The Dark Dimension (Escape the Night season 5)

Chapter 5: The ritual

"Stay back!" Thomas yelled as he rejoined the group who was slowly backing away, as the corrupted Savant matched towards them with an insane grin on his face: "You are in big trouble now, my dears, you should have never-!" "LEAVE THEM ALONE, YOU MONSTER!".

A white mist appeared in front of Joey, protecting the survivors; a tall, Asian man stepped out of it, dressed in what appeared to be a slightly ruined aviator jacket: "They have won the challenge fair and square, therefore you can't hurt them!" "Alex?! How did you get free from the curse? I made it sure none of you pests would have been able to be released!".

"Too bad you made a mistake! Run away, I'll keep him away!" Alex exclaimed, pulling out a sword and rushing towards Joey.

Running back up the path, the survivors pushed the doors of the mansion open and stepped into the safe lounge, sweating and yelling at each other: "I can't believe Karl just got killed BY SIRENS! REAL FU***NG SIRENS! What else is next, a crazy lunatic with four arms?!" Tommy snapped, sitting on the sofa to catch his breath.

Thomas, on the other hand, was probably the most shocked one of the group: gripping tightly onto the cushion of the sofa, he tried to stop his body which was shaking profusely.

Seeing that, Or3o crouched in front of him and spoke, her tone soft and reassuring: "Thomas, would you want us to go find a blanket for you?". Thomas slightly nodded, shivering and hugging himself in a small attempt to stop feeling so cold: "I'll go get it, we should catch a small break after...all that happened-" "A small break?! We can't afford a small break now, not after what we found out! Don't you remember what the journal said? If we don't hurry we'll all turn to shadows at six am!" Wilbur yelled, scowling at both Thomas and Or3o: "It's a quarter past eleven, so we have little more than six hours to find the remaining shards, and if one of us has to die every time, than I don't know how we're going to escape..." Razz murmured.

"Ok everyone, calm down! We've already talked about this, if we keep arguing we won't be able to make any progress!" Mark exclaimed, placing a hand on Thomas' shoulder: "He is a part of the team and we need to take care of each other in the team; Or3o, I appreciate the thought, I'll come with you to find the towel. Meanwhile the others, look in the journal and see what you can find".

Once Mark and Or3o exited the room, Wilbur shook his head and grabbed the journal; opening it on a new page, he watched as new words formed on the pages.

Motioning for the other to come closer, he cleared his throat and started reading:

"The forest has changed. It is not a safe place where I can hide from them. Not anymore

Weird plants have started to grow all around its perimeter, poisonous plants.
I had seen a bunny a hour before. A white one.
Such a beautiful and pure creature in this wicked and corrupted world, I wonder how it ended in here, poor thing...

The bunny ventured into the forest, probably to find some food. It never came out alive.
Some black vines dragged his, torn, bloodless body out in the open and then crawled back in the darkness... I've never seen such brutality towards a poor and harmless creature.
Then again, if you want to find the third mirror shard, the forest is your next stop.

You must find two gas masks to protect yourselves from the toxins and then select two challengers to walk down the path of the forest and retrieve three untainted flowers. Once you have done that, the location of the third mirror shard will be revealed.

Six hours until dawn".

"Great, now we're dealing with poisonous plants? Can't we ever catch a breath?!" Will groaned, as he looked outside; in doing so, he jumped in fear and ran to the other side of the lounge, alerting the others: "There's something outside! A fu***ng weird creature with glowing red eyes!".