Bart tried to focus his eyes, but he was having trouble seeing. He felt the cold, damp ground beneath his supine body. His head was splitting. He desperately tried to remember where he was and how he got here, but his mind failed him.
As his eyes finally began to see again, he saw that there were bars overhead and on two sides of the small space in which he was confined. The other two walls were made of concrete. He was in some sort of cage, like one you might find at a zoo.
Bart stood up, steadied himself, and called out, “Hello?” Is anybody here?”
A voice came from above. “Bart, you’re awake,” Scott said. “I thought you were dead.”
Bart looked up and saw Scott looking down at him from a platform near the top of the cage. “Scott! What the fuck? Where are we? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Scott answered. “I woke up a few minutes before you did. I think we are in some sort of prison.”
Bart thought about what they were up to the night before, but was still unable to conjure up any memories. “How’d we get here?”
“The last thing I remember was being at that escape game,” Scott answered.
Bart began to recall the two of them participating in one of those escape room adventures. It’s one of those challenges where players are locked in a room and have to solve riddles and use a series of clues in order to break out. Last night it was just the two of them taking the challenge, but the room was not a cage. It was more like a Victorian-era parlor.
“Oh right,” Bart said. “I remember some sort of mist coming into the room and then I must have passed out.”
Scott made his way down the metal stairs to the ground level where Bart was standing. That’s when a booming voice called out to them.
“Good morning gentlemen,” the mysterious voice said. “Welcome to the ultimate escape challenge. You have fifteen minutes to figure out how to get out.”
Scott looked around at the empty cage. “Where are the clues?” he asked.
“Ah,” responded the voice. “There are no clues.”
“So how do we get out of here?” Bart asked.
“That’s a thorny problem boys,” the voice answered. “But now you have only fourteen minutes left.”
“And if we can’t get out in fourteen minutes? Scott asked.
“That’s when I let the tigers back into their cage,” the voice answered.
This is another twofer. This post was written in response to Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt and for today’s one-word prompt, “thorny.” Booyah!
This, That, and the Other 
When is it virtual? When is it not? Hint: The tigers have claws and teeth.
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For the sake of Bart and Scott, let’s hope this trip is a virtual one.
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I was fine with Bart and Scott, but I was not sure why Carl entered the picture. My story is similar to yours, but I have a lion instead of tigers. Besides getting to live if they beat the ultimate escape challenge, are there any other prizes? Anyway that was a great story!
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Carl is Bart’s pesky twin bother. Scott’s always getting the two mixed up.
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Besides, Carl got mauled by a tiger last week! He’s outta there.
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There’s nothing like motivation to spur you into action….good one good sir..
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Great response to the image.Enjoyed 👍👍😇. Hope they got out of cage.
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Thanks. I hope so too, but I’m not holding my breath, as they say.
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Let’s hope the tigers aren’t hungry. Nice story.
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Tigers are always hungry, aren’t they?
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We write and make movies to scare ourselves because the world of threat and danger we came from is so distant, but once in a while, we remember.
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This is scary. What a lot packed in a short piece. Nicely done.
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Thanks. When you have a mandated word limit for some of these prompts, it teaches you to write concisely.
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It does.
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