MURDER MYSTERY PART 3 (Making fun of the Dorp Squad)
Part One
Part Two
=====
Myself, Frost, Cherri, and Siro stood dumbfounded at the sight before us. A humongous portion of the greenhouse floor sank into the ground and was flooded with water. Inside the flooded area we could make out a writhing, slithering motion, but it was too dark to identify what was causing it. Whatever kind of vegetation had once been carefully monitored here had been left to grow wildly out of control, and all kinds of vines and bushes jutted out harshly from the water's surface and tangled themselves all around the whole room.
"Oh GOD," Jackson muttered. "What the hell IS all this?"
"TORTE!!" I called. There was no response. "Shit... It doesn't look like he's in here.
"Alright," Cherri laughed nervously. "Then let's get the hell out of here." She turned to open the door behind us, but to her horror, it had been locked up tight. "What the fuck!?" She started struggling harder to pull it open.
"It's a greenhouse, you idiots," Frost scolded. "We can just smash our way out of here. Stand back."
Cherri and Siro took a step out of his way as Frost threw himself at the wall. With a heavy thud, he lost his balance, failing to leave a mark on the sturdy glass. Immediately after his attempt, however, a sharp beeping noise came from just under the entrance. Our eyes all met the source of the beeping at once and our terror was immediately apparent.
"Figures," Frost growled.
Next to the door was a small box with a timer on it. It currently read 59:24 and was counting down with each second. To the right of the time was a small hole, with text immediately above it simply reading "KEY". Extending out of the box were small, thing wires that appeared to wrap themselves around the entire building. They were barely visible unless you were looking for them, but whoever designed it was clearly very thorough in covering every panel of glass.
"Uh," Siro chipped in, clearly confused. "Okay, I don't get it. What are we looking at here?"
"A bomb, most likely," I said. Considering that the designer had clearly intended for us to be trapped in here, it seemed like the logical answer. "I'd guess that if we trip any of these wires by smashing the glass, it'll go off.
"Wow, you almost KILLED us!" Cherri yelled at Frost, shoving him angrily. "Why don't you fucking THINK before you do shit!?"
"Well excuse me," Frost replied, "But I didn't see you raising any objections."
"Uh, guys," Jackson piped in. "We have less than an hour here."
"This man is right," I agreed, hiding my own nervousness and trying to take some sort of leadership role. "We need to find a way out of here before it goes off. You see that?" I said, pointing at the KEY hole in the bomb. "It looks like something's supposed to go in that hole, and I'll bet you anything we're supposed to find it.
"Okay, but where?" Anne Marie questioned.
"In... there?" Jackson suggested sheepishly, motioning towards the writhing water.
Frost took two steps towards the water's surface and reached his hand in. Before the others could stop him, he pulled out a long, blue, striped serpent. "Shit!" he yelled, throwing it to the ground before us.
"FROST!!" Cherri screamed, backing up against the wall in panic.
"JESUS!" Siro yelled, doing the same.
I too jumped back instinctively, watching the thing slither around on the ground in front of us. "A snake!?"
"Belcher's sea snake," Frost explained, stomping its head with one swift motion and crushing it to death. "The most venomous species in the world."
"Oh, OKAY," Jackson spat. "Hey, thanks for throwing the most VENOMOUS SNAKE IN THE WORLD AT US!"
"I know, right!?" Cherri yelled. "Calm the FUCK down, Frost!"
"Don't worry," he assured, smiling slightly. "They're normally pretty nice. And if they do happen to bite you, you've only got a one in four shot of actually being injected with venom. But if you do..." He made a ridiculous neck-slicing motion accompanied by a KKSSSSSHHH sound. It was the least comforting thing a man could do in this moment.
"25%, huh?" I thought aloud. "But this water is full of the damn things. It only takes a few bites for the odds to turn around entirely."
"You're right," Frost agreed. "So stay out of that water unless you wanna gamble your life."
"Okay, so now we know not to swim around in the terrifying snake-infested water," Jackson said with a slight irritation. "Thank god we have you two here to figure everything out."
"Okay, dick," I replied, getting slightly annoyed at Jackson's attitude. "At least we're actually TRYING to figure this out. How about you try helping out too?"
