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“It’ll be fun, promise,” Armand had said.
Daniel had his doubts considering the sorts of things Armand found ‘fun,’ but since he didn’t have any better ideas and Lestat was all for it—and Louis was always down for whatever Lestat was interested in—he kept those doubts to himself. Maybe he was wrong, and this new escape room would actually be worth the time despite how pointlessly dull the concept sounded.
There were actually a number of rooms inside the building, all with different themes and varying wait times. The summer beach room had a comparatively short line since no one was interested in that one. Armand didn’t even give them a chance to vote on which room they wanted to try, though…he led them all straight to the back of the building to the ‘torture dungeon.’
Because of course.
“What is this, Saw?” he asked, pointing at the poster on the wall. “I swear those are the exact chains from the movie.”
Armand shrugged. “I chose this one not for any film reference but for the rumored difficulty. We want a challenge, don’t we?”
“A little challenge would be preferred, yes,” Lestat agreed with an enthusiastic nod.
Louis gave the poster a disinterested look. Daniel hoped the next time they went on a double date—if such an event ever were to happen a second time—either he or Louis would get to choose the venue.
The room itself was nowhere near as intimidating as the poster looked. It was actually mostly empty, except for some carefully selected old wooden furniture—painted with fake blood—and some posters on the wall, a collection of newspaper clippings, a mysterious looking music box, and an open box of tools. More fake blood on the floor and a plastic set of chains attached to a painted-on drain in the middle of the room.
Armand locked onto the toolbox immediately and pulled a set of instructions out of it. He read them off, and the four of them delegated specific tasks to specific people. Armand, being the unnaturally quick reader that he was, read through all of the codes after Daniel found them. Louis and Lestat were honestly pretty useless. They were detrimental to the cause, actually. Daniel would spot something immediately with his investigative prowess and it would turn into an argument with him and Armand on one side and Louis and Lestat (mostly Lestat, really) on the other. They couldn’t agree on anything for shit.
“Just let us do the work, yeah?” Daniel suggested. “We’ve gotten everything right up to this point.”
“I’m telling you, it’s an elephant,” Lestat said, shaking his head. “It’s the only answer that makes sense.”
“Uh, no, it’s an old man. I really don’t know where you’re getting ‘elephant’ from. Louis?”
Louis just shrugged with a fond smile plastered on his face. “I honestly don’t have a damn clue.”
“Look, Louis! If you read number 13 first like it says, then…”
Daniel tuned him out, turning back to Armand to help with what was easily the hardest riddle to decipher thus far.
“Any luck?”
Armand shook his head. “No, I thought the green poster had something to do with it but the code doesn’t work on this final lock,” he said, tapping the combination lock in question.
“You tried 1321?”
“Yes, that was my third attempt.”
“Huh. How much time we have left?”
“About…”
He turned to look at the digital clock on the wall but before he could answer, the employee that let them into the room previously opened the door, drawing their attention.
“How’s it going, guys?”
“We’re close,” Armand said. He shot Daniel a confused look, to which Daniel just shrugged.
“Seems we can’t quite manage to agree on the final riddle, or the combination,” Louis said.
“It’s been rather difficult thus far,” Lestat chimed in.
The employee came over to crouch beside Daniel which, ok, weird—and took the half-torn poster from Armand, who frowned but didn’t otherwise comment on the interruption. He gave Armand a couple hints he didn’t ask for and then, believe it or not, Lestat guessed the correct code based on them.
So it really was an elephant. Motherfucker.
“Good job, cher,” Louis congratulated him with a pat on the back while he grinned, unlocking the combination and revealing the prize—a big plastic heart with the name “Maria” on it—while Armand and Daniel stared in disbelief.
“Oh, but your time ran out about five minutes ago,” the employee so helpfully mentioned, pointing at the digital clock on the wall.
Everyone turned to look at it, then back to stare daggers at the guy who apparently didn’t think that was important to mention five minutes ago.
“So, that’s it then?” Louis asked, brows raised.
“We do photos afterwards, if you guys wanna do that.”
“Uh, sure. Why not.”
“Might as well I guess.”
If he had known what exactly those photos entailed, Daniel would’ve said hell no. But again, the employees failed to mention something important: in this case, that the photos would be taken with them all holding a giant sign with “WE FAILED” printed in huge bold letters on the front of it. Daniel thought they were all too polite to decline the photoshoot, but then Louis burst into laughter once they were out the door.
“I’m sorry,” he said once he caught his breath, “But that was just so bad, I can’t help but laugh. You guys should’ve seen your faces.”
Armand sighed. “Normally the experience is much better.”
“Victory in my grasp only to be snatched away just like that,” Lestat grumbled.
Louis laughed again.
“Wait…” Daniel had a thought, and he didn’t like it one bit. “They’re not gonna post that on instagram later, are they?”
Lestat went pale at the idea of it. “Absolutely not,” he said, then abruptly turned around and ran back in.
“Oh boy, here we go…” Louis followed after him. “Les, wait. You can’t just…”
Armand chuckled then. “Sorry it wasn’t quite what I made it out to be,” he said. “But I really have had much better experiences elsewhere. Your choice next time.”
Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know, I had my doubts at first but it was actually fun once I got into it. Still would have preferred a little more difficulty, though. I can see the appeal now.”
Armand smiled then reached forward, taking Daniel’s hand in his own and threading their fingers together.
“If I know those two, they’ll be a while. Should we find something to eat?”
“Sounds good,” Daniel said, squeezing his hand.