Escape Room

He needed to get out of here. He was running out of time.

It was dark. No, it was beyond that. Darkness had a prescence. But what was resting in his field of vision didn't have that.

He felt around, desparate. The key had to be here somewhere. He longed to wrap his fingers around its chilling metal.

His foot collided with what he suspected was cardboard.

He kneeled down, and ventured into what he now knew was a box.

Inside, he could tell, were books. He shook them out, one by one, their soft rustling like the flutter of wings. Their covers were raised, and he traced his hands over the words. He couldn't tell what they were.

He gave up on the books, temporarily. While his seconds were sparse, he could always scavenge and find a few more. He could search, search, and search again.

As he stood up, his anxiety kicked in. His chest tightened, his breath constricted. The ache in his mind was now raging, and the key was the only cure.

He put his arms out, and felt warped wood and gilded knobs. A cupboard. The knob's detailing dug into his palms as the doors squeaked open. The hinges need oil. But that wasn't a concern right now.

The inside was a void. Empty, with nothing that his fingers could detect. The dust floating around made the air thick, like his hands were drifting through water.

The world was closing in on him. He couldn't see it, but he could sense it.

As various emotions burned him to the core, he swept his hand across the cupboard's top. It flew across, so quickly that he barely registered the collision with the vase.

It tumbled through silence, then ripped it to shreds as it exploded into a thousand tiny diamonds.

But there was something else. Something that didn't belong to the vase. A light, metallic echo.

The key.

On his knees, he patted around, trying to be delicate so ruby red ribbons were not stitched onto his hands. The surface was the consistent, the same, sharp and grainy.

And then a brief absence of texture.

He had found it.

He had found freedom.

It felt like a promise in his hands. He went to the door and located the lock. Each click was a sweet note of music.

He turned the handle. Took a few cautious, unbelieving steps.

The breeze was warm. He could hear birds twittering on fenceposts, snatches of distant conversation. The possibility was overwhelmingly beautiful.

He still couldn't see anything.

What had he expected?

He'd been blind since birth.