WHO’S NEXT

It was our honeymoon, Hubby and I decided to visit the Juftan Park. As we went round, we discovered there were so many sections and so many interesting things we could do and we had to choose one to start.

Dave wanted us to do something adventurous and so he chose a very scary one. I could have simply said I wasn’t interested but I don’t like being called weak or fearful, so I agreed.

The building went round from the entrance to the exit, having a circular top view. It had many colors on its walls ranging from blue to orange, purple, black and others. There were some images and writings on the walls too.

After making payment for access, we were allowed in and met five others; Two couples and a young man, all seated at the area we can call the reception and holding a small leaflet. We went to meet the person who looked like the guide for the section to ask how to go on this adventure.

Mr Joe

The man had a smile on his face and gave us a friendly welcome; “Hi, fresh faces, welcome to the “Who’s Next?” Section of Juftan Park, my name is Joe and I’m glad you are here. Have this leaflet and take a seat. please. If you would want to be a Friend, You can call me Joe but if you would want us to keep it official, you can call me Jonathan. Once again, I’m glad you’re here and I know you’ll enjoy the experience.”

Dave took the leaflets, gave one to me and we joined the others in sitting and waiting for the next thing to do.

Mr Jonathan Joe did an head count and said “Good, we’ve got the perfect number 7, now we can proceed”.
I watched as he made a phone call and said to the person on the other side of the line “Time for another set of pilgrims to go on a pilgrimage”. He said this, maintaining his smile but something was off about the smile, it appeared deceitful. I had agreed with Dave to come there to show I wasn’t a weakling but at that point I didn’t think of whatever Dave might think of me. I just wanted to go out and receive some air and never return to that place.

As I looked to Dave to say I wasn’t fine with the settings of this section, I saw the enthusiasm on his face and eagerness to start the “adventure”. I didn’t want to cut short his happiness and so I said a little Prayer for safety and held his hands tightly.

Mr Nelson’s rules

Few minutes after, we saw the one who had been called by Joe. He was an hefty looking man with no smiles. He walked towards a cabinet in one corner of the room, opened it and brought out a transparent bag containing what looked like wrist watches.

Came to us and distributed this gadgets to the seven of us and told us to put them on.
He asked us to introduce ourselves by names and we had Grace and James, Tiffany and Mark, Dan-the only single amidst us, Dave and I.

The new man introduced himself to us as Mr Nelson of “Who is next”. And after the introduction, he read out the rules to us.

“Try to get as much treasures and points as you can as you go through each Level,
Do not try to harm anyone as you go.
Do not get distracted as you go.
Once your timer beeps, you are to use the exit door available”
The rules of the game are stated in the booklet with you.
We have levels 1-7 in the game which would be completed in 1 hour.
Very few make it to level 7 but I wish you all well.
You can always check the leaflets with you for directions and to remind you of the rules, off you go”

Dave and I had not expected the duration to be that long, we checked the time and it was still 10:00am in the morning, so we agreed we could do it.

The seven of us went towards the door labelled “welcome to the world”.

LEVEL 1

Level one was the best of it all. In the room were five people; three women and two men all dressed uniformly. We all looked at one another not understanding what was going on. We had thought we would be the only ones in each level but didn’t look like it.

To help us out of our confused state, a voice rang through speakers in the room.

“This is the beginning of the adventure, all you need to do is enjoy the treatments available and pick the things you think you’ll need as you go higher. With you there are officials positioned to meet your needs and make you feel really comfortable.

In 10minutes you’ll be done with this level, enjoy as much as you can.”

We were pampered and served nice snacks.

“Will it be like this all through the adventure?” I asked the lady that was helping me massage my legs and all she did was smile.

Few seconds after that, the voice from the speaker rang out again to give the next instructions,
“You all can leave this level and move to the next, if your timer Is beeping, use the exit door”.

We all checked our timers and no one had to use the exit door. I had seen the exit door as we got in and it was labeled EXIT DOOR “You are first”, but I didn’t really get the message. Since we all were moving to the next level, I still didn’t know what was behind that door.

To be continued…………