"Keys"

This isn't my home keyboard. Mine's dustier.

She began typing out her search term but had to stop when she came to the "S." The "S" key wouldn't budge. "S for 'stuck,'" she said. She jabbed it a few times with all the power in her index finger. When that failed, she wedged her fingernail beneath the key and snapped it free.

Lying in the space it had occupied on the keyboard was a small, flat piece of metal, jagged and toothed along three edges, smooth along the fourth. "Odd," she said, picking up the shard. She set it next to the keyboard, replaced the "S" key, and continued typing.

But not for long. The "E" key stuck next, even though it had worked normally the first time she pressed it. She popped that key off of the keyboard and found underneath it another piece of flat metal, all edges jagged except one.

She found similar pieces of metal beneath the "A," "R," "C," and "H" keys, in that order.

It wasn't hard for her to see that some of the pieces' rough edges fit together. She placed the shards next to each other and found that she had a key. She glanced around at all the room's doors, trying to study their locks, and wondered: was this a room people were meant to enter, or one they were meant to leave?

A second time she said, "Odd."