Scavenger hunt

Date: 7/21/2019

1) A murky, messy, tunneling hallway driven place impossibly in-between indoor and out. A scavenger hunt was afoot, but it was almost more than that. We had no idea what we were searching for. We needed to search for the clue to know what to search for. Was there a we? Was I part of a group? I can't tell. The people around me - various vague presences known from different schools - knew more than I did. People were absolutely tearing apart the place looking for anything useful. As this went on, I began discovering more and more what to look for. I found a ruin sheet of once-shiny blue origami paper. I found a haggard blue feather and a bottlecap-like hunk of blue plastic. Clearly each of the groups of contestants correspond to a color of object? The search continues. Nothing comes of it for what seems like ages. In the North Western corner of the location with the camera angle facing East by Southeast, the person who bothers me enters from my right. It's someone who has fallen from fame due to scandal. Their face -- inscrutable. Obscured. This presence approaches, armed with vulgar pick up lines. I am not enchanted. All eyes are on us. Enduring the lines to capacity, I interrupt and demand this be put to an end. The presence asks indignantly, "What? You won't even take me out to dinner first?" To which I respond, "Oh you just want to grab food? Sure, when do you want to go? I'm not down to fuck but I do need food to live, you know." The figure is absolutely incredulous. Just gobsmacked for a beat in which their façade completely shattered from my responce. No one would have said yes to a public date as opposed to a night with this figure on account of the scandal and loss of status. I agreed because I wanted to know how they were handling things. Must be a pretty tough go of it for them and I didn't really care if I was seen with them. 2) Their front re-erected before my eyes but with major cracks. They became slightly awkward as they neither confirmed nor denied the date. It infuriates me to the highest degree that this fool would draw everyone's attention to me, try to grossly pick up like me, and not even know what they want from me during the middle of this important event. I grew tried of them and continued my search. I make my way to the Southwestern corner of the location where I discover there was an additional space about half the size as the first. Along the Southern wall in the middle of a sort of dirt island in the middle of the passage, we find a buried slip of paper. The paper is a light creamy tan color. It has a slightly irregular shape, yet very smooth edges. As we unfurl the small paper in our hands, we can see the writing. It does not make sense. The brown-gold lettering changes font size before our eyes. It is both too big and too small for the paper. We decide we need more to interpret it. More and more slips of paper pop up from the dirt table like a small crop. We try to pick them up discreetly, but it quickly becomes overwhelming. Before we can finish, all teams get called to the main chamber. It is totally unclear who is in charge of this event or how to escape from it. Once gathered in the main chamber, something akin to a cutscene happens. The people around me, as always in this place, seem to be three steps ahead in terms of comprehension. We continue trying the best we can to adapt to this ever changing nonsense game, only operating in the main chamber. 3) At some point, the person who I'm mad at finds me and pulls me aside for a chat. They seem totally different in demeanor and also full of concern. Somehow, I know that we have a conversation in which they tell me that part of their role in the game was to have someone violently deny them in some way, for lack of a better term. There was an element of predetermination in this bizarre game and I had unknowingly broken it. Apparently the game masters had pegged me as the person most likely to be made uncomfortable enough by this person's gross come-ons to loudly and publicly rebuke them. But this person had no idea that I would ever be interested in dinner outside of this whole affair, nor that I would shatter the rules the way I did. They continued to nervously talk at me. It was a blend of fast apology, half-hearted explanation (read: excuse), that whole nervous shy 'so you said you might like-like me middle school energy. I did not at all enjoy that they would be so rude to me just for a stupid game I didn't understand and I absolutely hated this additional interruption that I neither have time nor care for. I left angrily and continued the hunt for who knows what. There were a couple discussions with other teams that I know happened but can't remember. Some time passes and another phase of the game begins. It involves a lot of moving around the location in a group and dialog from a mysterious game master that I can't remember. When we finish walking, there is a flurry of action. It's as if people are scrambling for a piece of a puzzle. It's a frantic race to complete something in order to unlock part of a phrase to the penultimate riddle. After that gets hashed out, the whole gang messily reconvenes in the middle of the main chamber only to messily separate into four groups. These loosely defined groups make their way to scattered, very long tables. The governing entities of the group we were assigned to happened to be my mother and grandfather, but my grandfather was dressed as a king and showing his true narcissist colors. My mom just kind of faded into the ba ground. We were not yet seated at the table. Everyone was just frantically milling about. People formed potential seating plans by standing directly behind chairs, but the odd person or two kept changing because there were extra seats. We were all made to get up and rearrange if there were still unassigned people changing seats and it was pretty tedious. That person I was mad at kept trying to sit near me so we could talk. They seemed more sincere about apologizing for hurting my feelings and more understanding that I just wanted to see if they were doing okay by grabbing food together. But I wasn't willing to talk and I was silently avoiding both proximity and eye contact as this strange, messy table seat dance went on. I thought I managed to ditch them by the time we sat down. But they swooped in at the last second to grab the seat directly across from me. The meal part of the game started and most talking was forbidden. I began eating food that I could barely see or feel but somehow knew I was eating. This whole scene ended with the person I was mad at eating and flashing occasional intense eye contact at me, knowing how much they wanted to say and how desperately they wanted to say it. All the while, I could not give less of a fuck and I still didn't know what the rules of this game were or why anything was happening.