Escape the night

Hello Darkness,My Old Friend

Caroline's gone. There's only Sarah, hunched over, eyes closed, silent.

Omigod. Sierra stares in horror at the motionless maid. Omigod, is she dead?

Next to her, Matt's already on his feet, scrambling for the door. "Back of the house!" he exclaims, urgency lining his otherwise calm voice. "Go to the back of the house!"

"You okay?" asks Tim, putting a hand on Sarah's still shoulder. "You good?"

She opens her eyes, smiles, and nods.

Sierra breathes a sigh of relief. Sarah's fine, of course she is, why was she even worried? This is all part of the prank, it has to be, they didn't really talk to a dead person, it was probably a recording combined with some spooky special effects, but...it seemed so real...what if...?

It's fine. It's okay. No one's dead. No one's going to die.

The mantra races through her veins, doing its best to soothe her troubled nerves, but she still can't get Caroline out of her mind. Hurry, echoes her desperate hiss. Release me from this hell.

Where are Shane and Andrea? Alive? Dead? Trapped in that same hell?

She doesn't know. She doesn't want to know. She'd rather live in denial.

They've broken off into two groups. One group sets out to find the key to the coffin, while the other is responsible for finding the coffin itself. Joey's a member of the latter group, as are Oli, Eva, Tim, and GloZell. So now, here they are, trekking through the darkness, armed with flashlights and Caroline's clues, and Joey can't shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen.

Not another death. Please, God...I don't think my heart can take another death.

"There's a red stone!" shouts Oli, using his flashlight to illuminate a crimson boulder. "We found a red stone!"

"Oh my goodness!" exclaims GloZell.

They race each other to the boulder, and Joey nearly trips over his own feet in the process. Once he arrives, he immediately notices the note carved into a piece of wood that's been nailed onto the stone.

Go to the tree 27 paces from here.

"Is that the tree?" GloZell wants to know, using her cane to point at a large oak not too far from them. "There's so many trees!"

She's right. The front lawn is littered with trees of all shapes and sizes, and Joey can't tell which one is the tree they're looking for. "It's probably up here," he mutters, mulling over the note in his mind. 27 paces...footsteps. They're talking about footsteps. Aren't they?

"One...two...three..."

Matt's in a group with Sierra, Justine, and Lele. And Sarah, but after the incident with the dead woman, Matt's decided it would be better for his own mental health to just pretend that she does not exist.

"I am not wearing the right shoes for this!" Sierra complains loudly, stomping her way down the muddy path. Lele's right behind her, flashlight at the ready, glowering at every suspicious shadow.

Matt's walking hand-in-hand with Justine. She's shivering in the cold, holding her mink coat close to her heaving chest. His friend. Or, potentially, his murderer.

He has to know.

"Are you the one that's working with the spirits?"

She stares at the ground, sadness swarming her once-bright eyes. "No, I'm not." Her denial is tearful, but quiet, as if she already knows that the evidence is stacked against her.