"Okay, look!" Jackson said, pointing upwards. He was pointing at two large black fixtures at opposite corners of the greenhouse. "Spotlights!"
"Okay, wow," I said. "That's actually pretty observant of you, nice job."
"Thanks, buddy!" Jackson said, giving a thumbs up.
"So how do we turn them on?" Jackson asked. "I mean, I'm guessing we're supposed to get them turned on."
"Usually spots are operated manually," I admitted, slowly starting to fully comprehend the situation. I didn't like it, though.
"Manually?" Jackson asked.
"Someone's gotta go UP there," Cherri said. "Holy shit, guys, I'm not DOING this."
"What choice do we have?" Frost spoke up, grabbing a nearby vine. "I'm gonna take the one on the right, somebody else should take the other one."
"Wait, you mean you're going to..." I started.
With a swift motion, Frost was swinging over the water to the opposite wall, where he grabbed hold of a tangled knot of foliage. He let go of the vine and it swung back towards us and he began climbing the walls slowly.
"Oh my GOD," Cherri said in disbelief. "Frost, you're enjoying this way too much, aren't you?
The man had a big smile on his face, now that she mentioned it.
"So, uh, who's going for the other light?" Jackson asked nervously, clearly hoping that Cherri or I would volunteer ourselves. "I'm not much of a climber, myself..."
"Wow, I don't think ANY of us are," Cherri yelled. "But... you guys are like, WAY stronger than me, so I'm gonna opt to wait back here.
"Okay, hypocrite," I said. To be fair, though, I thought Anne Marie would have a pretty hard time with this sort of thing. It should be Jackson or myself. "You think you can handle it, Jackie Dubya?"
"It doesn't matter to me!" Jackson said, clearly terrified of going.
"Alright!" I replied immediately, handing him the vine. "I don't wanna do it, so here you go!"
The horrible look on his face told me he had just learned a valuable lesson about being so fucking indecisive all the time. Cherri got a laugh out of it.
"Look, it's just a quick swing over and a quick climb up," I reassured him. "Just like Frost is doing, see?"
"AUGH!" Frost yelled, slipping on his step and dangling from the wall, having nearly had fallen into the snake water. "Shit! I almost died!"
Jackson looked with utter horror and reluctantly took the vine from me. His face was completely white and he said nothing, staring hopelessly at the water that could very well serve as his grave.
"Don't look at the water!" Cherri suggested. "Just look to the light!"
"FLY TO THE LIGHT-LIGHT-LIGHT-light-light!" I said like in the fourteenth One Piece opening.
This clearly gave him a little more confidence and he grabbed the vine tighter. "Alright, I'm doing it!" He said, his voice still shaking terribly. "I'm going to be brave this time!" He paused for another moment, took a couple of hesitation steps, then finally threw himself across the water. His scream was horrifying, yet kind of hilarious in a dark cruel way. He reached the other side of the room, but was clearly too horrified to think about reaching for the window.
"Siro!" I yelled. "Grab the wall!"
It was too late. He started swinging back towards us and slipped off of the vine, landing in front of us. "Ow!" he yelled.
"Siro, you fucking idiot!" Frost yelled from the corner of the room, having reached his spotlight. "You just gotta have fun with it. It's like an adventure for fuck's sake." He flipped on his spotlight and the rest of us were engulfed in a blindingly bright light.
"Holy Jesus!" Anne Marie shouted. "Can you point that somewhere else!?"
"My bad," Frost said, pointing the light down at the water instead. Immediately when he did so, the snakes hit by the light dispersed.
"Whoa, did you guys see that?" I said in reaction.
Cherri was rubbing her eyes and Jackson was still scared shitless on the ground. Neither of them seemed to have heard me.
"You know what that means, right?" Frost said with a sadistic smile. "I'll bet someone's gotta take a swim."
I knew what he meant. If we had a tool for dispersing the snake's, it was most likely to clear a path for somebody to swim down there. "But for what?" I asked. "Can you see anything at the bottom of the water?"
