Chapter 1

  Bucket List

  I got a call from Maria, it’s the weekend and she said we had a time limit to complete certain things.

  My guess… I’m not sure, she’s my girlfriend, yet I can’t ever get a good read on her. It feels like she’s the one who can get a good read on me.

  I arrived at her apartment to which she was already waiting at the front door.

  “Hello” she jumped into the car

  I didn’t even have time to get out and greet her.

  “Take a look of this”

  She shoved a piece of paper onto my face, I took the paper from her hands and took a look.

  “Ride a huge roller coaster, visit a zoo and feed some animals (maybe also ride one), go from bar to bar drinking from what the last person ordered, skydive, go hiking, go to a planetarium, solve an escape room”

  “That’s a lot…”

  “Better get to checking them off” she smiled.

  I didn’t waste a second, I started the car and got onto the road.

  “Which one’s first?”

  “You’ll see”

  Just like that the journey to completing Maria’s bucket list began. The first destination? It was the escape room.

  Without her noticing I tried to reserve ourselves a place. That way we wouldn’t take so long in the waiting line. Of course I also tried not to crash while texting.

  “Are we going to the escape room?” She asked

  “Yeah…”

  “I already reserved a spot, don’t worry”

  Did she see my phone? Or just guessed? Either way the secret was now ruined.

  “How did you know it was the escape room?”

  “I saw your phone, I couldn’t help myself”

  “How well do you do in escape rooms? I ask because you might have to push through for me”

  I’m not the best when it comes to escape rooms, I remember watching a show like that on tv when I was little, All the clues seemed to be too confusing. I couldn't solve one.

  “I haven’t played one.”

  So we are here to embarrass ourselves.

  “Don’t worry though, I’m sure I can get through a couple of rooms”

  I’m sure if it involves someone’s ability to perceive someone then we’d be fine, however when it comes to puzzles? I’m not sure how good she is at those

  “Have you ever done riddles?”

  “No”

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  If we get stuck in the first room I might have to make an emergency call to Liam. Getting out that early would be a mess… would he even answer? We didn’t end on the best terms last time we met.

  After 10 minutes we arrived. I was quite nervous, the thought of being out in the first room would suck.

  “Hey how much did this cost?”

  “Don’t worry about it” seemed like she didn’t want me to pay her back.

  “I’ll pay for the rest.”

  “Yeah”

  Due to the reservation we entered straight away and we’re now met with our first room.

  It was square shaped and every side had certain things on it, even the side where we enter and exit from. I decided to label each side, the one with the exit door was north the one to the right was east, the one with the entrance was south and the left of that was west. Clockwise.

  Maria went over to the east side, it had 4 boxes all of them had something on it. Box 1 said “When a time eats rain” Box 2 said “For I reel east” Box 3 “My very educated mother just served us noodles” Box 4 didn’t say anything, instead it showed a picture of what seemed to be a heavily armored vehicle.

  “So what do you think this could be?”

  “Let me check the other sides”

  She moved to the north side. It had several keys plastered onto the wall, it also had a note stating “Can only remove one, only one can unlock this door”

  She then moved to the west side. It had multiple pictures of certain things, they seemed like emojis.

  She then moved to the south which only had a fan which wasn’t connected. It didn’t have a cable.

  Maria immediately went back to the west side and took 4 pictures with her. One of wind, fire, water and earth.

  She then put them in each box. Box 1 was water, box 2 was fire, box 3 was earth and box 4 was wind.

  “Do you agree?” She asked me.

  At first I didn’t understand, however now I can see her thought process.

  It was simple the first obvious thing within a puzzle is always a secret code, each beginning letter of each word was meaningful. The first box would spell out water and the second fire, the third would be Earth as the sentence was used in school as a way to remember each planet. She picked Earth because it fits the theme, box 4 was wind because… I wasn’t sure about that one.

  “Why is box 4 wind? Did you just assume?”

  “This vehicle is used by tornado chasers, tornado is formed by wind”

  I see…

  Once we confirmed that this was what we believed was the correct answer we confirmed it on a microphone. An item soon came out through a hole. It was a cable.

  Maria took the cable and the fan and plugged it in by the set of keys, she then turned it on to the max and began blowing them. Only problem was that nothing was going on.

