Welcome to the Game

We crept into the next room, staring around at...nothing. We were in a small room hardly bigger than the average bathroom. The walls were whitewashed and bare, the light was a single round fitting in the middle of the flat ceiling. On the left hand wall there was a door, white again and unadorned even by a handle.
We glanced at each other and then gave it a shove. It swung outwards on its hinges then flapped back again. Mikey led the way through into a similar, cupboard-like room only this time the door was opposite the one we were crowding through. That door also swung open at his touch.
The next room was identical to the last one, doors opposite each other. We sped up, door after identical door crashing open and we hurried through them. Mikey's hand was stretched out in front of him to open the fifth door in a row but when he slammed into it, it only opened a tiny way then jammed.

Carried forwards on his own momentum, he hit the door squarely and there was a crunch. We all stopped short as Mikey staggered backwards, hands up around his bleeding nose.
"Agh, damn," he groaned, leaning against a wall for balance. Ray knocked his hands away and inspected his nose thoroughly.
"It's not broken," he informed Mikey.
"Great," he said, pinching his nostrils together to stop the bleeding. "What's through the door?"

Frank pushed on the door again and we all heard a chain rattle this time. He slipped a hand through the gap and contorted his arm weirdly to reach the bolt end. He stuck his tongue out and fiddled with his lip piercing as he wriggled the chain across and then pushed the door inwards.
The room beyond was large and rectangular. The floor was sunken and filled with water that looked to be knee deep. At the other end of the room there was a door with one plain handle. On the right hand wall there were five large rods sticking out at chest height set different distances apart and underneath them at floor level was a broken line of what appeared to be white bricks stuck onto the wall.

"What's the point of this?" Ray asked out loud. Frank shrugged and hung onto the door frame to lean out.
"Hey," he said, "there's some stuff on his wall. Ray, give me a hand here." He clasped hands with Ray and gradually leant backwards out of the door so he could see better. Ray braced himself on the door frame to stop Frank from falling.
"That line of bricks goes round this corner too," he said. "They look like part of a climbing wall type thing. There are five great big cogs here as well, all different sizes."
Frank leaned over and picked something off the wall and showed it to us. It was a strip of red paper the size of my pinkie finger.
"What is it?" I asked as Ray pulled Frank back in.
"Lemme see," Mikey said with his bloody nose still pinched between his fingers. Frank held it up for him and he looked at it carefully.
"It's litmus paper," he said. "You use it to test the pH of liquids or vapours."
"Like that paddling pool in there?" I asked and he nodded.
"Try it, Frankie," I said and he crouched down beside the door.
"Sure?"
"Yeah," Ray said. Frank did as he was told and the end of the paper underwater immediately turned a vicious purple.
"What does purple mean?" Frank asked, holding it up for Mikey to see.
"Purple means base. That's not water, it's an alkali."
"Well, it could have been acid," Frank said thankfully and Mikey shook his head.
"Alkali is worse. They can be forty times more damaging than acids. If we tried wading through this we'd get our flesh burned off our bones before we reached the door."

We were silent, staring at the suddenly intimidating lake of liquid. "So what do we do?" I asked.
"Well," Frank said dejectedly, turning back to the room. "I think we play the game."
"How?"
"The holes in the middle of the cogs looked the right size to on on the pins in that wall. Maybe we have to set them up and turn them."
Ray shrugged. "Worth a shot."
"I think so to," I added.
"Hey, wait a second," Mikey said incredulously. "We're not seriously going to play along, are we?"
"I don't see that we've got another choice, Mikes," Frank said sadly. "I'll go, I've got the smallest feet."

He looked at the still pool of acid before taking a breath and stepping onto the first brick. "It's holding," he said, his voice muffled as he clung to the wall tightly.
"Okay, I've reached the cogs. Can you see anything to tell me which one to use?"
"What are your options?" I asked him.
"Uh, I've got one that's about a ruler's length across, two that are the size of car tyres and two that are just longer than my arm."
"One small, two medium and two large," I muttered, staring at the rods poking out of the wall. I stuck my head out so I could see Frank hanging on to the wall. "Are they heavy?"
He lifted one of them off the wall easily. "Feels like polystyrene or something."