Frost shined his light around. The place was surprisingly deep, as if somebody had dug a full-fledged swimming pool in the middle of the greenhouse. All that we could see was a forest of drowned weeds. "Nothing stands out."
I looked back at the other light. "Maybe the other light will tell us," I suggested.
"Guys, we only have 30 minutes left," Cherri said, looking at the timer.
"Alright," I breathed deep, looking at the pale-faced Jackson hyperventilating on the ground. "I'll do it myself." As I made a grab for the vine, a hand took hold of my ankle. It was Jackson.
"No," he said, slowly rising to his feet. He looked my in the eyes. "I do this."
I was totally caught off guard by this sudden change in emotion as Siro closed his eyes and grabbed the vine once more. He opened them, staring angrily at the spotlight, and threw himself across the room. There was no scream this time, only silence. When he came to the plantlife infesting the opposite wall once again, he jumped off of the vine and clutched onto it like a spider.
"Nice!" I called to him.
Anne Marie was speechless.
With a fire in his eye, Jackson climbed and climbed and climbed until he reached the light he had been aiming for. He threw himself on top of it and breathed in heavily, clearly out of breath.
"Were you HOLDING YOUR BREATH the whole time!?" I yelled, confused.
"Sh... shut up!" he cried. "I did it! I... I made it up here!" He flipped on his light. This time it was a dull, bluish color, not blinding like the other one.
"Just what I thought," I said, smiling. There was a slight satisfaction in having figured out what the designer was aiming for. It was almost the kind of trap I would design myself, really. I'm sure if I sat down and wrote about a trap in my spare time I could come up with something just like it. Shit, who am I kidding? This was brilliant.
"So what... am I doing... with this?" Siro muttered between breaths.
"Shine it down at the water!" Cherri yelled, annoyed that he couldn't figure this out on his own.
He pointed it at the water. "Okay, done!"
"No, search around in the water!" I called out, slapping my face.
"No way!" he shouted. "There's snakes in there!"
"With the LIGHT, you twit!" Frost yelled.
"Guys, it's not that easy!" Siro called back. "God, okay, I'm looking." He shone his light around the bottom of the water. For just a moment, something bright blue glowed under his beam.
"That's it!" I yelled. "Go back to that!"
"To what?" he yelled back. He pointed at a completely different weed.
"The bright blue thing!" I responded.
He groaned in annoyance and explored the area again until he found it. One of the weeds was responding to the infared light. "What, that?"
"Yes, just keep it there!" Cherri yelled. "Jesus Christ!"
"I'm not gonna move it guys, god!" Jackson shouted.
"Okay," I said, putting this together. "One of us has to go down there and get it. Frost, you're going to have to keep your light on us so we don't get attacked by snakes."
"Oh my god," Cherri said, terrified. "Blue, I can NOT do snakes, I nominate you."
I looked at her. She was clearly horrified at the prospect of having to do this. I sighed, taking off my shirt to display my extraordinarily adequate physique. I removed all the valuables from my jeans.
"Wait, keep your shirt on!" Cherri yelled. "Then there's less to bite!"
"A layer of fabric isn't gonna stop a snake bite," Frost said. "You're screwed either way."
"THANK YOU!" I cried. "Just don't you dare take that light off of me!"
"I thought you wanted it on the blue thing!" Siro shouted, confused.
"Not you!" the three of us shouted in perfect unison.
I stepped up to the water's surface. Frost's light was ready to go. Suddenly the reality of the situation dawned on my and I felt a boulder drop in the pit of my stomach. I started to feel dizzy, almost taking a step back. No. I had to do it right there and then. I held my breath and dove straight in. I opened my eyes only slightly. The water was thick and mossy, and through the bright light it was hard to make out what was going on, but I could just barely see the bright blue glow ahead of me. I made my way towards it, occasionally feeling a snake slither past me. As long as they weren't biting, it didn't bother me. If it were spiders, that would be another story. Closer and closer I swam to the glow until it was right in front of me. I quickly plucked the weed from its place in the water and it pulled up a heavy little box.
