When coming to, there is a room. It is small, rectangular, and unfitting for most guests, which you assume, given you are tied faced down on a floor, you are not.

Hacking out the floor grime that snuck into your mouth while unconscious, you notice that your hands and feet are bound tightly behind you. Immediately, you struggle, and are met with a mildly distressing crackling sound and incredible discomfort in your taut joints, causing you to stop. Vision still foggy and head angled uncomfortably from its perch on the concrete floor, you see a blurry, rectangular construct at eye level, outlined with what appears to be wooden framings. And is that...movement?

A window!

Excited by the prospect of an exit, you fight your instinct to run over (your bindings don't feel like any rope you know of and are oddly earthy smelling; what is this made of?) and think through how you could get over before your sight clears, and you see what is really in front of you: a red parrot in a box-like cage.

It studies you intently from behind the thin walls of its cardboard cell before shifting itself upright, readying itself to speak.

"Polly wants a peanut."

The bird’s eye fixes on you. Not random. Focused.

It shifts sideways on its perch and pecks once at the cardboard wall.

Tap.

You hold still.

Tap.

Tap.

The third strike lands lower — and you hear the sound of something metallic.

You roll onto your shoulder despite the protest in your joints. The vines bite deeper. Definitely vines. Braided. Damp. Fibrous. Whoever tied you knew they would tighten under tension.

The parrot leans forward.

“Polly wants a peanut.”

It drags its beak downward along the cardboard seam.

A tear.

Small. Intentional.

There is something inside the wall.

You scan the room. Concrete floor. No furniture. No door in view from this angle. Just the cage, the false window behind it, and a faint metallic hum somewhere above.

You drag yourself inch by inch toward the cage.

Every movement makes the vines constrict. You stop pulling. Start rolling instead.

Side to side. Shoulder to shoulder.

Painful. Slower. But the vines don’t tighten as much.

You reach the cage.

The cardboard is thin. Cheap. The tear reveals a flash of metal.

The parrot steps back.

“Polly wants a key.”

You freeze.

That wasn’t the phrase before.

You press your cheek against the floor and crane your head.

Through the tear you see it: a small key taped to the inside wall of the cage.

Too far to reach with your hands bound behind you.

The parrot watches.

Then it lowers its head and hooks its beak into the torn seam.

It pulls.

The cardboard rips wider.

The key falls — not outside the cage, but inside it.

Onto the tray beneath the perch.

Out of reach.

You exhale slowly.

This is intentional.

You look again at the “window” behind the cage.

Not a window.

A vent.

Four screws.

The metallic hum is coming from there.

Air movement.

You study the cage carefully now.

It isn’t locked.

It’s taped shut.

Cheap packing tape.

The parrot tilts its head.

“Polly wants a peanut.”

Then quieter:

“Polly wants out.”

Now the puzzle becomes clear:

Free the parrot.

Parrot retrieves the key.

Key frees you.

Vent becomes escape route.

But you are still bound.

And every wrong movement tightens the vines.

You look down.

Concrete.

Rough.

You begin scraping the vine binding against the floor edge.

Slowly.

Not pulling — sawing.

The vines resist.

The parrot watches.

Silence.

Then, from somewhere beyond the unseen door:

Footsteps.

Slow.

Approaching.

The parrot goes still.

“Polly wants quiet.”