"Okay. Ray, which two of those pegs are the closest together would you say?"
"Um, if we call the furthest away number one then I'd say numbers two and three are closest together."
"Which means the small cog has to go on one of those two. But three and four are really far apart so their only combination would be two medium or large cogs."
"So the small one has to go on number two."
"That's right. Frank?"
"Got it. Small cog to number two."

We watched him inch his way along the wall with the small cog clutched tightly to his chest. He managed to negotiate the corner well enough then used his spare hand to grip the rods in the wall and shuffle crabwise along the wall. He reached the second pin from the left and slid the cog onto it.
"It's quite stiff," he told us as he made his way back. "I couldn't turn it by hand if it didn't have a cog on."
"I think that's the point," I sigh as he reaches the bank of cogs again. "So, four cogs left."

"Frank, how big is the radius on one of those big cogs?"
"About thirty centimetres."
"And a medium?"
"Maybe twenty."
"Gerard, how big would you say the gap between pin one and cog two is?"
I tried to make an estimate but all the white was disorientating. "Um, I'd go for the larger one."
"Me too. Frank, take a large cog and put it on pin one."
"That's the one furthest away, right?"
"Yeah."
There was a scraping sound and Frank once again made his way across the wall, this time burdened with a cog that was almost a half his height. If it hadn't been for the pool of alkali, it might have been funny. He reached the first pin and struggled with the chunky piece of polystyrene until it was lined up and he pushed it on. The teeth locked into place with the second cog and he wiped sweat from his top lip.
"Anything you want me to measure while I'm over here?"
"Yeah. From the second cog to the third pin."
Frank stuck his elbow on the edge of the small cog and laid his arm in a straight line towards the next pin along. He pressed into his wrist where the pin touched it then went back over to the selection of cogs.

"I'm going for a medium," he said, taking it and shuffling along again. I could see he was getting tired but he shoved the cog on anyway and jiggled it until the teeth lined up. He measured the gap for the next cog, a large, and hauled it over as well.
"Last one," he panted, pushing the medium cog onto the fifth pin. "I'm gonna turn it," he warned us then braced himself as best he could and pulled down on the edge of the fifth cog.
There was a groaning sound as the polystyrene edges squeaked along each other and then the pool of acid wobbled. A strip of plastic began to rise up from the floor, a plank that stretched from our doorway to the other. It broke the surface and the alkali poured off it in thin streams.
Frank edged along the wall and stepped back into the doorway. We clapped him on the back. "Well done, dude."
"Yeah, nice one."
"Cheers. Let's see about getting out of here, shall we?"

He crouched down and examined the walkway. "It's bumpy," he said. "I don't think it'll be too slippery."
"It's still covered in alkali," I pointed out.
"Then we'll have to walk quickly," Frank said and before we could stop him he took a step. He held his arms out for balance as he walked briskly along and it seemed to take an eternity for him to reach the door. Eventually he grabbed hold of the handle and pushed his way inside.
He turned in the doorway and beckoned to us. "Come on. It's okay if you walk quickly."
Mikey went next, then me. The plank under my feet was sticky with liquid and it was actually a lot wider than it had looked. Before I even realised it I'd reached the other side and Frank was hauling me in.
"Okay, Ray," he called and Ray crossed as well.
Once he was through we shut the door and there was a small click of a lock. Frank rattled the handle but it wouldn't budge.

"So we're being pushed onwards then," Ray remarked, rounding on the new room.
"I'm getting bored of the white," I said. "It's kinda tasteless."
"What are you, an interior designer?" Ray asked.
"Comic book artist," I told him.
"And a good one at that," said the distorted voice said.

We whipped round, searching for the source of the noise but the only things in there were us and the door.
Only one door, I noticed.
One door which was locked.
We were trapped.

Notes

So...apparently there are at least eight other people who think like me. Hooray! *pulls a party popper*

I'm a bit worried that this chapter was too complicatd so if you guys wanted me to I'll re-write it just so it makes sense.
Thank you so much, stay cool
Ghost xx