In that moment, however, my heart basically froze. It was darkness. The light was suddenly gone, and it took me a moment to recall where I was. Oh shit. Oh SHIT. I could feel more of the snakes slithering around me. What the hell happened!? What was Frost doing!? I had to get back. That was the only thing on my mind. I swung around and did a breaststroke with the box in tow.
PANG!! A sharp stinging pain rang through my shoulder. Shit, I'd been bit! One in four... I thought to myself, not slowing my pace. I soon broke the surface of the water and continued swimming frantically towards the entrance. My friends were calling out to me in terror. PANG!! Just before I reached Cherri I felt another jab of pain in my ankle. Another bite.
Fifty fifty...
Cherri helped pull me out of the water and I rolled over onto my back, breathing heavily. My heart was racing. I had a fifty percent shot of having the world's deadliest venom running through my veins. Was it a delayed effect? Was I a dead man already?
"You made it," Frost said, relieved. "The venom takes effect pretty quick, it looks like you're fine."
"Holy shit, Blue!" Siro yelled. "Are you okay, buddy?"
"I'm fine," I said, catching my breath. I looked at my ankle. The two holes from the bite were clearly visible, and it was bleeding just a little bit. I didn't stare at it for long, it was starting to freak me out. "Open the box," I said to Cherri.
She took the box I had been holding and opened the latch on it. "There's a key in here," she said, holding up an old-fashioned key. "And... what is this thing?" She pulled out a long metal rod. It said "KEY" on it in red lettering.
"The bomb!" Frost shouted. "Stick it in the bomb!"
Cherri looked back at the hole. The timer now read 10:12 and was counting down diligently. Anne Marie inserted the rod into the KEY hole, where it locked into place. The timer stopped at 10:09 and the device beeped once again. The door made a loud clicking noise like it had just been unlocked.
GREENHOUSE COMPLETE
TIME: 49:51
DEATHS: 0
RANK: C
Jackson: "Gotta do better!"
BLUE'S TEAM HAS FOUND A KEY! BUT WHAT SECRETS DOES IT UNLOCK?
AND HOW DID THE OTHER TEAMS FARE? DID ANYBODY FIND TORTE? FIND OUT IN FIVE MINUTES, IN MURDER MYSTERY PART 4!!!
Part Two
=====
Myself, Frost, Cherri, and Siro stood dumbfounded at the sight before us. A humongous portion of the greenhouse floor sank into the ground and was flooded with water. Inside the flooded area we could make out a writhing, slithering motion, but it was too dark to identify what was causing it. Whatever kind of vegetation had once been carefully monitored here had been left to grow wildly out of control, and all kinds of vines and bushes jutted out harshly from the water's surface and tangled themselves all around the whole room.
"Oh GOD," Jackson muttered. "What the hell IS all this?"
"TORTE!!" I called. There was no response. "Shit... It doesn't look like he's in here.
"Alright," Cherri laughed nervously. "Then let's get the hell out of here." She turned to open the door behind us, but to her horror, it had been locked up tight. "What the fuck!?" She started struggling harder to pull it open.
"It's a greenhouse, you idiots," Frost scolded. "We can just smash our way out of here. Stand back."
Cherri and Siro took a step out of his way as Frost threw himself at the wall. With a heavy thud, he lost his balance, failing to leave a mark on the sturdy glass. Immediately after his attempt, however, a sharp beeping noise came from just under the entrance. Our eyes all met the source of the beeping at once and our terror was immediately apparent.
"Figures," Frost growled.
Next to the door was a small box with a timer on it. It currently read 59:24 and was counting down with each second. To the right of the time was a small hole, with text immediately above it simply reading "KEY". Extending out of the box were small, thing wires that appeared to wrap themselves around the entire building. They were barely visible unless you were looking for them, but whoever designed it was clearly very thorough in covering every panel of glass.
"Uh," Siro chipped in, clearly confused. "Okay, I don't get it. What are we looking at here?"
"A bomb, most likely," I said. Considering that the designer had clearly intended for us to be trapped in here, it seemed like the logical answer. "I'd guess that if we trip any of these wires by smashing the glass, it'll go off.
"Wow, you almost KILLED us!" Cherri yelled at Frost, shoving him angrily. "Why don't you fucking THINK before you do shit!?"
