. I did not like where this was going.
Toby nodded in agreement, so we turned around to head towards the door, and during that moment my heart stopped for a second.
What I expected to be the door to the exit was instead a wall that greeted us. A wall that greeted us mockingly, a wall that greeted us knowing that escape was out of the question. A wall built out of navy with a strange pattern, some having cracks showing squares and some triangles.
"What do we do now?" Toby asked.
Now he sounded more concerned than confused. Before I could reply, the flash of light became brighter and it flashed again. My instincts told me to follow it. It felt like this wasn't an invite to follow and more of an order to follow. I stared at the light and decided.
"We should follow the light. What choice do we have?" I responded.
"Very well," Toby replied.
We walked towards the light flashing. We used our phones as torches to check our surroundings. They were definitely shelves, but they were empty. I predicted it had been around ten minutes and we were still walking. How far does this corridor go on? I wondered. All I could hear were our footsteps ringing out in our surroundings, notifying the corridor of our presence. Funnily enough it began to feel chilly even though it felt warm on my journey toward the shop. My body felt goosebumps as I looked around the shelves, the emptiness increasing my unease.
But I suddenly managed to catch something out of the corner of my eye on the floor of the shelf.
I crouched down and attempted to pick it up but couldn't for some reason. I decided to drag it out to see what it was. It appeared to be a vest and it looked like a military vest, one usually worn through combat. It looked old, and it seemed like it was worn as the labelling of the vest was very much faded. All I could see was a rectangle that had the colour black.
I did notice that it was unusually heavy. Correction: VERY heavy. In this moment I thought to myself, don't soldiers usually have their gear lighter so they can move around quicker? So why is this one heavy? The material felt like steel which was odd. If I'm not mistaken, isn't modern day gear made out of certain fibres?
"You want this?" I asked Toby as I was clearly struggling and needed help to lift it.
"You want me to touch it?" Toby laughed nervously. I looked at him with a sour look. A look that expressed two sentences: Not funny. And not the time.
"I might as well feel it; it is a request for me to potentially wear it," said Toby jokingly as he caught on to my look. Yes, my friend can take a joke too far, but he knows the limits of when to stop.
This was probably why I did not have a mental breakdown. Toby had a way of making the situation bad but always managing to bring out the serious me and not the coward me. Something I am grateful for.
Toby placed his hands on the vest and attempted to wear it.
What I'm about to explain next confuses me more than you as things get much weirder. Seconds later it disintegrated into small orange and black pixels that looked almost game-like. It reminded me of how a monster in a game dies. It disintegrates and its remains gradually burning away.
"Ummm not to create unnecessary panic, but do my eyes deceive me or has the vest disappeared right. Under. MY EYES?" shouted Toby.
"Woah woah, easy there," I said reassuringly.
I continued by saying, "First blink five times." Toby blinked five times and still nothing changed.
Then nervously I asked, "Do you feel off, like weight wi—?"
"No," Toby said flat out. "I don't feel anything and I am not hallucinating."
To be honest, most of those questions were to reassure myself, not him, as my legs craved to sprint and run like an Olympian. "Okay th—"
"You hear that?" Toby questioned.
It sounded like he was asking himself, not me. Furthermore, this was the second time he interrupted me. I would usually throw insults at him, but the situation made it impossible for me to speak. The absolute stillness and silence surrounding me horrified me. I imagined it eavesdropping on me. Stalking me. Staring at me. Spying on me. Shadowing me. Nothing scares me more than the unknown.
I ignored Toby's question and decided to act on it instead. I concentrated for a bit and noticed something. It had a humming sound, but not one of a fridge. It sounded more like air conditioning, but I could not confirm it. There was something suspicious about it that I just couldn't place my finger on.
"Something or someone is there," I eventually replied, surprisingly without any interruptions.
Toby then eagerly spoke up, saying, "Let's go then, maybe there's a big green sign showcasing the exit outside."
