You press the button.

Ding.

It’s raining.

...You look up.

Well, water is coming from the ceiling, in any case.

What’s really happening is, a drop ceiling has been installed three inches below the real ceiling. Between them an insane number of pipes and sprinklers have been spread, so that water comes out evenly. And then instead of normal ceiling tiles, which are made out of a cardboard-y, chalk-y conglomeration of a hundred different things (all of which are bad to inhale), they put in peg-board. Or, rather, “perforated hardboard”, to use the non-trademarked name.

This stuff:

...Ignore the advertisement in that.

Look, I’m trying to write this stuff as fast as possible, you think I’m going to spend more than three seconds googling an appropriate picture? Heck no! And things like that, with watermarks or as advertisements, will probably not be taken down any time soon, so I know the image is good to be shoved in here. If it comes from someone’s blog or Instagram page, I run the risk of having it vanish one of these days, and that would totally suck.

And sure, I could pay 123rf or somewhere to use pictures without watermarks, but all that site has for this situation specifically is this one:

And it’s brown. I wanted a white one. If they didn’t have a white one, I’d end up going to the Ikea website, since I know Ikea has white peg-boards, but theirs have fancy ovals as holes instead of circles. So it’s not what I want.

You’re just gonna have to put up with watermarks and advertisements from… Where the heck is that?

Shandong, China, apparently. Well now you know that the country call code for China is +86. You learned something today. Congratulations.

So yes! Rain! Artificial, indoor rain! Lots of it, too. And, I can’t help but notice, there aren’t any drains in here.

Oh, the light in the ceiling has been removed, and instead you’re getting light from strips of LED’s stuck in all the corners. Fairly bright ones, too, thankfully. Because the ones along the floor are already halfway submerged in water.

Looks like the longer you stay in here, the deeper the water will get.

What will you do?

You don’t particularly mind rain. Plus this is clean water, or at least “potable” water, which should be the same thing.

You dance around for a while, enjoying the cool drops on your face and arms.

How fun.

The water gets to over your toes, and you decide it’s time to go.

You push the button.

Nothing happens.

…

You push it again.

Again, nothing happens.

You look at the ceiling with an accusatory look on your face.

Why is it that every time you want to talk to me you look up? Do you think my camera is in the ceiling or something?

Right, not important right now.

The important thing is, the button. The one that isn’t dinging.

You tap it a few more times, just to be sure, and nope. Not a sound.

You… Decide to give it a minute, to see if time changes anything.

You slide around the edges of the room, pushing the water with your feet and watching the ripples. It’s fun!

You enjoy making waves. You enjoy the ripples it causes.

And then you decide it’s time to leave.

You press the button.

A ding fails to materialize. Or, whatever the sound version of materialize is. I’m sure there’s a word for it, but I’m too lazy to look it up.

You press the button again, the water reaching your ankles.

No sound is forthcoming.

Forthcoming, I like that word. I should use it more often.

You keep pressing the button. Nothing new happens. You cautiously give up, deciding to give it another five minutes.

The way water holds itself together is truly a fascinating thing. The way the surface tension works, to form raindrops, then ripple out when a drop hits the water covering the ground, it’s truly a fascinating aspect of science.

And it’s not like a crust, a hard surface that forms around something liquid, no. It’s liquid itself. It can move, bend, form any shape. It’s how water bugs don’t sink, and how surfers get such cool pictures. It’s how photographing both above water and underwater scenes at the same time is even possible. It’s… science.

As the water passes your ankles and makes its way up your calves, you decide you’ve had enough of examining science.

You turn towards the button, and push.

Nothing happens.

Well, the button goes down, you feel the give as it’s pressed, but it doesn’t ding. It doesn’t dong or even dang. Or, to be fair to the other vowels, deng, dung, or dyng. Depending on if you count y as a vowel. Which I totally do.

You press the button again, the water going past your wrist as you do so.

No sound other than the rain hitting water reaches your ears.

Strange.

You press it repeatedly, wondering why it isn’t working.

You leave the button, sitting against the wall as you try to think of things to do.

Usually there’s something to do in these rooms, right? Like the espresso machine. Or the bees. Something to look at; interact with. You’ve interacted with the water. You’ve played in it and watched it.

What else is there?

You cup your hands, and wait for water to fill it. Then you tip the water into your mouth and drink.

It tastes like tap water.

You go to the button, and press down.

Nothing.

The water is to your knees now.

What to do?

Hypothermia is an interesting thing.

Usually you can hold off freezing to death by surrounding yourself with insulation, and your body heat will naturally warm the things around you, which in turn warm you up.

But when you’re in water, the water is moving. It is constantly distributing the heat you produce. So, without even realizing it, even in the warmest of water, you will eventually die of hypothermia. The longest, and I do mean longest, someone can survive in water is forty hours. If the water is particularly cold, a human will die within half an hour.

This water isn’t freezing. It’s tap water (spoiler), so it’s about 60 degrees fahrenheit. In celsius that would be a different number, probably around 20 or so. I don’t know. So, it’s cold, but nothing immediately lethal.

Once the water passes your abdomen, which it’s getting close to doing, you have between two and six hours before you freeze to death.

You’ve tried everything you can think of. You’ve pulled down a ceiling panel. You’ve tried and failed to turn off the pipes. You’ve pushed the button countless times.

And now… What? How do you get out?

You’ve punched the wall a few times, with no result other than to make your knuckles hurt. You tried to get the metal casing off from around the button, but that proved to be impossible. Eventually you couldn’t reach the button with your hand without holding your breath, which was a bad thing. So you stopped trying.

You pulled the light strips off the walls and tried to do… something, anything helpful with them.

And failed.

There is nothing left to try.

Do you give up?

You do not. You are not the type of person to quit. You look around, half-swimming to the wall, and try to pull yourself up to the ceiling. The pipe you were using to pull yourself up with breaks.

That plan didn’t work, but now you have a thick plastic pipe.

You move to the center of the room and stab down, hitting the button.

Sorry, but nothing happens. The button isn't even scratched. The button isn't going to break.

You walk forward and bang the jagged edge of the pipe against the wall as hard as you can. A tiny piece of concrete flakes off.

Well, this will give you something to do, at least. It will keep your muscles moving, and occupy your mind. Whether you’re trying to break through the wall or just stick the pipe in there so you can sit semi-out of the water, I don’t know.

You get to work.

So you don't give up?

The water is up to your armpits now. Given the resistance of liquid to movement, you are no longer breaking concrete off the wall.

Honestly, I commend you. You have more determination than most people do.

But now there is nothing you can do. Your core temperature is getting lower by the minute.

Do you give up?

You refuse. You will not give up. You would rather die than admit defeat.

By drowning or hypothermia, you don’t care.

You are not a quitter.

…

Do you give up?

You will not.

Will you give up?

Absolutely no.

Do you give up? Please?

What part of “I would rather die” did I not understand?

Do you give up?

No.

Do you give up?? You have about three minutes of life left if you say no.

You still refuse.

Well, I refuse for you. I take the choice out of your idiotic hands.

Do you give up?

You give up. You’ve tried everything you can think of. And then you thought of more things, and did those.

And still, you’re stuck here. You’re going to die here.

Sooooo I do have a slight confession.

I’m sorry, but you are a test subject. We are testing you.

I can promise you that this is, in my opinion, the harshest test.

I’m sorry.

Ding.