I wrote this based on a Reedsy.com Writing Prompt: Write a story where a character has to decide whether to press the button or not. https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/
Do you Push the Button?
“Are you going to push the button?” asks Philip.
“No, that’s crazy. I just read the message to you. This button will open the door so I can get out, but it will also activate a quantum field and shut down all electrical power flow worldwide.” Philip has his phone to his ear and is shaking his head.
“What are the people who trapped you going to do? How will they even know?”
Charlie shakes his head while compressing his lips. Taking a breath, he says, “They will know when electricity stops working.”
“Charlie, I’m not in the room with the button. You are talking to me on the phone, debating with yourself. If you aren’t going to push the button, then figure out how to get out of the room.”
“That is the problem, Philip. The note says the way out is to push the button. Shutting down the power will impact Hospitals and airplanes in the air, and emergency pumps will stop pumping.”
“You said the entrance is sealed, and you are locked in. So, you’ve decided to stay in the room and starve?”
“Philip, I’m looking at two skeletons. It looks like the last two people decided to die instead of destroying civilization. I want you to stop arguing and help me find another way out.”
“Okay, Charlie, go through how you got into the room again. Go slow and focus on details, buttons, signs, handles, etc. Then, I want you to list everything in your pockets, go through the room, and list everything else. That includes the pockets of the skeletons.”
“Why, what are you trying to do?”
“You solve puzzles all the time. We have done at least a dozen escape rooms. Did you ever consider that someone baited you to get into that room? This is just the most formidable escape room you have encountered.
“Philip, this isn’t a game.”
“You didn’t think that when you accepted the invitation to the hardest escape room. You are freaking out right now. I need you to focus. Find clues and information. Let your brain devise a solution. Stop freaking out, save the phone battery, and call me in an hour to go through everything. I’m calling people to try and get you out. I would expect that with a doomsday button in front of you, it will take serious shit to get you out.”
An hour later, Charlie calls Philip. The phone rings several times before Philip answers. “Sorry, Charlie. I was on the phone with a rescue team. You are located on the edge of three jurisdictions, and they are all arguing about who has authority at the location. They will be having a meeting tomorrow to decide.”
“Great, I’m stuck in here, and they will do nothing.”
“Not unless you are bleeding or there is a gunfight.”
“Well, tell them I’m bleeding.”
Philip says, “I considered it, but they said they would arrest me if I lied about that. Now focus and tell me what you found.”
“There was nothing at the entrance but signs showing the direction. No handles. The door was open and up in the ceiling. I didn’t realize it was a door. I entered the room, and there was a small green light. When I got close, it turned red, and the door slammed down. I heard a clanging sound. Then a light turned on over the message attached to the console above the button.”
“What does the button look like?”
“The button is red, round, and covered with a clear case. It looks like one of those buttons in a movie. They flip the cover, then press the button.”
“Okay, what else did you find?”
“One of the skeletons had a Swiss army knife. It has a screwdriver, knife, scissors, saw, bottle opener, and a pointy thing.”
“That could be an excellent find. What else?”
“I don’t have anything else. But I was thinking about opening the door. There has to be a signal to open the door separate from the doomsday thing. I have to find it, find where it splits.”
“There you go! That is the escape artist I know. It won’t be easy. They would have made it hard, and maybe with traps.
Six hours later, Charlie activates the door circuit and hears a clunk. The sound doesn’t come from the area of the door he entered. The sound is from the opposite side of the room. Walking to the wall, Charlie feels a movement of air. Just enough to register on his arm as he walks by a cabinet. Opening the double doors, he sees nothing. Pushing on the back, he feels it move. “Shit, like the book “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”. Pushing his way through, he sees a short hallway leading down a set of stairs.
Charlie thinks, “The stairs are going in the wrong direction. They should be going up.”
His phone buzzes, and the light goes out. He knows his phone battery is empty. He takes a breath and starts slowly stepping down the stairs. With no light, he uses his fingertips on the edge of the wall and the tip of his shoe as he descends. At the bottom of the stairs is a metal door with dogs like a ship hatch. He opens it and sees a light down a flat tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, he emerges in a small cave. The cave is on the side of a riverbank or drainage ravine.
Charlie, Philip, and Philips’s younger sister Claire meet two months later for pizza.
Charlie is feeling good about tonight’s dinner. After he got out of the room, everyone wanted him to talk about his ordeal, his mental state, and his frustrations. Philips’s sister Claire is visiting from New York and has already heard the story. This will be a regular and relaxing dinner.
They are enjoying the time, talking about escape rooms, when the bartender changes the TV, and someone yells to turn it up.
They hear a newscaster talking about nuclear tensions between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. “The president has sent the secretary of state to Paris, where they expect to meet with negotiators from other countries.”
Charlie says, “I don’t like the sound of this. It has never been this bad before. What happened?”
Claire says, “I heard that China and Iran were falling apart. Russia is backing Iran, and North Korea is backing China. It will be okay. No one wants a nuclear war.”
The next day, Charlie calls Philip and says with a shaking voice, “Have you seen the news? The situation is getting worse.”
“Charlie, what can we do? Why are you getting upset?”
“Philip, I can stop it. The doomsday button is still there. It will shut down missiles, planes, everything.”
