Zeke woke up on the floor bit groggy and looked around, spotting his friends in a similar situation.  There was Sarah and Tara, the twins, dressed identical in their basic plain white dresses, why did they still do that he wonders.  Next was Sam in his band tee and Blue in her button up.  She looked kinda cute and compact, being the shortest of the group obviously.  Kat didn’t have their hoodie, odd.  Oh yeah and Nik, he wasn’t like a super close friend but Zeke guessed he just had not much going on so was tagging along.

A feminine shriek cut through Zeke’s thoughts as he saw Jenny looking bit panicked

“WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!” Jenny says backing away on all fours

“Jenny it’s us, do you not rem-“ Brad starts

“How do you know my name? Where’s my phone?”

John looks flabbergasted “Holy is this our first ‘puzzle’? She doesn’t remember us? How do we even handle this?”

Zeke chimes in “Hey…hey… please stay calm…we’re in an escape room”

“I know what that is but why do I not remember getting IN the room?”

Some of the group have a sidebar

“How do we explain the hypnosis part?”

“Yeah I dunno if that’ll freak her out more or not”

“How do we even figure *out* the hypnosis part?  When that Blaire lady said amnesia I was at least expecting us all to not know, somehow this is worse.”

“Why are you all whispering? Are you talking about me?!” Jenny worries

John answers “Honestly, yes, but only because you are our friend and we’re worried about you”

Everyone nods, trying their best to not spook her

“B-but…why don’t I remember?”

“That…is a more complicated answer.  *But* we’re hoping that solving the room will get your memory back”

She looks at him like he has three heads “How would that help AT ALL??”

“Please trust us” Blue chimes in, “Why would nine entire people lie to you? In an escape room of all places?”

Jenny thinks for a moment “Y-yeah that would be really weird…I’m still confused how solving puzzles relates to memories…”

The group starts looking around the room, actually studying their surroundings.

“Wow,” says the twins “seems thrown together”

“Yeah,” replies Nik “it’s like a hodgepodge of themes”

The room seemed somewhat normal but with random thematic tables and cupboards, some were vaguely Asian themed, others Wild West, and some sterile modern office.

Sam picks up a prop gun “Why would this be here? What puzzle would this sol-“ He accidentally pulls the trigger while aiming at Zeke and it makes a *pop* noise, and then Zeke falls over

Jenny shrieks “OH GOD WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

“He’s not dead, this thing fired nothing, W-T-F”

After a few moments Zeke gets up, seeming bit confused “Okay why did I do that? Felt like just *had* to fall over”

“Hang on,” Sam says “let me test something” He fires at Zeke again and again he falls over

As Zeke gets up “Dude why would do that AGAIN?! Just put it down”

Same goes to put it down, and nothing happens “W-T-F I can’t let go, uhh…”

“This is getting freaky” says the twins

“What’s freaky is you being in sync” Jenny says

John walks over to Sam “Hey can you hand it here?”

“Uhh I can try”

Sam easily hands the gun over, but John can’t put it down either “Okay, odd”

He turns and tries to fire at Brad, and nothing happens

“Wait it’s JUST me?!” Zeke says with a mix of confusion and surprise

“Hmm interesting” John says, and as he’s turning the gun arm passes over the area of Zeke and he fires, causing him to fall over “Woah hey I didn’t do that!”

After a few moments Zeke gets up “Yes you did!”

“No I mean it was like a reflex or something, uncontrollable”

“So what? Whoever holds the gun reflexively shoots me?!”

“Well you at least gently fall to the floor, almost like a…flop” John chuckles

“Well just face away from me, it’s gonna be hard to solve stuff if I keep flopping”

Brad whispers jokingly with himself “Everybody do the flop”

Kat chimes in “Why not Zeke hold it? Doubt he’d constantly shoot himself”

“Yeah but if we shoot him whenever facing how do we hand it to him?” John questions

“Back to back?” the twins offer

“We can try, can’t hurt”

So the two line themselves up backwards, and start carefully walking backwards.  As they get within arm’s reach John’s finger pulls the trigger, causing Zeke to flop and John to tumble over him.

After a few moments Zeke groans as he stands “Oww…yeah can’t hurt, huh?”

“Hey,” John responds ”We couldn’t have known they planned for that”

“Just keep the gun facing away I guess”

“Man they made this already tough on us” Sam laments

Suddenly a bark is heard, the group looks over and Kat is on all fours, panting like a puppy.