"Well excuse me," Frost replied, "But I didn't see you raising any objections."
"Uh, guys," Jackson piped in. "We have less than an hour here."
"This man is right," I agreed, hiding my own nervousness and trying to take some sort of leadership role. "We need to find a way out of here before it goes off. You see that?" I said, pointing at the KEY hole in the bomb. "It looks like something's supposed to go in that hole, and I'll bet you anything we're supposed to find it.
"Okay, but where?" Anne Marie questioned.
"In... there?" Jackson suggested sheepishly, motioning towards the writhing water.
Frost took two steps towards the water's surface and reached his hand in. Before the others could stop him, he pulled out a long, blue, striped serpent. "Shit!" he yelled, throwing it to the ground before us.
"FROST!!" Cherri screamed, backing up against the wall in panic.
"JESUS!" Siro yelled, doing the same.
I too jumped back instinctively, watching the thing slither around on the ground in front of us. "A snake!?"
"Belcher's sea snake," Frost explained, stomping its head with one swift motion and crushing it to death. "The most venomous species in the world."
"Oh, OKAY," Jackson spat. "Hey, thanks for throwing the most VENOMOUS SNAKE IN THE WORLD AT US!"
"I know, right!?" Cherri yelled. "Calm the FUCK down, Frost!"
"Don't worry," he assured, smiling slightly. "They're normally pretty nice. And if they do happen to bite you, you've only got a one in four shot of actually being injected with venom. But if you do..." He made a ridiculous neck-slicing motion accompanied by a KKSSSSSHHH sound. It was the least comforting thing a man could do in this moment.
"25%, huh?" I thought aloud. "But this water is full of the damn things. It only takes a few bites for the odds to turn around entirely."
"You're right," Frost agreed. "So stay out of that water unless you wanna gamble your life."
"Okay, so now we know not to swim around in the terrifying snake-infested water," Jackson said with a slight irritation. "Thank god we have you two here to figure everything out."
"Okay, dick," I replied, getting slightly annoyed at Jackson's attitude. "At least we're actually TRYING to figure this out. How about you try helping out too?"
"Okay, look!" Jackson said, pointing upwards. He was pointing at two large black fixtures at opposite corners of the greenhouse. "Spotlights!"
"Okay, wow," I said. "That's actually pretty observant of you, nice job."
"Thanks, buddy!" Jackson said, giving a thumbs up.
"So how do we turn them on?" Jackson asked. "I mean, I'm guessing we're supposed to get them turned on."
"Usually spots are operated manually," I admitted, slowly starting to fully comprehend the situation. I didn't like it, though.
"Manually?" Jackson asked.
"Someone's gotta go UP there," Cherri said. "Holy shit, guys, I'm not DOING this."
"What choice do we have?" Frost spoke up, grabbing a nearby vine. "I'm gonna take the one on the right, somebody else should take the other one."
"Wait, you mean you're going to..." I started.
With a swift motion, Frost was swinging over the water to the opposite wall, where he grabbed hold of a tangled knot of foliage. He let go of the vine and it swung back towards us and he began climbing the walls slowly.
"Oh my GOD," Cherri said in disbelief. "Frost, you're enjoying this way too much, aren't you?
The man had a big smile on his face, now that she mentioned it.
"So, uh, who's going for the other light?" Jackson asked nervously, clearly hoping that Cherri or I would volunteer ourselves. "I'm not much of a climber, myself..."
"Wow, I don't think ANY of us are," Cherri yelled. "But... you guys are like, WAY stronger than me, so I'm gonna opt to wait back here.
"Okay, hypocrite," I said. To be fair, though, I thought Anne Marie would have a pretty hard time with this sort of thing. It should be Jackson or myself. "You think you can handle it, Jackie Dubya?"
"It doesn't matter to me!" Jackson said, clearly terrified of going.
"Alright!" I replied immediately, handing him the vine. "I don't wanna do it, so here you go!"
The horrible look on his face told me he had just learned a valuable lesson about being so fucking indecisive all the time. Cherri got a laugh out of it.
"Look, it's just a quick swing over and a quick climb up," I reassured him. "Just like Frost is doing, see?"
