Jadam Oneshots

Escape Room

Warning: slight panic attack

Adam's pov

James had decided to drag me 45 minutes to go to a horror escape room.

He had recently grown some sort of obsession for Escape rooms, and he got such a thrill from it that I couldn't say no when he brought me to one after the other.

I have to admit, they are pretty fun.

But I don't do well with horror.

The scariest movie I've seen was "The Woman in Black" and I haven't seen any more since that.

I didn't tell James this, though. I had been able to avoid doing anything too scary so far, but now it was too late.

We arrived at the building, locked the car, and walked inside.

Waiver signing was a regular occurrence for escape rooms, and I had gotten used to them by now, but today it felt like a death sentence.

My breath felt slightly shorter and heavier than it used to, but I tried to calm myself down for James' sake.

The theme of the escape room was "Demonic Possession" and your goal was to escape the room before the demons became strong enough to take control of your body.

You would think I would be fine with something like this, considering my whole theme is demons, but needless to say I was terrified.

We walked into a dark, slightly humid room. James was practically bouncing in excitement.

I was trying hard not to pass out.

The first thing I noticed was the cult circle in the middle of the floor, a charred burn mark in the center of it.

Our instructor reminded us of the rules, and told us we could ask for hints if need be.

I just nodded and attempted to look slightly sane as they went on and on about not using force, not stealing thing, and so on.

Finally, we were left alone in the dark, damp room.

I heard the lock in the door click, and my nerves were sent nearly over the edge.

James went right to work, searching for open drawers, or keys hidden behind paintings.

I tried my best to help, desperately avoiding the mirror with the bloody handprints, and opened drawers and cupboards here and there.

The escape room was actually quite a large one, with 3 rooms in total, not including the room behind the locked door.

Everywhere I went I saw more and more terrifying things.

Letters written on the wall in "blood", fake bodies hanging from the ceiling wrapped in cloth, and large claw marks dragging across the wall.

What the instructor failed to mention was the fact that the piano played itself.

Or that the table shook.

Or that the lights turned on and off randomly.

James seemed to be having the time of his life, running to and fro across the rooms, eagerly placing objects in their corresponding areas, and fitting keys into holes.

I didn't realize how far he was until I didn't see him in any of the rooms.

I started to panic again, terrified that I was going to be left completely alone in this horrible place.

I desperately searched for any kind of door or entryway that would give some sort of help as to where James had gone.

A creak sounded behind me, causing me to whip my head around, and immediately run into the door that had just swung open.

The door lead to a room, about 6 feet by 5 feet, the only source of light coming from a dim lightbulb on the short ceiling.

I immediately realized that this was most definitely not the way James had gone, and turned to exit the room.

The door swung shut before I even had a chance to step forward, trapping me in the confined, dark space.

The speaker on the wall suddenly produced a loud, booming voice.

"Ah, this is my favorite part. As you players can probably tell, you are alone now. One of you is in a little girl's room, with clues and puzzles for you to solve. The other is trapped, with nothing to do but wait. Good luck!"

The speaker clicked off, along with what little calm I had left in me.

I had never had a huge fear of confined spaces, but all of that was starting to change in that moment.

I felt trapped, with nowhere to go, and no one to help me.

The air seemed to be getting thinner, and the walls seemed to be getting closer and closer with every minute I was stuck in that room.

It was practically soundproof, the only noise coming from the glowing lightbulb above my head.

I vaguely felt myself sit on the floor, my back leaned against the hard wall, and my arms wrapping around around my knees.

My face found it's way onto my knees, and I felt myself slightly rocking back and forth, attempting to calm down my racing heart.

After what felt like an eternity, the door clicked softly, and swung open to reveal a triumphant James.

His confidence soon turned to worry when he saw my position on the ground.

"Oh no sweetheart, are you ok?" He asked, wiping away my tears I didn't know were there.

"I'm, I'm sor-sorry, I got scared." I said, stuttering as I looked back at the ground.

"No, no you're perfectly fine. You don't have to apologize for being scared. Come on, let's get you out of here." James said, grabbing my hands to hoist me up and out of the room.

The front door of the escape room was open, with our instructor standing with a water bottle in their hand.

James clutched onto my hand as we walked towards the exit, and the instructor handed me the water bottle as we exited that awful death room.

"Thanks for coming to LA escape rooms. I hope you had a good time."

I nearly laughed at that, knowing that the instructor knew for a fact that I did not.

We stumbled out of the entrance, and walked to our car parked in the front.

I was about to open the passenger side, when James pulled me into his arms, roughly hugging me as he buried his face into my neck.

"I'm sososo sorry for making you do that. I knew you were scared, but I just wanted to do it so bad, and we should never have come, and now you probably think I don't care about you, and you're never going to want to do another escape room ever again and I probably ruined your whole day and-"

I cut him off with,

"James, it's fine. Really. I knew how excited you were for this, and I don't ever want you to think I won't do something for you just cause I'm a little scared. I love you, ok? Everything's fine."

James looked at me, and suddenly pulled me in for a rough, but sweet kiss.

I quickly returned it, before we broke away to get in the car and out of the chill in the air.

"I love you too. So much." James said, leaning in again to gently peck my lips.

"Now let's go home and go to bed. I'm exhausted from all that puzzle solving."

I laughed and agreed, and we headed home for a night full of warm cuddles and hot cocoa.

(1230 words)