Earlier than coming into the sport, Ali and Nish enter a preliminary equipment room the place they’re greeted by an autoplay video that includes the Pangaea boss we simply noticed menacing Derek in a church. Performed by Nadia Albina, this character seems to be Melissa Dean, the “Black Rocks” true crime podcaster Katie Wells has a framed poster of in her bed room (on the very least, she and Melissa share the identical voice and use of “black rocks” in pockets as a metaphor for concern). Melissa’s video tells the gamers to decide on their gear correctly earlier than going by the subsequent door to face their terror.
“Welcome, participant, this time the sport is actual. Should you win, a life-changing prize awaits. And should you fail, effectively, higher to die vastly, no? Your journey begins by that little door in your proper. Solely those that are ready to face their darkest fears will make it out the opposite facet. We received’t say good luck cos luck may have nothing to do with it.”
Additionally within the room are protecting clothes, weapons, and a scoreboard itemizing the names of 5 earlier gamers. 4 of these gamers made it by all eight ranges of the sport, however one – Mehmet Shah – didn’t last more than degree three. The finishers embody: Oliver Wrzecionowski, Ed Ottoman, Nina Karlsson and at primary… Sue Goodheart.
It truly is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it second there at concerning the 45-minute mark, for freeze-framers reasonably than for informal viewers. What does it imply? Sue might have been the primary participant to face the Pangaea Initiative’s recreation (although Derek advised Kane that each one this had been occurring for years, and £6k occasions 5 gamers whole would barely pay the sport’s electrical energy payments in that point, not to mention for this complete, complicated operation, so there must have been others). Not like Mehmet, Sue accomplished and survived the sport, but it surely left her broken. That would clarify why Sue requested Riya about “lacking lady” Nina Karlsson, the title subsequent to hers on the record, and why she made repeated references to having signed mysterious paperwork.
The traumatic expertise of the sport, which includes a gasoline created from a uncommon Indonesian plant that induces fearful hallucinations, together with a lethal creature of an unspecified selection, might be what’s left Sue within the state we discover her: anxious, incoherent and satisfied that the top of the world is nigh.
Except, that’s, Sue was already psychologically unwell earlier than she was put within the recreation (in any case, when it comes to gaming demographic, she appears to be extra Sweet Crush/Stardew Valley than retro text-based adventures/darkish net). Did ‘Melissa’ use the already-vulnerable Sue as a guinea pig when devising her Passenger experiment? In Stranger Issues phrases, that might make Sue the Terry Ives of this story – a girl broken by a shady initiative in whose ramblings might lie the important thing to unlocking the entire thriller.
