Where We Have Been
Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil
They think this is an ‘Escape the Room’ type experience──At least, theoretically, this is a game.
But when they walk into the door leading to another scene, the situation changed all of a sudden.
They’re playing, and there should be staff observing them from behind-the-scenes, and when they are stuck or if they clearly look distressed, the staff should open the door and help lead them away.
Yet, something must be wrong in this place. Trapped in this dark, locked house, there is no one coming to save them.
──A real life escape room?
But why would their companions also be wholly in on the thing still? They seem to have forgotten that this is a game. They forgot they paid money to come in. They think something has actually happened here. They are actually──
Investigating a crime. The kind where you are in the same room with the cruel murderer.
“So, what’s the whole plot about?”
Ye Lan asks.
The use of the word ‘plot’ draws condemnation from someone else, “this is no mere plot! Lady, be more serious, or we might really end up dead!”
Ye Lan “…”
But isn’t this clearly the room of an attraction used to play Escape Room?!
There is even a sticker on the wall that says, ‘in an emergency, call [this number] through the phone installed on the wall.’ The phone number belongs to the owner, presumably.
Unfortunately, when Ye Lan and Shen Yünjü tried to use the phone despite everyone else’s reprimands, the phone wouldn’t connect. It was a waste of effort and time.
Someone rolls their eyes and mutters, “seriously, can you treat your lives a little more seriously… I would rather not die because of others’ clumsiness.”
Ye Lan furrows her brows and is going to keep trying to persuade these potential companions when Shen Yünjü quietly whispers to her, with an almost defeatist tone, “they’re hopeless. They must be here in this shop when everyone has gone mad. They’re prisoners of this locked house.”
Ye Lan is still pretty sure that this must be some cruel joke, and these people here are merely having something like mass hysteria.
However, their madness is incurable. They really do believe they are investigating some real life murder case, and that is what they have to do.
With the madness taking over the world, even the fake murder case has become genuine in their eyes.
Ye Lan’s lips are trembling somewhat. This cold and determined woman is showing an unprecedented lost look. Shen Yünjü stays quiet when seeing her looking like this.
He knows Ye Lan is not looking like this simply because of what he said, but also…
What did they actually forget?
All the words and sentences they end up speaking seem to imply they know quite a great deal about what is going on here. They know why these people are so deeply immersed in this ‘realistic’ escape room.
But they cannot remember any of it──They have lost their memories.
How can they regain their memories?
They don’t know.
They can only head through the doors again and again, hoping that they can find something new in all these Nightmares.
Nightmares?
Shen Yünjü thinks about this inexplicably familiar word that just popped into his mind.
He also said ‘when everyone has gone mad’ earlier.
He said it. The whole sentence feels natural to him, but… What ‘madness’? Why does he not remember anything about it?
He said the term basically on reflex, like it is some intuitive thing, but in fact, he is sure he knows nothing of what the term entails.
His memories. His damned memories. If his brain started keeping secrets from himself, then what can he even do about it?
Human brains are truly, all too easily affected, both in memories and in thought──
Shit. Where did that other part come from? He does not know how he has drawn this conclusion. He can either choose to believe in what he just thought about, or not.
But what is more important right now, is to find the door and leave this place.
Not wallowing in his brain’s reflexes and amnesia.
The situation is not going to change by his thinking about it. He simply needs to resolve──To search.
So after a moment of silence, Shen Yünjü abandons the trails of thoughts in his mind.
They’re all distracting him from the matter at hand. So he asks Ye Lan, “where do you think the door is in this scene?”
The two of them slowly follow along behind the rest of the people in this escape room. They’re not splitting up, but also not going to participate in those people who are conversing with the pretence that this is all real. The people ahead can talk about it themselves.
Ye Lan says, “the simplest way out might be to resolve the case in this escape room and then walk outside the entrance to this shop──The shop’s door, yes. That is the most likely.”
“But can they really solve this?” Shen Yünjü thinks and says, “if we go by what we went through the past scenes, these people are continuously trapped in the scene, unable to leave, so…”
“We might be able to, though,” Ye Lan suggests, “we could be able to solve it and then leave.”
Shen Yünjü nods, and then says, “I wonder when this scene will repeat. Will it be when the mystery is in a deadlock? Or perhaps… when someone dies?”
In the plaza before, after the Raining Hellfire, the entire scene repeats.
What about here? Is it when everyone has died? Or would it be some time after they get to solve the mystery?
Ye Lan shakes her head quietly. She doesn’t know either.
They’re currently inside a room of the house, in which the people ahead are discussing some numerical digits, and how it might relate to the lock on the drawer here.
It’s a riddle of the escape room; after looking on a bit, Ye Lan talks with Shen Yünjü for a second before rushing forth and kick the drawer violently.
Maybe it’s not of good quality, or maybe it’s simply from being worn down over time, but the lock breaks in half, and the drawer reveals a slip of paper within.
The rest of the people are looking at her, stunned.
Ye Lan is testing to see if forcefully resolving the riddles can work here.
She waits for a while, and no insane shopkeeper seem to be popping out to yell at her for breaking the furniture in the shop.
Yet when she turns around, she sees that the ‘companions’ seem to look rather angry. She furrows her brows a little.
Then she hands the piece of paper to them, and says, “the clue is here,” and adds, “I’m in a hurry. Please.”
They don’t reply, but they grab the piece of paper, and after looking at it for a bit, their anger starts to subside as they enter another heated round of discussions.
Ye Lan walks back over to the side of the slightly nervous Shen Yünjü ──He is on the lookout for if any of them turn violent. He would be running away with Ye Lan if that happens; that hasn’t happened, and he says, “looks like they merely need to solve the mystery.”
“It might be because we’re ‘special,’ so they are letting us off more easily,” Shen Yünjü takes a guess. He actually wasn’t too keen on helping Ye Lan with her experiment. He then says, “but we did save time thanks to this.”
‘Save time’──Shen Yünjü is blanking out again.
Why do they have to save time? Why can’t they just stay here forever? Just like this…
Stay in this place forever, repeating the same fate and tragedy, forever and ever…
Isn’t it the same as eternal life?
But Shen Yünjü snaps awake soon enough.
He tells himself – he’s here in order to escape from that fate in the first place. He cannot succumb to this. He will definitely go back to…
Back where? He doesn’t know.
But he does know, he wants desperately to leave this place.
They keep pressing forward.
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