Escape the night

the house

It starts, as both possibilities and nightmares tend to do, in dreams.

He's running—from what he doesn't know— through rain-drenched fields, soaked to the skin, scared out of his mind yet strangely excited at the same time. He pauses to catch his breath, and he sees it.

The house. His house. Built without hands, trapped within time, beautiful and deadly all at once.

There are graves everywhere, all strangely familiar, bearing names too blurred for Joey to make out. He clutches for a weapon, but only finds mud and tears. The house lingers on the horizon, taunting him. Baiting him.

Thunder booms in his ears. He's trapped against a tree, and a figure approaches—a hooded figure draped in black, with a rusted hook for a hand. It (he? she?) draws ever closer, savoring his terror, ready to use that hook to run him through.

If he could get past this creature...if he could get to the house...or maybe he ought to run from it, as fast as his legs can carry him...

Every dream ends the same way: the house flickers, then disappears, and Joey wakes up in a cold sweat, clutching a pillow and/or his boyfriend and trying to process the images dancing through his head.

By the fifteenth dream, he knows it's gotten out of hand.

Careful not to wake Daniel, Joey drags himself out of bed and lumbers to the bathroom. Once there, he stares into the mirror, glaring at himself through bloodshot eyes. "Snap out of it," he growls at his reflection, his voice an octave lower than usual. "There is no house. You aren't a...a...a freakin' Gatsby or something, okay?" He takes a few deep breaths before continuing. "You're Joey Graceffa, and you're in 2016, and you've got a home and a family and a life, not to mention six million subscribers who are probably going to notice if you keep going around looking like you haven't had a good night's sleep in years. That house does not exist and no one is coming for you."

But despite his best efforts, the dreams persist for another week, until Joey receives the letter that changes his life.

 

"Wait, what?" Joey can't believe what he's reading. "I inherited what now?"

"A house," explains the stranger on his doorstep (Arthur, he said his name was), watching Joey and Daniel read the letter he's delivered with a small smirk on his face. "An illustrious estate that only exists in the 1920s."

"Only exists in the..." Daniel frowns. "But that doesn't make any sense!"

Arthur continues as though he didn't hear. "Originally owned by your late cousin twice removed, but upon his death he left it to you, mainly because he hated all of his other relatives."

Joey can't help but snort at that. "Wow. Bitter much?"

"You have weird relatives," Daniel agrees. "Have you even met this guy?"

"No."

"Doesn't matter." Arthur seems almost annoyed with the pair of them. "It's yours now, and that's all that matters."

And then Joey remembers: the house, the house, built without hands, trapped within time...

"I'll take it."

 

Living in the 1920s takes some getting used to. No technology works in Joey's new mansion, so he has to keep going back and forth from the house to his old place in order to make videos. (Thank God for his time-traveling car. There's a sentence he never thought he'd say.) Daniel stays with him, of course, but he takes longer to adjust, spending the first week convinced he's living in "some sort of weird dream or something."

Which, in a way, he is.

Arthur is there, as the head of staff. There is also a maid named Sarah and a groundskeeper named Marvin, but Joey doesn't know them too well. Mostly, he just stays out of their way.

Joey thought the dreams would stop now that the house is his. But they continue. They keep him up at night, vivid and frightening, hissing in his ear, "this house was not meant to be enjoyed by only you...invite others...bring your friends to me..."

After a full three weeks without sleep, Joey gives in.

He selects his guests—ten wonderful people, all of them close friends of his. Yeah, Daniel can't make it because he's out of town that weekend, and yeah, Colleen's filming her Netflix show, so she can't come either.

But Shane. Justine. Matt. GloZell. Sierra. Eva. Oli. Lele. Timothy. And Andrea.

They can come.

He'll throw a party. 1920s themed. Each of his friends will have characters to play. It'll be a night of fun and friendship, and nothing will go wrong.

Right?