It’s immersive, they said, but not like being in your life. More like a video game. It’s like a treasure hunt, with higher stakes. You are locked in a house that is haunted. You are locked in a tomb.
Okay, we nodded. This was easy enough to understand, and more accessible than the tombs and haunted houses of the outside, from which there was no clear way out, where you could tell the size of our terror by how rarely we mentioned it. Sure, people were always jumping out windows and overdosing, but if you had the right medication, if you embraced positivity––
You get to be the main character, they said. It wasn’t hard to see the appeal: the promise of solving something. People are naturally inquisitive, they said. We nodded, forgetting the reasons we stopped looking. No one wants confusion, but a body adapts, including to its confines.
Millennials aren’t interested in collecting things, they said. They’d rather spend on experiences. Of course, we nodded. Besides, where would they put the things? Who had a home?
Here was relief: meaningful clues, and connections that lead somewhere. A chance to work with others, toward a common goal.
People like sharing the excitement in a photo, they told us. They led us to a wall. We waited for the first clue. We were standing before the company logo. They said, Smile!
