The Green Door

When the necromancer told the women the green door it opened slowly. We couldn’t see or hear anything coming from it. One by one, we slowly walked up through the door into a room that was 8 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet tall. The walls were covered in tiny holes. At the other end was a big brass door at the end. The ranger walked to the door and noticed no handle to pull. So she tried to push it open with no luck. When she did, a podium came up through the floor with an hourglass starting to count down, and a slight ticking began. It was moving fast. Frantically, some of us hustled, looking for a lever of some kind, while the bard started to stick pebbles into the holes. The closer to the end, the sand got, the faster and louder the ticking became.

When I saw that it was almost empty, I ran and flipped it desperately to save time, and it worked. The ticking slowed. I looked around, and everyone was relieved but annoyed. We repeated this pattern of searching for a way out and flipping the hourglass when it was close to the end for 20 minutes. The whole time while we searched, the bard sang to himself and stuffed the holes. It wasn't until the wizard suggested we just let it run out. We all looked at each other and agreed. We all stood around and watched the hourglass count down. It seemed like it moved a lot slower as we watched each grain of sand empty onto a pile of our pending doom. When the last grain of sand hit, I closed my eyes, waiting for whatever would come out of the hundreds of holes in the wall, when I felt no pain. I slowly opened my eyes and saw everyone huddled with their eyes closed as well. I looked around the room. Nothing, but the brass door was open. .