HOURGLASS

CHAPTER THREE - Hey, This is Monster Terror-tory 24:00

We arrived at Lexicon and practically ran up to the door. I handed both of our tickets to the spooky looking vampire in the ticket booth. She grinned at us, her fangs making indentations on her lips. "Have fun, lovies. Follow the rules, or I may have a snack." She licked her lips, pulling some of the red paint off of her face. Her hand flew up to fix it, but gave up after realizing that it was probably a lost cause. She sighed, and ushered us through with an exasperated smile.

Nessa giggled at the encounter, likely extremely nervous and excited. She looked at me with a mixture of both in her eyes, unsurprisingly. I patiently swayed back and forth, waiting for Nessa so that we could make our way over to the entrance. After Nessa shook her head and cleared her thoughts we proceeded own the spookily lit path leading down to the front door.

I placed my hand on the brass doorknob, letting the cool metal soothe my sweaty palms. I was almost more nervous than I was excited. Something felt, off, for some reason. I couldn't quite pick out exactly why I felt scared in that moment, so I simply pushed the foreboding gut feelings aside and turned the knob.

The old wooden oak door slowly creaked open, much heavier than I'd thought. Nessa tapped her foot and impatiently scoffed at me. "C'mon, you noodle. Do you need my little arms to help you?" I sighed and let her take the door. She struggled with it for a couple of seconds and finally yanked it open.

"Ha-you first, princess." she panted, gesturing to the open doorway. I peered into the blackness and placed my index finger on my chin. I looked up to the open sky then unceremoniously shoved Nessa into the doorway before us. Cackling at her outraged shriek, I stepped in after her.

The darkness outside seemed like high noon compared to the abyss inside the building. We each found a wall and began to slowly inch our way further into the lair of fear. I tripped over what felt like a tree root and caught myself on the end of Nessa's jean jacket. She shrieked (again) and jumped away from me, causing me to crash to the ground with a pained sigh.

"Really? I didn't think I was that scary to you, dude." I complained. She giggled at me and searched for my hand in the blackness. When she found it she yanked me back up and we continued forward, this time holding onto each others arms.

Navigating the darkness proved to be very difficult, and when our eyes finally adjusted to the pitch black, we pushed through a door and our poor optical organs were bombarded with light.

"HehehahahA! Hellooo lov-e-lies. How are you doing on this, a FINE night?" The first 'monster' we encountered in the maze was a man, well, a vampire, in his mid-twenties with an australian accent. He was hanging from the rafters of the well lit barn that Nesa and I had stumbled into. The vampire lifted his torso back up to his beam, and just as we began to walk away he dropped down, nearly landing on my foot. My face grew warm as the man inched ever so slightly closer. His breath was hot, and it smelled of iron and sugar. A weird combination, almost like he was trying to cover up the fact that he had just ingested...blood.

In Lexicon, the actors (monsters) are allowed to make contact with the guests if the guest makes contact with the monster first. I wasn't planning on doing anything of the sort, but Nessa being Nessa, she poke the vampire's nose and cackled her signature laugh as he turned slowly to face her.

"You knoooow, I was going to mess with your friend here, but I think that youuuu are a mUCh better candidate. Don't you, mate?" His question was aimed at me, so I shrugged my shoulders and moved out of his way. "I'd be wary though, she's quite feisty." I winked at Nessa.

They bantered back and forth for a while and would have continued if the vampire, whose name I found out was Charlie, hadn't looked at his watch.

"Aaah! So so so sorry, friends. I had a marvelous time chatting with you, but there are many others who wish to meet you. And you, Robin, I hope that you're prepared. The queen is waiting for you." With a sinister giggle, he jumped back up to his ceiling cove. The door at the end of the room swung open without a sound.

"Let's go, shall we?" Nessa offered her arm out for me to hold, and we continued on through the darkness.