Little Touches | O. White | Escape the Night

XIII. Of Demons and Dolls

After the challenge, the group of eight managed to run back to the mansion all in one piece. They may have needed to take a few minutes to allow Oli and Tim to dry off and change into their dry clothes, but at this point they had all the time in the world. That still didn't keep the two from quickly changing since they wanted to get home quickly and Tim from yelling about setting shit up so he could see his cat and Chia.

Right as Tim was putting on his jacket—and realizing he had lost his hat with a very loud curse—Arthur slammed down a familiar slip of paper in front of the guests. "This is the ritual from Shane's jacket."

Eva immediately leaned over and read aloud the paper. "The ritual symbol must be drawn in ash and sand seven feet from each side of the center point. Three of the artifacts must be placed onto the marked points of the symbol, while the fourth artifact must be placed in the center of the inner triangle."

"So we just have to do a little bit more demonic shit and then we're home? I'm cool with that. I can see my cat and Chia after this." Tim said, smiling at the thought of it.

"Why are you talking so much about missing a Chia Pet?" Al asked thoughtlessly.

Tim turned towards Al, surprisingly straight faced and answered, "Chia is my girlfriend."

Al's eyes nearly bulged out of her skull. She knew that she had slowly been becoming more out of it the longer she stayed here and that she didn't hear him very well earlier, but Jesus Christ how did she confuse his girlfriend with a Chia pet oh my go-

She guessed that was what happened when you didn't know most people at the party you were going to. You made yourself look like a complete and utter idiot.

"Oh, oh my gosh! I'm uh, deaf apparently! Uh—" Al easily felt how the most of the group faded into light giggles at this, even Tim, and Al couldn't help but laugh as well. "—sorry?"

"It's cool. Just know that I don't have a Chia pet collection at home. That's not my style." Tim chastised, a smile still bright on his face.

"When I showed Al Oli's YouTube page she thought his name was Oil." Eva piped up.

Al immediately looked semi-jokingly offended, her mouth immediately dropping at the statement. When had it become 'make fun of Al' day? "Okay, for the record, you showed me it for two seconds and I barely saw it. If you saw it like that, you'd think it says Oil!"

She turned to Oli, who surprisingly was not shocked. Instead, his eyes crinkled and he just chuckled at it. "Don't worry," he assured, "It's not the first time it's happened online. Even my mum accidentally kept texting me 'oil' until she realized that autocorrect had changed my name."

Al nodded slowly, pressing her lips together to keep herself from doing anything else ridiculous. "Oh, well uh, good then. I guess," Al suddenly paused, "Well, not good since she messed up your name, but I'm glad I'm not alone."

Al was pretty sure that if Oli wasn't looking so awkwardly yet cutely kindly at her that she'd have already melted into a puddle from embarrassment. Well, actually, she was pretty sure she still would at this point, but shockingly enough this was the one supernatural thing that didn't happen that day.

They both laughed a little bit more and everything eventually returned to normal for the group. Well, as normal as it could be with everything that had just happened on the mansion's grounds. In just a few minutes, the group had drawn the triangles for the ritual and were setting down the completed set of artifacts.

"We're gonna go home," Sierra chirped, bubbly as ever in anticipation of returning home. "We're gonna go shopping." A light giggle escaped her lips, "2016!"