It can't be felt. It can't be seen or heard or smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and any empty holes it fills. It comes early and follows after. Ends life and kills laughter. What is it?

This is a tricky one. "Does anyone have any idea?" I ask.

"Nope, nothing at the moment." Kyuma replies. "let's break it down. And just keep looking around the room. There has to be something." He continues.

"Can't be seen,  heard or smelt." I mumble to myself. What is something you can't see? 

Wind? Wind is something you can't actually see. But you can feel it, so it's not wind. Thinking about it, it's also not behind stars and under hills. Forget wind. I shake my head and just keep thinking. I don't get the middle part. The 'hides behind stars and under hills, empty holes it fills' part.

'Water' pops into my head, but I quickly dismiss it; you can feel water.

"What about silence?" Chisiya interrupts my thoughts.

Everyone turns to look at him. That might actually be it, but what do we look for then?

"It's worth trying. What should we look for?" Karube begins.

"Maybe a door will open if we stay silent? I've been to an escape room before where we had to do something similar." I join the conversation. They all nod and we stay completely silent for about a minute or so.

But nothing happens.

"Soo not silence." Kyuma sighs and rubs his forehead.

"I guess not. Let's just keep thinking and looking around." Chota says.

I wonder how the other team is doing and how far they could be. We lost some time on the second riddle. But maybe they couldn't figure it out that fast either.

There's no way in telling which team is in the lead, but hopefully we are.

But, back to solving this riddle. Back to mumbling to myself. Sometimes thinking out loud helps.

I focus on the middle part, and just start to answer each question.

"What lies behind stars? More stars.. planets.. darkness." I walk back and forth.

"Is she doing okay?" Karube asks.

"completely fine. she does this when she's in deep thought." Chisiya just shugs and watches me walk.

"Any empty holes it fills. What if there's a big hole in the ground. Empty holes are dark from inside. Wait a minute.." I start speaking up.

"The sky is dark behind stars and its dark below hills. You can't see darkness. Since light allows you to see things, and you can only see things if there's light, then darkness is the absence of being able to see things. When in dark it can take life and most laughs are killed." I smile as I figured it out.

"The answer is Darkness. Let's turn off the lights and see what happens."

Karube is closest to the switch and he turns everything off. There is glow in the dark paint on the wall in the shape of a door, and after a few seconds we hear that door open, and light from the ohter room peaks out.

We make our way to the next room. This room resembles a kitchen. On the kitchen island were two hourglasses, one bigger than the other. Just then we hear an announcement.

60 minutes passed. Only 60 minites left to finish the game.

We don't hear if we're in the lead or not, but they probably do that on purpose; that way you always have the feeling you have to hurry and thus get a little stressed out. When you're stressed you can't always think straight and that won't help in the game.

I put the thought away and walk to the kitchen island to grab the note next to the hourglasses.

"In front of you there's a 7-minute hourglass and an 11-minute hourglass. How can you boil an egg in exactly 15 minutes."

This is once again something different. This isn't my strong suit, so I step back and sigh.

"Anyone know what to do? because I don't." I ask.

"Can't we just turn over the 7-minute one twice and then guess the minute from the other one? Or the other way around? the 11-minute one and guess the 4 minutes on the other? And why the egg part?" Chota says.

"Just to fit the theme I guess. But it says in exactly 15 minutes. There's no guessing. There has to be a solution." Chisiya says and looks at the hourglasses.

"What I wonder is if we actually have to wait the whole time. Because that would " Karube begins.

"So we better figure this out fast if that's the case."

Kyuma walks over to the kitchen island and stands right next to me, his hand brushing against mine as he moves it to turn the two hourglasses over, without saying a word.

"What are you doing?" I ask, wondering why he just did that. I also take a step aside to give him some more space.

"It's simple." He says. "Start them both at the same time. After the 7-minute one runs out, you turn it back over. After 4 minutes the other one runs out. So you turn the 7-minute one back around, that one now has 4 minutes. After that one runs out, you turn over the 11-minute one. That's 15 minutes." He shrugs and just waits.

Everyone is just silent, probably trying to figure out the math as Kyuma's talking.

"He's right." Chisiya says and puts his hands in his pocket. "Do we have to wait now like Karube said? Because that would ." He leans against the wall.

Hopefully that won't be the case. Maybe once we turn over the 11-minute one the door just opens to the next room.

Kyuma is still focusing on the hourglasses and turns them around at the right moments. We've been waiting for a while now, and that only makes me more nervous for the next room, or rooms. We don't know how many rooms are left. 

And we won't have much time left if we have to wait the other 11 minutes as well. But what I was hoping comes true; as Kyuma turns over the 11-minure hourglass, the door opens. But one of the rules was to not leave the room if the riddle wasn't solved. 

Does this count? It is solved, but it's not exactly done.

I see Chota and Karube making their way to the door already.

"Wait!"I yell.

But it's too late. 

They already walked into the next room..