“It will send the world back to the dark ages.”
“And a nuclear war is better? We will be in the dark ages, just without radiation fallout.”
“This is different, Charlie. We don’t know if the button works to shut down all electricity. It could cause something worse.”
“Philip, I am going to push the button.”
The next day, Charlie finds the cave and returns to the room. Philip is calling him. “Yes, Philip.”
“Charlie, where are you? Have you heard the news? The US military is now on DEFCON Two. That is just below full nuclear war. This has gotten worse.”
“I’m working to reconnect the button. I had to take it all apart to get out. Now I have to put It back together. If this works, I will meet you at the BMX track we used to race together.”
“If it doesn’t?”
“I’m in the equivalent of a fall-out shelter. There is no food or clean air, but we won’t get blown up.”
“You are NOT making me feel any better.”
“Get Claire and anyone else. Get food and water, and head to the BMX track. If this works or doesn’t work, I will get you there.”
Charlie hangs up and keeps working on the button. When he was escaping, he removed panels and cut a dozen wires before finding the door circuit. As he is working, he feels foreboding. This is bad, really bad in every way.
An hour later, Philip calls. “Charlie, they are issuing evacuation warnings and alarms. I have Claire and her friend Mauve. We just grabbed what was left at the store. How are you doing?”
“I’m almost done reconnecting.”
Philip yells on the phone, “They just said we have a missile launch. If you are going to do this now, that is the time. It was great knowing you.”
Charlie tosses the phone on the floor under the console, so the light faces up. He crawls back under the system. Right after returning to work, he hears a noise and people talking. He scrambles up and tries to hide behind the console.
Three people enter the room from the trap side. They are carrying assault weapons and wearing camouflage clothes. Peeking around, he can see them from the reflected light on their rifles’ flashlights.
One man says, “Someone is here. Fan out. Let’s find them.”
Charlie raises his hands above his head and steps out. “Don’t shoot.”
The person closest to him is a woman. She points her gun at Charlie and says, “Who are you? Are you armed? Why are you here?”
The other men come up next to her, and with all three pointing their guns at Charlie, the third man says, “Do you know how to make this work? ANSWER ME!”
“I think so. I was trapped here and had to take this apart to get out. You know what this does?”
“We heard a report about this. People came looking for you a couple of months ago and documented the room. We read the sign. We have about fifteen minutes before the first ICBM will hit. We are close to Philadelphia and will be a target. Put it together!”
Charlie is standing with his hands up in the air. He doesn’t move immediately, and the larger man walks toward Charlie, saying, “Are you dense? We have one chance in hell, and this is it. If it works, it will be terrible. If it doesn’t work, it will be worse.”
At this point, the rifle barrel is in Charlie’s chest. “Do it.”
Charlie gets down under the console, and his hands shake as he tries to connect the wires again. He must use the knife to strip off the insulation and twist both sides together to make a connection. He can’t connect the striped wires with two wires left because there is not enough wire to twist them together.
The gunman is poking him in the thigh with his rifle, demanding, “What is happening? We have ten minutes. If the nukes go off, I’m going to shoot you.”
“I’m having a problem with the last two wires.”
“What do you need?”
Charlie pulls hard on one of the wires and gets it to move an inch. It is enough to connect the wire. He says, “There isn’t enough wire to connect this last one. Let me think, please.”
The woman says, “We don’t have time; if the nukes hit the top of their ballistic arc, they may not need electricity.”
Charlie says, “Let me get this ready. I will hold the wire ends together.”
After a minute, Charlie yells, “Push the button down. I have wires together to make the circuit.”
The woman walks over, lifts the protective cover of the button, and smashes down the button with her palm. The button doesn’t move. She screams in anger, “FUCK!”
She pulls up her rifle and smashes the button down with the rifle stock. Charlie is holding the wires together when they hear a buzz for a couple of seconds, and then the light on the phone and the soldier’s flashlights go out.
There is no sound. There is nothing. They are in complete darkness.
The woman says, “That may have worked. We won’t know until we get out.”
The first man says, “How do we get out?”
Charlie says, “Bad planning on my part. Did anyone bring matches or a candle?”
“Dude, we are prepared.” All three pull out glow sticks, snap them and shake.
“You were here before. How did you get out?” asks the woman.
Charlie leads them through the wardrobe, tunnel, and cave. They climb out of the ravine and look around. Three streaks in the sky are heading toward Philadelphia. Further away, they can see more streaks toward New York. As they watch, the streaks go to the ground.
Charlie is holding his breath, watching. If electricity doesn’t work, the warhead doesn’t have a signal. After a few seconds, there is no nuclear flash, and he jumps up, yelling, “YES!”
The woman looks at Charlie, saying, “Good job, whoever you are. Now what?”
“I’m meeting friends in that direction. If they can make it.”
“Since you saved the world, we will take you to them. Then we can decide: We can stay together or split up.”
“Who are you, people?”
“This is Duke, she is Abbie, and I’m Oscar. We left the base on the chance of getting to that button and preventing a nuclear war and nuclear winter.”
“I’m Charlie, and I’m an advertising manager.”
They start walking toward the east, watching streaks continue to come down from the sky. This would be the worst day in history, except for pushing a button.
