"Are they open?" Anthony asked, peering through a dark window, "I don't see anyone in there..."

Ann, the shorter of the couple, approached the door of the facility, pulling it open easily. "It's an escape room place, honey," she laughed, "They like to make it seem mysterious." She held the door open, taking the extra second to out her lengthy black hair into a ponytail.

"Welcome to Tray!" A friendly voice called out. Around the corner, a young woman smiled from behind her receptionist desk. She was wearing a gray polo shirt embroidered with the company logo, and a visor sporting the same. She shuffled her papers as the couple approached. "Have you folks ever been here before?"

"Nope." Anthony responded, Ann offering the same sentiment with a shake of her head.

"Alright, I'll give you a quick rundown of what we do then." The receptionist motioned to a wall-mounted TV displaying a slideshow, a remote in her hand to control it, "Tray is a competitive escape room game using our proprietary shrinking technology." She advanced a slide, displaying a model seated at a dinner table. "The rules are simple: One of you will be seated in our restaurant while the other comes back to the shrinking station. After a few minutes, one of our waitresses will bring a tray of appetizers to the table and start the timer. The now-shrunken person will be hidden somewhere in the food," She advances the slideshow again, this time displaying a very small man breaded into the side of some fried delicacy. "His job is to escape the dish, but not empty-handed. Somewhere on the tray is a small key, and if he finds it, he can escape the tray altogether and use the key to lock in his score. If he gets that far, he wins the round and gets points based on his time."

Anthony jumped in the moment the receptionist took a breath. "Hold on..." he interrupted, "You keep saying 'he.' Do we get to pick who shrinks?"

The receptionist tilted her head as if sorry for what she was about to say "Unfortunately sir, the shrinking stations aren't a perfect technology and can only currently shrink men. Most couples seemed interested in that arrangement, so they developed it first. Using it on women is sadly just a bit too dangerous, so you'll need to be the shrinkie." She sucked her teeth, as if to show extra sympathy after the disclaimer. 

"That's fine." Ann said, dead-set on playing the game, "How would I score?"

Jumping immediately back into presentation mode, the receptionist continued. "The Eater has a bit of a complex scoring system." She said, advancing the slide to show the model pushing her tray away from her, "So for The Eater to win a round, she has to eat as much food from the tray as possible and push the tray away WITHOUT having eaten the shrinkie. You get points based on the amount of food eaten, and bonus points if you can correctly guess which piece of food your partner is closest to." The receptionist took a deep breath, advancing the slide one last time. The slide was just a close-up of the model's parted lips with the tiny man dramatically posed inside. "If at any point The Eater swallows The Shrinkie," she continued nonchalantly as if the very concept wasn't shocking, "The Eater loses half her points, and it's game over. Other than that, a winner is chosen after three courses! Does that all sound good?"

Anthony seemed shocked, unlike his smiling partner. Ann had read extensively into the venue long before their date and was just excited to start. Anthony however, was entirely uninitiated. "She could actually end up swallowing me?!" He almost shouted, keeping his cool just enough to control his volume.

"It's perfectly safe." The receptionist explained, closing her slideshow and passively putting waivers on clipboards, "Our technology coats you with a substance that prevents her stomach from claiming you. She won't have to throw up or anything, She'll just feel a tickle in her throat later and you'll be back in her mouth the moment she coughs. It's safe enough that we have frequent customers who will swallow their Shrinkie post-game to celebrate. It takes a few hours for you to start growing again regardless, so why not have fun?"

"Okay then..." Anthony said skeptically, incredibly anxious about the entire endeavor. "What do you think?" He gestured to Ann.

"I think you better not get yourself eaten in round one. I'm gonna win." She smirked toward Anthony but held his hand gently, sensing his hesitation.

"Alright folks, just sign off these..." she handed each half of the couple a detailed waiver. "Just bring it back up when you're ready.

The couple proceeded to sign their papers, filling out the various boxes with all sorts of information before bringing it back to the receptionist. They took a moment to pay the admittance as well.

"Alrighty! Ann you may proceed into the restaurant on our left here, and Anthony, let's get you on her Tray!"