Jenny speaks “Well they at least didn’t go splat like you” she says referring to Zeke

Suddenly Kat gets up and looks at everyone “What are you looking at?”

“Well…” John says “You weren’t turned into a cat at least”

“Oh god what did I do?”

“Barked like a dog. Don’t know why”

“Anyways,” Sam continues “they made it rough on u-“

“RUFF” comes from Kat, already on the floor again

“Okay then…so we’ll wait for them to get up I guess”

“WOOF WOOF” Kat chases an imaginary tail

This goes on longer than before

“Why aren’t they stopping?”

John looks like he’s thinking “I wonder…if we just have to ignore them and…chat”

Suddenly Kat stops and gets up, again seeming confused why they are being looked at

“Did it happen again?”

Zeke looks like he caught on to what John did just now “Oh! It seems that you go puppy if we say something that rhymes with…a…dog noise”

“Bark or ruff?” Kat asks, and nothing happens

“Oh phew at least you can’t trigger yourself.  And to undo seems to be something that rhymed with cat”

“Alright,” says Nik “Just got to avoid ruff”

Kat barks and pants

“Oh crud sorry… uhh… cat”

Nothing happens

“Splat! Chat!” Nik semi-panicking says

Still nothing

“Oh crud it’s DIFFERENT words each time?!”

“Hat!” the twins say, slightly out of sync

Kat stands up “My knees are hurting can we please be careful” they plead a little

“We’ll try but if something slips out, sorry” Zeke says

The group starts poking around at the room, trying to find and solve whatever puzzles they come across, carefully handing off the gun every so often when someone wanted to look closely at something, only Jenny doesn’t hold it.  Everyone occasionally splitting to look in different corners, only the twins were sticking together the whole time.

“Man this is…more difficult than I thought” Sam remarks, choosing his words carefully

“Yeah a normal escape would be still be easier than this” Blue comments

“I still haven’t found anything for my memories” laments Jenny

“I am surprised by that honestly,” John responds “Thought that’d be one of first things”

“Maybe that means I’m important?” Jenny puts out there “Maybe I know something?”

“If you know it why not share it with the rest of us” Nik says

“I think she meant it’s locked away in her memories” Zeke comments

As Jenny is looking at the Asian portion of the room she pipes up “Hey look at this” as she pulls out what looks like a very dull katana “Wonder if it’s like the gun”

“Should we be wildly swinging a blunt object at each oth-“ Brad tries to say before Jenny is already swinging at Zeke, it just baps him a little but nothing happens

“Okay first, why’d you swing at me first, second, why’d you swing at all?! And third, phew glad it didn’t do anything” Zeke says, sighing at Jenny

“Discounting your immediate thought to hit me with it, maybe you’re onto something.  Maybe it’s used to cut something”

“But it’s practically blunt” John brings up

“Well it’s a katana, what else are you meant to do with it?”

The group starts looking around for something to use the katana on until Sam spots something on the back of an office table

“Hey guys! Found a weird hole in this table, was under the mug, how did no one find this?”

Brad tries to chime in “Didn’t know we could mo-“

Jenny walks over “So just…put it in?” She wiggles it around “Man it’s hard to get it in”

Some of the men chuckle before Blue shoots daggers at them

The sword slides in eventually and a *click* is heard and part of the table flips to reveal a chessboard

“Well that was not what I expected” Sam says

“It’s an escape room, doesn’t always have to make sense” Zeke retorts

“Have we found any chess pieces?”

“Even if we did we have no idea what do with them, it would not be as easy as setting up the board normally, yeah know.”

So the group searched the room again, scouring high and low but to not avail.

“I swear we’ve turned this place upside down three times now” Kat says

“Double-check the table” John says

Jenny and the twins look at the table and chessboard carefully when Jenny pipes up

“Hey…the katana isn’t stuck in, I can still pull it out”

“Try it” Zeke shrugs

“One second,” Jenny says as she kneels near the table “There’s some kind of fingerprint scanner on the underside”

“What? Let me see” Zeke looks as John looks at other end of the table

“Hey there’s one over here too”

“How are we supposed to figure that out? There are so many combos of us in twos”

Jenny speaks again “Well…there *is* an easy set of two right here…”

“We’re never apart” the twins say

“Okay, but humor us” Zeke presses

The twins don’t move

“Oh come on, please?”

