Here’s what happens in when a Post reporter gets locked in an escape room.
Equipped with four other teammates, cameras and notepads, I entered an escape room for the first time ever. The Escape Room Athens opened last weekend and here’s what happened when I was locked in a room with four other people.
With 45 seconds left on the clock and several people impulsively fidgeting around the room, we seemed to have lost all hopes of completing the mission. If this doesn’t work, what will we do? I found myself mentally rehashing “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads as I stood there, dumbfounded about where to go from here. “And you may ask yourself/ Well...How did I get here?”
via giphy.com
After a walk through the winding hallways that smelled of break room coffee and looked like the dentist’s office, I found myself at Escape Room Athens. Everyone is HYPED.
via giphy.com
Upon entering the room, the eerie omnipresence of Damien from The Omen evoked a sense of urgency among the group, and right at the start there was tension. As everyone was scurrying about the room, decoding and unlatching, it was easy to get overwhelmed. After all, we only had 45 minutes to escape.
Me as a journalist assessing the situation:
via giphy.com
Another message preaching the shrill Psalms 23:4 deafened the room as I pressed the tape recording: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff comfort me.”
via giphy.com
The information seemed to be coming at us from all directions, with messages, numbers and cryptic children’s lullabies that seem to seep inside the very core of your soul, breaking it down slowly until there was nothing left.
As time dwindled down to 20 minutes, then 10, then four, we were getting a little antsy thinking we surely would not make it out alive. After finding wardrobes, keys and what alluded to be a strange obsession with Jeffrey Dahmer, we seemed closer to solving the puzzle.
via giphy.com
There we found ourselves, finding the last piece and getting that final key. With cheers and smiles we unlocked the door to sweet, sweet victory at 45 seconds on the clock.
via giphy.com
Overall, Escape Room Athens was a blast to play and it left me smiling when the team finally made it out of the room. I think it is a great team building experience and even though $29 or $32 a ticket — depending on if one goes on a weekday or weekend — may seem steep for a broke college kid, it’s an experience to remember and more of a ‘one-and-done’ type of amusement.
@mmhicks19
mh912314@ohio.edu
