vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

When characters begin to wake up, instead of finding themselves in the usual warehouse, they will instead find themselves in an a very unfamiliar area. Maybe they'll wake up alone, or maybe they'll wake up with someone else. Either way, the biggest point is that they're in God-knows-where and it's the start of a new Calhoun Hour.

Within seconds later, a familiar voice booms throughout the loud speakers.

"Ahem, testing, testing! Hello, can you all hear me?"

It's, without a doubt, your favourite robotic mouse, Calhoun. As usual, he sounds a cheery as ever.

"Wow, isn't this familiar? It's almost like the first time we've met, you know. Test subject in a new location, maybe alone or maybe with someone else, my charming voice rings throughout the room, trying to drown you all in an elevator. Good times!"

"Well, anyway, welcome to your new Calhoun Hour! You can see that I've taken the liberty to move you all to a more suitable location. You may not know it, with how small your brains are, but you're all stuck in a maze! I've had my fair share of running around in mazes, you know, being a mouse and all, so I want to return to favour to you humans! So, you know the drill: explore, look around, try to escape, blah blah blah, I don't need to explain all this! Just get to it! Who knows, maybe the exit here is an exit out to the real world. I might be generous like that, if you manage to find it. If not, well, I guess you can all starve here!"

He snickers, then pauses. Suddenly, a loud gunshot-like sound rings throughout the speakers, and Calhoun screams again.

"Let's get started!"

BASIC INFO ✖ ESCAPE ✖ POST-EVENT MINGLE ✖ TURN-IN

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Shit. Goddammit. In any other situation, he'd probably say 'Oh, don't worry. It's probably a tremor' or 'Maybe some construction', but not in here. Not in this warehouse.

Heiji grabbed for Wirt's hand, COME ON DUDE. "RUN FOR IT!"

As if on cue, a hatch in the roof opened, depositing an enormous rolling boulder into the hallway behind them.

Wirt didn't have to be told twice. As soon as Heiji grabbed his arm, he was racing close behind and picturing how terrible death by boulder would be. His live would probably flash before his eyes, if he actually remembered more than one thing, but alas.

"I-I can't believe this." Wirt was not athletic, he could feel himself slowing down a little. He should start working out or something. "It's like something out of movie."

YOU HAD TO MENTION INDIANA JONES-ESQUE MOVIES, DIDN"T YOU.

Look. Look. If anyone was to blame for this, it was not Heiji, okay? Heiji did not procure a giant boulder and whittle it down until it was just the right size and shape for crushing teenagers. He did not put that boulder in the ceiling. And he definitely did not construct the elaborate apparatus that had apparently kept it in said ceiling until aforementioned teenagers got just the right amount of distance into the room, okay?

THIS WAS NOT ON HIM.

In any case, Heiji was athletic, and he was going to pull Wirt along bodily if he had to. "Just... a little... farther!"

Okay, okay, so it definitely wasn't Heiji's fault. Logically, Wirt knew that. It just felt oddly jinx-like. Like something that would definitely be seen happening in a movie but not real life. Kind of surreal, like most of what had been happening to Wirt since he arrived.

Not that that mattered, given they were running for their lives.

"I----I hope so." He forced himself to keep running, but he couldn't see where the end of the hall was, because he was looking down at his feet.

Thanks, Wirt, you were a bro. Albeit a bro that might be flattened soon.

Heiji practically burst through the door. The boulder slammed into the doorway behind them, but was too large to follow them through. Instead there it sat, blocking their way back.

This new room they had entered was cleaner and neater than a lot of the others, with food spread over the tabletop. It was... normal food! Not the gruel and microwave dinners they served in the cafeteria.

And then this happened I mean not really but that food was pretty tempting...

Oh thank god, they made it. Wirt took a moment to catch his breath and then took a look around. Wow, there was a lot of food. Really, really good looking food. Wirt wanted to go over and stuff his face, he was suddenly starving, well aware of the fact that he hadn't eaten since he arrived, but...

"Do--you think it's safe?"

"Well, I mean... he's drugged the food before." Meaning Calhoun, of course.

"...But it does look really good." Heiji looked super undecided. On one hand, he hadn't had decent food in forever. On the other, the last time he'd eaten on Calhoun's dime, he'd ended up feeling violently ill for like a day.

But had it been worth it?

...Yes. Yes, it had. "Tell you what. I'm starving. I'll eat some of it, and if nothing happens to me, you'll know it's safe. Probably."

"I---I dunno, I don't think it would be fair to have you suffer the consequences alone." And really, the food looked really, really good, and Wirt was pretty hungry, so he was willing to risk it.

Also, it helped that Heiji was there as moral support and a comrade in arms. If something happened, Wirt wouldn't be the only one to suffer, probably.

"Yeah, but it ain't make sense for both of us to risk it, right? Plus I been poisoned before. And you're smaller than me, so I'd probably be better at metabolizing anything in it."

Somehow they were arguing about who was going to test the food what was Heiji's life...

"But--one of us is going to end up risking it anyway, r-right? So either way, if one of us gets sick, the other will feel pretty bad about it."

Yeah, Wirt's just gonna reach for something on the table. He's going to eat this, you can't stop him Heiji.

"Wh -- hey!" Well, Heiji was simply not going to be outdone in this fool's enterprise. He grabbed the first thing on the table, which was... idk, a nice slice of melon or something, and took a bite.

"Hey, this ain't bad." God, how long had it been since he'd eaten actual food?

CALHOUN HOUR - ESCAPE

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