January 24, 2023

We were packing our things in the barracks in preparation for the cold weather outside. The last time I was here was for my military service but this time it was for a school trip. I received some fresh laundry in sealed plastic bags but was told that we wouldn’t be needing those.

On the wall was an array of lights and switches that made me think of a submarine. Some of them were labeled (Lights, Sound, Alarm…) and had their own indicator lights on top. I finished stuffing my belongings into a large duffel bag and was the last one out of the room. Everyone else was congregating outside when I stepped out of the main doors. A chaperone asked me to demonstrate bumping into another person while we were both holding our bags.

A coworker offered to introduce me to one the managers which was strange because we had both been here longer than he was. An officer ordered us to stand in a formation of two lines facing each other before splitting us up into groups of four.

We were only given a clue about where to head next: it had something to do with pressure. We stepped over the stone blocks in the garden pond as we speculated what the clue could’ve meant. “Maybe it has to do with water pressure?” one of us mused as a group in front of us collectively jumped into and waded through the pond. We quickly changed our minds.

“Maybe an oven?”

“Oh, how about a room with a heater?”

We concluded that it must be some kind of indoor space.

We entered a large dining hall with tables full of people playing mahjong. Each table seemed to have a different gimmick going on. The table I watched seemed to always have one person blindfolded and could only pass on the blindfold when they had successfully won off of another player.