MElbourne iNstituTional AsyLum

The world-wide pandemic has caused fear and loss amongst many. You have spent the last months unemployed and are overjoyed to have gained an interview with Melbourne Aeronautic Engineering firm. The Zoom interviews have gone well, and the time has come to interview in person with the firm. You have been told you will be in a group interview, so you are not surprised to find others arriving to the plaza at the same time as you. You enter the waiting room with your fellow candidates, glancing around the room with brown walls, couches, and large bookcases. There are puzzles throughout the room and posters along the wall. As you wait, a doctor in a lab coat walks in to greet you. You start to wonder about your situation; the lab coat isn’t standard wear for an engineering lab, but who are you to tell the doctor what to wear. One of the bookshelves open and you and the other candidates are quickly escorted into a small room. Here a safety briefing takes place and as it concludes you are offered a drink of water; they encourage you to drink as the interview process is long and there will be no breaks. You look around the room and your fellow candidates have all started drinking their water. With a shrug, you down yours in one go. You feel a little dizzy for a moment and then it passes. Suddenly, the room goes dark. You are blindfolded and then escorted by the one in the lab coat to a small room. You look around and you realize that you and the other candidates have been separated. A mocking voice comes over the speaker. You’ve been drugged. What you do now will affect you and the other candidates lives…forever. This was never an interview for a job, you’ve been selected through this process to take place in a twisted game. The drugs will enter your system over the next half hour, and you will begin to feel the effects. The catch, you’ve been set an impossible series of tasks. If you and your fellow candidates can work together to complete these tasks within an hour, they will let you go. However, if you do not play their game the effects of the drugs will become permanent, and you will remain a resident at MElbourne iNstituTional AsyLum.