Trapped in Totality
By Aryana Anderson
I woke up in a place chained to a chair. The room is just a 4-wall cement room with a metal door and T.V right in front of me. On the T.V it’s showing the eclipse that’s supposed to be going on right now. I’m supposed to be with my family watching the eclipse outside our house in our backyard right now. It’s very important to us because the last solar eclipse in the U.S was 38 years ago and that’s when my parents met. So today was supposed to be a special day for all of us. I don’t even know how I got here, I’m so confused. On my lap there’s a bag of keys, but before I could even open the bag to get out of here the T.V screen all of the sudden goes black and an anonymous voice starts talking to me.
“Don’t be scared, Aaron.” Then he starts laughing like a crazy person. I think to myself, “How does he even know my name?”
“There’s 5 traps in this building. You have to get out of each trap before a certain phase of the eclipse, the amount of time you have to get out of each trap will be displayed on the T.V in each room. If you fail to get out of a trap before the required time, one member of your family will be taken away to an unknown place forever.’’
I think to myself “They have the wrong person. What if I never get to see some of my family again? What if I never even get out of here?”
The anonymous voice continues talking saying “In the bag on your lap there’s 20 keys. Only one unlocks the lock to your chains. You have until ¼ of totality to get out of those chains. If you fail to do so in time, you will never see your little sister Sarah again.”
The T.V then turns back to the eclipse and now there’s a timer under it counting down how much time I have to get out of here. I start crying because I realized that this is real and I just might lose my sister forever. Even though I’m bawling my eyes out right now I start to restlessly search through the keys to find the one that might get me out of here. It took me 12 tries but I finally got out with only minutes to spare. I’m glad I saved my sister, but yet terrified to realize that this isn’t over yet.
The next room I walk in is just like the last room except this time the door now has a lock on it and in the middle of the room there’s a little table with 2 cardboard boxes on it. The T.V in the room goes black again and the voice starts talking to me.
“I’m glad you made it out the last trap.” Then he starts laughing.
“Inside the 2 boxes on the table there’s 10 tarantulas in each box.” I think to myself “Ugh. Why did it have to be spiders? They’re my
worst fear.”
“Both boxes have a key in it but only one unlocks the door. You have until ½ of totality to find the key and get out of this room. If you fail to do so in time, you will never see your little brother Aiden again.” The T.V then goes back to the eclipse and the timer. I hesitate to start going into the box and find the key because just the thought of me touching spiders disgusts me, but I have to save Aiden. I start going through the box and after a couple of second I find the key. Just as I started to unlock the door and the door didn’t unlock I realized I got the wrong key. As I went through the other box to get the other key there was no other thought going through my mind but the fact that I just desperately want to get out of here. It’s a good thing I made it out of this trap in time though, I guess.
The next room is probably the worst trap yet. I got in and all I saw was a long narrow hallway. On my right there’s another stupid T.V and I start hearing his stupid voice again.
“The rules are quite simple for this round. You are in a human maze. You have until the sun reaches full totality to get out of here. If you fail to get out of here, you will be taken away to an unknown place and will never see your family again.”
My heart dropped. He started talking again but I couldn’t even hear what he said because after he said I could possibly be taken away forever I immediately started running down the halls. I kept on running into dead ends. Every time I ran into a different hallway the voice would taunt me, laugh at me, tell me that I have no chance. Too much was going on and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I broke down and started crying. I just wanted to get out of here. I then realized though that crying won’t do any good. I got up, wiped my tears, and started walking through the maze until I finally found a door. I almost didn’t make it though. On the clock there was only 10 seconds left. In the next room there’s a table with some books on it and this time the door has a keypad by it.
“There’s 15 books on the table, but only one of them have a note with the code for the keypad to get out. You have until ½ pass totality to get out or else say goodbye to your dad!” the voice started laughing again after that. I guess you can say I got lucky on this round because I got the code after only going through the second book.
The last trap is the worst/hardest round yet. In this room there’s just one big pool and on the surface by the pool there’s a little pole.
“The pool is 20ft. At the bottom there’s 20 rings. You have to fish out all 20 rings before the eclipse is over or say goodbye to mommy.” I love my mom way too much to jeopardize losing her. I quickly take off my shoes and dive in. I can barely see. The pool is so deep that I can only be down there for so long until I need to come back up for a breath of air. So far I only have 8 rings on the pole, but when I came up to catch my breath again on the T.V it said I only have a minute and a half left. I took a deep breath and went back down and got as much rings as I could. I came back up and now there’s 30 seconds on the clock. I only have 16 rings. I hurried and went back down and got the last 4 and got them on the pole with only 2 seconds to spare.
“Congratulations.” The voice says. “It’s too bad though, I was hoping I could keep you.”
The door then opens and my family came rushing out. We hugged each other so tight that none of us could even breathe. Just as I finally felt relieved and was ready to go home with my family the voice says,
“You want to play another game?”