“Nuh-uh”

As this exchange is happening Jenny slides the katana out, the table does not change

“Why not?” Zeke asks

“We’re never apart” the twins repeat

As Jenny absently swings it she notices a part of the twins’ dresses move a bit

“Hey you two hold still for a second”

“Okay!”

Jenny gently swings between the two and a magnetic *click* occurs.  Both twins immediately lose all expression, move to opposite ends of the table, scanning their fingerprints causing more panels to turn containing the pieces, then they move back together before another *click* and they return to smiling.

“What did you want to try?”

Everyone somewhat stares at them, a few mumble

“That was freakier than their normal syncs”

“They don’t remember as well?”

“I wonder if we have anything like th-“

John cuts through the slight unease “Well I guess we solve the chess puzzle now?”

“But how?!” Nik questions “Try random things?”

“Because trying random stuff has worked already” chimes in Zeke and Kat

Jenny clears her throat “I tried something and it worked”

“You also swung at me first” Zeke reminds her

Blue looks closely at the chess board and set “Hey there’s a tiny white dot on a black square…and with no clues my best guess is alternate the colors?”

Shrugs from around

Blue starts placing the pieces alternating, White Rook on Black Square, Black Knight on White Square, White Bishop on Black Square, etc.  And then she does the opposite pattern on other side, after last piece is in place a flap pops open.  Blue grabs a tiny note from inside it.

“Let’s see here ‘When the empty queen eats your leader then the path forward will be unblocked’ what…does that mean?”

“Kinky” Brad whispers to himself

“You already did the chess board, why did it tell you about a queen?” Nik says confused

“Welp,” Zeke says “Guess we keep looking around, again”

The group sighs and tries looking around, still keeping the gun safe and their words chosen carefully.

At one point Brad was poking around at the Wild West sheriff’s desk while Kat behind him held the gun.

“Hey there’s a single handcuff in here” Brad starts saying as he pulls on it, before realizing “Ope”

Kat drops to the floor and barks, the gun falls out of their hand, it fires and Zeke flops

“Rat!” someone yells out across the room

“S-sorry” Brad says as both are getting up

“Wait!” Zeke says “The gun is…not in anyone’s hands…just leave it.  If we need it lets grab it then.”

“We’ve scoured this entire room, there is NOTHING left to need it for” Nik says, hopeful

As they’re standing around they pass around the note Blue found earlier, hoping someone comes up with an idea.  A John reads it a lightbulb goes off.

“Hey wait this says ‘lead-er’ not ‘leader’ it could be about ‘eating lead’ so the gun DOES have a use!”

“So we shoot a queen? They didn’t feel hollow” Blue says

“Hang on,” Zeke notes “empty could be more figurative and a queen is, well, maybe any girl so…”

“Jenny has to shoot herself!” John and Zeke exclaim

“Wait that sounds dark as fuck” Zeke realizes

Jenny stands there with shock and horror “I know it’s not a real one but…I’ve been scared this whole time to *touch* it at all…and you want me to…”

Some of the group mumble

“Maybe that’s why she was afraid, to stop us figuring it out on accident?”

“Yeah but what if she was first to touch it?”

“She avoided it like the plague so she wouldn’t’ve”

“Wouldn’t’ve? Damn fancy”

“Now’s not the time”

Jenny stares at the gun “I know it’s fake, I know it’s fake, I know it’s fake”

The twins hug her

“Take your time” they say

Jenny steels herself and tentatively grabs the gun and holds it to her head “Here’s goes nothing”

Brad joking to himself “Persona!”

Jenny pulls the trigger, they hear the *pop* and then-

“OHMYGAWDGUYSWHATISHAPPENINGIMISSEDYOUWHEREAREWE” Jenny explodes, much to the actual joy of her friends

“Oh thank god she’s back”

“Woo!”

“We missed you too”

“So…” Zeke says “How will you having memories unblock the way forward?”

“By the way,” Jenny starts “What’s with Tara and Sarah?”

“What do you mean?” the twins ask

“Yeah, what’s wrong with the twins?” Zeke asks

“Twins?!” Jenny begins “What are you guys talking abo-

There’s a noise from behind them and a panel flips open from the wall, with a keypad next to a door, Jenny blanks out, walks over to the panel and plugs the code in. The door starts to open when a flash and-