"AUGH!" Frost yelled, slipping on his step and dangling from the wall, having nearly had fallen into the snake water. "Shit! I almost died!"
Jackson looked with utter horror and reluctantly took the vine from me. His face was completely white and he said nothing, staring hopelessly at the water that could very well serve as his grave.
"Don't look at the water!" Cherri suggested. "Just look to the light!"
"FLY TO THE LIGHT-LIGHT-LIGHT-light-light!" I said like in the fourteenth One Piece opening.
This clearly gave him a little more confidence and he grabbed the vine tighter. "Alright, I'm doing it!" He said, his voice still shaking terribly. "I'm going to be brave this time!" He paused for another moment, took a couple of hesitation steps, then finally threw himself across the water. His scream was horrifying, yet kind of hilarious in a dark cruel way. He reached the other side of the room, but was clearly too horrified to think about reaching for the window.
"Siro!" I yelled. "Grab the wall!"
It was too late. He started swinging back towards us and slipped off of the vine, landing in front of us. "Ow!" he yelled.
"Siro, you fucking idiot!" Frost yelled from the corner of the room, having reached his spotlight. "You just gotta have fun with it. It's like an adventure for fuck's sake." He flipped on his spotlight and the rest of us were engulfed in a blindingly bright light.
"Holy Jesus!" Anne Marie shouted. "Can you point that somewhere else!?"
"My bad," Frost said, pointing the light down at the water instead. Immediately when he did so, the snakes hit by the light dispersed.
"Whoa, did you guys see that?" I said in reaction.
Cherri was rubbing her eyes and Jackson was still scared shitless on the ground. Neither of them seemed to have heard me.
"You know what that means, right?" Frost said with a sadistic smile. "I'll bet someone's gotta take a swim."
I knew what he meant. If we had a tool for dispersing the snake's, it was most likely to clear a path for somebody to swim down there. "But for what?" I asked. "Can you see anything at the bottom of the water?"
Frost shined his light around. The place was surprisingly deep, as if somebody had dug a full-fledged swimming pool in the middle of the greenhouse. All that we could see was a forest of drowned weeds. "Nothing stands out."
I looked back at the other light. "Maybe the other light will tell us," I suggested.
"Guys, we only have 30 minutes left," Cherri said, looking at the timer.
"Alright," I breathed deep, looking at the pale-faced Jackson hyperventilating on the ground. "I'll do it myself." As I made a grab for the vine, a hand took hold of my ankle. It was Jackson.
"No," he said, slowly rising to his feet. He looked my in the eyes. "I do this."
I was totally caught off guard by this sudden change in emotion as Siro closed his eyes and grabbed the vine once more. He opened them, staring angrily at the spotlight, and threw himself across the room. There was no scream this time, only silence. When he came to the plantlife infesting the opposite wall once again, he jumped off of the vine and clutched onto it like a spider.
"Nice!" I called to him.
Anne Marie was speechless.
With a fire in his eye, Jackson climbed and climbed and climbed until he reached the light he had been aiming for. He threw himself on top of it and breathed in heavily, clearly out of breath.
"Were you HOLDING YOUR BREATH the whole time!?" I yelled, confused.
"Sh... shut up!" he cried. "I did it! I... I made it up here!" He flipped on his light. This time it was a dull, bluish color, not blinding like the other one.
"Just what I thought," I said, smiling. There was a slight satisfaction in having figured out what the designer was aiming for. It was almost the kind of trap I would design myself, really. I'm sure if I sat down and wrote about a trap in my spare time I could come up with something just like it. Shit, who am I kidding? This was brilliant.
"So what... am I doing... with this?" Siro muttered between breaths.
"Shine it down at the water!" Cherri yelled, annoyed that he couldn't figure this out on his own.
He pointed it at the water. "Okay, done!"
"No, search around in the water!" I called out, slapping my face.
"No way!" he shouted. "There's snakes in there!"
"With the LIGHT, you twit!" Frost yelled.
"Guys, it's not that easy!" Siro called back. "God, okay, I'm looking." He shone his light around the bottom of the water. For just a moment, something bright blue glowed under his beam.
