As I stepped through the doorway, the plate beneath me was pushed into the ground and the doorway behind me slowly began to close. I jumped out of the way of the closing door to try to make sure that others could get through, but everyone else in my group seemed preoccupied by the room to even notice the moving door.
"You guys coming or not?" I yelled at them above the somewhat noisy door. Some of them seemed to panic as they saw the door closing, but were stunned as if they didn't know what they wanted to do.
"Come on now, you guys probably have about a minute." I said as the door closed at an incredibly slow speed.
I was surprised that after the door was halfway down, they started arguing amongst each other, as if entranced by some sort of spell or gas. Which was weird, since I wasn't affected by whatever took hold of them. Their arguments were ludicrously absurd and almost always ended with one of them threatening to throw the other through the ever-so-slowly closing door. But just when I thought no one would come through, one of the men snapped out of his trance and slide through the gap a few seconds before it would have been impossible to fit.
I recognized the man, as I shined my flashlight in his face, as Jerry who I knew of as a scientist.
"Wait, how did a scientist come along on this expedition?" I asked somewhat confused.
"I was asked to help with various injuries, possible traps and such. I wasn't really planning on going so far on this journey as to get trapped through a door that can only be opened on one side." Jerry replied.
"How did you know it could only be opened on one side?"
"I saw a lever as I was sliding underneath the door. Unfortunately, it's not very easy to spot and it was even more difficult to try and point it out as your sliding."
I sighed, "Well I guess it's up to you and me to find the path to this mythical artifact."
"I'm sure we can make a great team together."
I said nothing. I didn't want to keep his hopes up that he might find the artifact with me when just a few minutes ago he seemed to easily fall to whatever magic took hold of him back in that room. Hopefully though, we would both be able to find the artifact together without either of us getting hurt.
