When the freight elevator reached the second floor, the second door of the elevator opened. Cody and Valentine stepped inside the new room, vigilant of the surroundings and watching for traps. The freight elevator closed behind them, locking them inside the new room.
The room was pretty small and one-sided. It was about 5 by 5 meters in size and lit up by TL lights. There was a closed steel door on the other side of the room with a large monitor screen next to it. Cody looked to his left and saw another freight elevator door. Besides two cameras in the corners of the room, it was empty.
Cody and Valentine had no idea what to do here yet. At that moment, the other freight elevator door opened. Jake and Andy stepped inside the room, smiling brightly to see that their friends were alright.
After greeting each other with pats on the shoulders and some hugs, the guys caught up. "Oh yeah, baby! Where in the lead again!" Cody said when he looked at Andy's blue collar that portrayed the number '1256'.
"Please, just dumb luck!" Jake said looking at the red collar of Valentine. The number '1259' was to be seen. "We just have to put our back into it a little and we will be back on top." Jake said cockily.
"How quickly did you figure out which element belonged with which portrait?" Cody asked.
Jake and Andy looked at each other confused. "Elements? No, we had some different puzzles. We had to take our pictures while we were in sex positions." Jake said.
"Sounds like you had it easy." Valentine said. "We had to take another obstacle course. I would like to be in some sex position as well if it earned us some extra points." Valentine chuckled in defense.
Cody blushed, imagining Valentine and him laying on a soft, comfy bed, doing sex positions in front of a camera. He peeked at his buddy, his body muscled, sweaty, hairy. As much as he hated to admit it, the longer he stayed in this escape room, the more he longed for Valentine, or Jake and Andy for that matter.
"Hey, we had to take an obstacle course too!" Andy said, standing up for their team. "We had to fuck some literal trap holes. Find a path over some weird electrified...Romanian numbered tiles." Andy said. Jake rolled his eyes but was amused by Andy's competitive spirit.
Despite that Andy was sometimes so dimwitted, Jake admitted that he wanted to be with no one else to win this game. He looked at his larger friend, his sweaty blonde curls, his hairy muscled chest flexing, Andy's cute smile, and his confident pose. A wry smile appeared on Jake's face as well when he looked at his best buddy, having to admit that doing all of this wasn't even that bad.
After the guys had talked for a little while, a microphone was activated and the distorted voice was to be heard again. "Good job on your last tasks guys, and welcome to the second floor. Here some new challenges will wait for you."
The four guys walked forward towards the steel door. Figuring that it would open soon and they would see some instructions on the monitor. "The first floor was mainly...the beginning of the match. Right now, on this floor, you have to...work with your football team to advance." the voice said.
The guys looked at each other confused. Did they need to work as a team this time? Was it some other riddle? "What do you mean by that?" Jake asked, both uncertain and a little worried.
"Yeah, do we have to work together? I thought we were competing?" Valentine asked.
"Look at the following video fragments, it might clear things up for you." the voice said. With that, the monitor activated.
The 4 guys watched curiously at the monitor. For the first seconds, nothing was happening, the image was black, although there were some sounds in the background.
Jake gasped when he heard his voice on the monitor. It seemed that these guys had a hidden camera again somewhere. "Hey guys, look what came into the mail!" Jake's voice sounded on the monitor.
"What is it?!" Andy's voice asked somewhere in the distance.
"A pizza! There is a note, it says it's from a fan." Jake said. At that moment, a bright light came into the monitor, and the camera moved backward. Jake and Andy looked at each other almost frightened, realizing that there had been a hidden camera in the pizza box they received.
Though the real shock came when they looked back at the monitor screen. Besides Andy and Jake, they saw more of their team members. They saw Brad Jackson, Owen Thompson, Dylan Adams, Damian Miller, and Juan Chavez. This was in their dormitory.
"Ah, hell yeah, pepperoni, my favorite!" Dylan said, looking hungry to the steaming pizza in the box.
"Who did you say it was from?" Juan asked, sipping from a beer bottle.
"No idea, there was a note with it." Jake said, "But it just says: To the quarterbacks of The Blue Buffalo's, may this be some kind of a reward for the last match. Love, a fan." Jake said, reading the note.
"Well, would be a waste to leave it getting cold." Dylan said while he grabbed a slice.
"Hey what are you doing?" Andy asked Dylan. "The note said to the quarterbacks." he chuckled, giving Dylan a shove.
"Oh relax. It also said that it would be a reward for the last match. And we all played didn't we." Dylan? said teasingly.
Clearly, the pizza brightened the mood for the guys in the room. Everybody joked and chuckled while diving their hands into the box like hungry animals.
The video stopped and static was shown. Andy and Jake kept quiet and were thinking hard to recall this moment. Indeed, these five guys had been with them in the dormitory the other night. So weird that they hadn't thought of this before.
At that moment another video started. The beginning was the same as the first one. Nothing to be seen, but some sounds in the background.
"Hey guys! Surprise!" Valentine's voice sounded.
"PIZZA!!" a shout sounded. Valentine and Cody recognized the voice of Brandon Wilson.
The box was being opened and with it, the hidden camera moved backward to get a view of the room. Valentine and Cody paid close attention to who was in the room with them because also they started to remember that some of their teammates came over. They had seen and heard Brandon Wilson already. There was also Marcos Hernandez, Simon Harris, Brent Walker, and Seth Tyson. Valentine and Cody also came into view themselves. This was in their dormitory as well.