Okay just for an explanation, my English teacher last year made my class do this game where we wrote a short story in the span of 5 minutes. I liked the game so much I started doing it for fun. I’m starting with the suspense genre. My second suspense tool is a time constraint:

He cursed under his breath as the screen flashed red again. He was down to 3 tries left on the passcode. The ticking seemed to get louder as he hurriedly made another calculation as if it would help him. He typed in another code. The screen flashed red. 

“Callen, we have three minutes.” Alice said nervously behind him. 

“I know, I know, I know.” He muttered. 

“Cal do you know what’s a stake here. You need to speed it up.” Noah said, his voice rising. 

“I know what’s at stake! It’s a literal bomb! Now shut up and let me focus.” He type in the new code. Red. “Shoot,” Callen muttered. 

There was a minute left. He tried to remember anything the stranger had said that could be a code. “30 seconds Callen,” Alice said nervously. 

The words “simple,” echo through his head. It was the last thing the stranger had said to them after he had locked them in.

Quickly he types in the final code, 1234. The count down stops. His heart starts racing, he gets read for the explosion. The screen goes green. He laughs out a breath. “That felt too easy,” Noah whispers.