We picked up the pace and eventually, five minutes later, we ran into a door. The only problem was that it did not have a green sign above saying 'Emergency Exit'. Instead, the door we were looking at was huge. In my mind, I roughly estimated it was around four metres tall.
We walked up to it. When approaching the door, a screen appeared out of nowhere. On it, it mentioned 'Enter the Dungeon?' with a 'Proceed' option. Strange, I wondered it does not give us the option to decline, meaning that this was mandatory. I attempted to push it, but to no avail.
Below it also said 'Optional'. Me and Toby looked at each other with absolute bewilderment.
"Is this a prank?" Toby asked.
"It probably is. These sort of things don't exist in the real world," I responded in confidence.
I added by suggesting, "We should see what the optional says. Who knows, it might bring more sense to our situation."
"Alright, I'm down, but how does it work? Should I mimic touching it?" asked Toby.
I nodded in response, as I had the same idea he had. Toby clicked 'Optional'. The screen scrolled down for a few seconds and proceeded with a question: 'What is the year right now in the shop?' Below it had a digital keyboard for us to write the answer. Okay I thought, what type of question is this? Is Toby right? Is this actually a prank? But at the back of my mind something was telling me that there was more to this question than meets the eye.
"The answer is obviously 2035. We're currently at November 11th, 2035," remarked Toby.
As he was about to type the numbers, I spoke up and interrupted what he was doing for the first time today. "I don't think that's the right answer."
"And why not?" replied Toby.
"Let me write out the answer. Trust me, I have an idea," I spoke. I didn't realise it at the time, but I must have had a really confident look as Toby glanced at me once and immediately backed off for me to give it a try.
Now in my mind, I had a lot. Firstly, I thought in a normal situation the answer would be 2035, but for the past hour everything here has been anything but normal. It also specified _the shop_, which changes things, so perhaps there was a clue in here. But the shop gave no signs, unless…
The military vest. That's the clue — it has to be. Thinking back, it did not look like a modern military vest. It was old-fashioned for sure, so it had to be made years ago. The problem was when. Think Rivian, think. There was a black rectangle but what could that suggest?
It took me two minutes to realise that it might be a colour of a country and the other parts just faded away. Thinking back on it, the colour was more faded below the black rectangle, so that means that the country has a black rectangle at the top of its flag. The first country that came to mind was Germany.
Germany? Wait — I might be onto something. Didn't they fight in one of the major wars? I learnt this in school, I'm certain. I believe the First World War was at 1914, but there was another one. Although the uniform did look really old, almost centuries old. I might have to say 1914. It's a risk, I know, but reward often has risk as its roots.
I looked at the question, then proceeded to type in 1914. I pressed confirm to submit my answer and the system processed it for around ten seconds.
Then a congratulations popped up with a rewards button below. I looked at Toby and gave a massive sigh of relief and a "see, told you so" moment.
"That's huge! Nice one, Kei. But how did you know?" asked Toby.
"I'll explain it later. Let's see what the reward is," I replied with a tired but triumphant tone.
I clicked the rewards section, and now my logic did not work anymore. I didn't know what to make out of this.
It says "NOTE: This dungeon is a puzzle AND treasure type." Furthermore, it also requested us to hold our phones forward. Me and Toby decided there was no harm, so we did. Nothing happened. Seriously? I thought. The screen then read "Successful. Please take a look at your photos section."
Me and Toby then opened our photos app and pictures definitely appeared. It seemed to be a map. Very detailed at that. At the time I didn't realise how valuable this really was, and if I knew, I would have taken advantage of it.
The screen then went back to the "Enter the Dungeon?" option. In that moment, I realised that our only escape was the door.
"Should we? We have no choice," I asked.
"I'm down if you are," replied Toby.
I took a deep breath, then clicked confirm. The doors opened forward slowly. It opened like we were honoured guests, and inside, me and Toby ventured further into the unknown.