"That's it!" I yelled. "Go back to that!"
"To what?" he yelled back. He pointed at a completely different weed.
"The bright blue thing!" I responded.
He groaned in annoyance and explored the area again until he found it. One of the weeds was responding to the infared light. "What, that?"
"Yes, just keep it there!" Cherri yelled. "Jesus Christ!"
"I'm not gonna move it guys, god!" Jackson shouted.
"Okay," I said, putting this together. "One of us has to go down there and get it. Frost, you're going to have to keep your light on us so we don't get attacked by snakes."
"Oh my god," Cherri said, terrified. "Blue, I can NOT do snakes, I nominate you."
I looked at her. She was clearly horrified at the prospect of having to do this. I sighed, taking off my shirt to display my extraordinarily adequate physique. I removed all the valuables from my jeans.
"Wait, keep your shirt on!" Cherri yelled. "Then there's less to bite!"
"A layer of fabric isn't gonna stop a snake bite," Frost said. "You're screwed either way."
"THANK YOU!" I cried. "Just don't you dare take that light off of me!"
"I thought you wanted it on the blue thing!" Siro shouted, confused.
"Not you!" the three of us shouted in perfect unison.
I stepped up to the water's surface. Frost's light was ready to go. Suddenly the reality of the situation dawned on my and I felt a boulder drop in the pit of my stomach. I started to feel dizzy, almost taking a step back. No. I had to do it right there and then. I held my breath and dove straight in. I opened my eyes only slightly. The water was thick and mossy, and through the bright light it was hard to make out what was going on, but I could just barely see the bright blue glow ahead of me. I made my way towards it, occasionally feeling a snake slither past me. As long as they weren't biting, it didn't bother me. If it were spiders, that would be another story. Closer and closer I swam to the glow until it was right in front of me. I quickly plucked the weed from its place in the water and it pulled up a heavy little box.
In that moment, however, my heart basically froze. It was darkness. The light was suddenly gone, and it took me a moment to recall where I was. Oh shit. Oh SHIT. I could feel more of the snakes slithering around me. What the hell happened!? What was Frost doing!? I had to get back. That was the only thing on my mind. I swung around and did a breaststroke with the box in tow.
PANG!! A sharp stinging pain rang through my shoulder. Shit, I'd been bit! One in four... I thought to myself, not slowing my pace. I soon broke the surface of the water and continued swimming frantically towards the entrance. My friends were calling out to me in terror. PANG!! Just before I reached Cherri I felt another jab of pain in my ankle. Another bite.
Fifty fifty...
Cherri helped pull me out of the water and I rolled over onto my back, breathing heavily. My heart was racing. I had a fifty percent shot of having the world's deadliest venom running through my veins. Was it a delayed effect? Was I a dead man already?
"You made it," Frost said, relieved. "The venom takes effect pretty quick, it looks like you're fine."
"Holy shit, Blue!" Siro yelled. "Are you okay, buddy?"
"I'm fine," I said, catching my breath. I looked at my ankle. The two holes from the bite were clearly visible, and it was bleeding just a little bit. I didn't stare at it for long, it was starting to freak me out. "Open the box," I said to Cherri.
She took the box I had been holding and opened the latch on it. "There's a key in here," she said, holding up an old-fashioned key. "And... what is this thing?" She pulled out a long metal rod. It said "KEY" on it in red lettering.
"The bomb!" Frost shouted. "Stick it in the bomb!"
Cherri looked back at the hole. The timer now read 10:12 and was counting down diligently. Anne Marie inserted the rod into the KEY hole, where it locked into place. The timer stopped at 10:09 and the device beeped once again. The door made a loud clicking noise like it had just been unlocked.
GREENHOUSE COMPLETE
TIME: 49:51
DEATHS: 0
RANK: C
Jackson: "Gotta do better!"
BLUE'S TEAM HAS FOUND A KEY! BUT WHAT SECRETS DOES IT UNLOCK?
AND HOW DID THE OTHER TEAMS FARE? DID ANYBODY FIND TORTE? FIND OUT IN FIVE MINUTES, IN MURDER MYSTERY PART 4!!!