  “Is that not it?” I asked

  “Maybe not”

  Suddenly I could hear a ticking noise. I looked around, but I couldn’t see anything.

  “You have 1 minute left” a voice came from the speaker.

  Was the timer the thing that was making the noise?

  “We need to find the thing that was making the ticking noise” I told Maria.

  “The noise was the timer, no? As a way to warn us about the time we have left.”

  “Maybe, but we have to make sure” just like that we had made our biggest mistake. We searched every spot where the tick could be coming from and soon enough…

  “The time is now up, you will be forced to exit through the way you entered” we got eliminated in the first room.

  “Was the ticking the actual timer?” I asked one of the people who worked there

  “Yeah”

  We wasted our time searching for something meaningless. It was my fault…

  “What was the way to solve the key part?” Maria was curious about the answer.

  “You were close, you had to hold the fan for a little longer and they were going to melt. Take a look”

  The man showed us the camera of our room and soon enough the keys were already melting, all except one.

  “Better luck next time” he smiled.

  “Come on, let’s go to the next thing on the list”

  She didn’t seem upset, maybe she doesn’t really care if she solves it or not, all she cares about is the experience.

  “Tell me where you want to go next” I asked

  “Well I actually just want to do 3 more things, go to the zoo, go to the planetarium and do the drinking game” she shortened the list.

  “Why not the rest?”

  “The rest were more of testing my fear, I hate heights and I hate bugs, and well I don’t feel like conquering my fears just yet.”

  It was understandable, it was also a relief on my part. I wasn’t sure how I would manage to fit all those requests within the given time.

  Out of the remaining 3 the best choice is the zoo, planetarium and the drinking game are more of night time events. With that I took her to the zoo.

  During our time there nothing much happened, we visited many animals and fed many. Maria never managed to get to ride one, that part of the list was basically impossible. Maria’s favorite animal ended up being a parrot, the funny part is that we saw it by accident. It wasn’t a part of the zoo, we just stumbled upon a small cage and inside it was a parrot, it wasn’t shown on the map or anything.

  Another thing that had happened on our trip was a germaphobe, he was in the worst environment he could ever be in. It was funny seeing him panic about all the people and mess, security ended up taking him away, not only because he was causing a massive disturbance to both the people and the animal, but also due to the fact that he too probably doesn’t want to be there any longer.

  With those 2 being the main events in the zoo the day was coming to an end as the sun began to set, now was the time for the planetarium.

  “Hey, how do you think that germaphobe got there?” I asked

  “Not sure! Maybe they played a prank on him. "She was enjoying this day, it made me glad.

  After parking in front of the planetarium we saw no cars in the parking lot. We made our way towards the entrance just to notice that it had a sign.

  “Local trillionaire bought the planetarium and refuses to open it after pictures show him cheating on his wife, a reminder that they’ve dated since highschool.”

  “Let me get rid of this” the man who ripped the sign looked to be the trillionaire in the sign.

  “I think we should get going” I whispered towards Maria.

  “Wait, please do ignore these signs. People like to spread misinformation about me.”

  We didn’t respond, we just left.

  “Are there any other planetariums?” Maria said

  “Nope” it was too bad, our bucket list got ruined by a trillionaire. Starting today I might have to join in on the whole “Tax the rich”

  “Well, let’s go drinking!”

  Right, at least we can still play the drinking game…

  Only problem is I only remember arriving at our first bar, our goal was to end it where I work. Though all I can remember is drinking 1 vodka bottle and 3 beers, after that I blacked out.

  Now back to current time and I see myself laying in bed with Maria next to me, how did I only last 1 bar?

  Did I ruin the moment? I looked at her, she was smiling.

  Maybe not…

  I layed back in bed and went to sleep.

  (Preview to next month)

  Lights out

  “In today’s news, local trillionaire buys the whole town and forces it to turn off all lights during the night for the sake of saving the moon. Not sure if he was well informed about the effects this event will have, but atleast he isn’t planning to steal the moon… am I right?” The news reporter began fiddling with his tie before continuing “Anyways 8 people found dead for whatever reason, And That’s it for todays news and enjoy your night of saving energy”