Escape the Night: Wicked Hallucinations

A/N: As promised, here is the first chapter to hold you all until Thursday for the normal scheduled update.

Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Escape the Night. I just own any and all characters that I just happen create.


CHAPTER ONE: THE FOURTH OWNER

Instead of finding the next owner, the survivors retreated into the secret dinning room, where Oli, Eva, Dawn, and Lele were sitting while Joey and Benny were standing behind them. Light was starting to come through the windows behind them, and they knew that they were running out of time. If the sun rose before they freed the two remaining owners and sealed the evil away with the ritual, they would be stuck in the 1920s forever.

"And then there were six of us," Joey said, breaking the silence.

"Guys," Lele said, pointing to the windows. "The light is coming in. It's almost morning. You know what that means."

"Yeah, we're running out of time," said Dawn, feeling dejected for the first time since this madness started.

"It means we're all gonna die," Eva moaned.

"We're not," Oli insisted, surprising his friends. "We need to work faster, and we just need to get this over and done with. Okay?" And after they all agreed, he opened the journal, flipping through the pages until he found the entry for the next owner. "We need to look at this book and figure out what we need to do."

Joey nodded and peered over his shoulder. "Who is it this time?" he asked.

Finding the right page, Oli began reading what the priest had written. "'Vincent Welles is a madman'," he read and they all made faces. Great, as if a mermaid and a WWI vet obsessed with gold weren't bad enough, and the priest had been the sane one so far. "'He sees impossible things – horrifying things. He would stare endlessly at lightbulbs. I never knew what he saw, but it seemed like he was trying to burn holes into his eyes. His sanity may be gone, but his heart is good. He hid something in the dining room, but I was never able to find it'." He sighed and set the book down. "He sounds like a psycho."

"Maybe, but he's the next owner and we need to find him," Benny pointed out.

Oli nodded and stood up. "We need to find something."

"What else did it say?" Joey asked, following him. "Anything?"

Oli ignored the question and was searching the room when he found something that hadn't been there before. "Oh!" He grabbed a strange little box from a nearby desk. "What's this?"

"It has the symbol," Lele pointed out.

They gathered around the box, which was locked, and it had a combination. "There's four numbers," Oli remarked.

"Look, look!" Joey pointed. "There's colors. Black, grey, green, and yellow. I don't know what that means, but-"

"That's blue!"Lele snapped.

"There's no need to be rude, Lele," Dawn scolded her.

Eva stared at the lock, thinking, and then she remembered that lightbulbs had been mentioned in the journal entry. "The lightbulbs," she announced. "Check the lightbulbs."


Leaving the dining room, they began the search for the correct lightbulbs, which wasn't easy since there were lightbulbs everywhere, and just when Dawn and Joey were about to give up hope, Oli noticed that one of the lamps in the living room was off, and he was certain that it'd been on earlier.

"Guys?" he said and they all looked at him as he examined the lamp. "This lightbulb isn't on," he informed them, removing the lamp shade, and found that the lightbulb had burned out. "And I swear this was always on." He unscrewed the lightbulb and he gasped when he saw that the base was colored. "Oh! It's yellow and there's a number 1 on this."

"We should find more of those," Lele suggested, feeling hopeful again.

Oli nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "We need to find more lightbulbs." And they spread out to search, with Lele finding another burnt out lightbulb that had the number 5 burned into the glass. "I got the black one! It says 5."

Joey and Dawn found a burnt out lightbulb at the same time, so they jointly claimed it. "It's the blue! With the number 2!"

"Just need one more," Benny remarked.

Eva went to a lamp that had four lightbulbs, but only three of them were working. She quickly unscrewed the unlit on, and held it up. "Black," she announced.

Lele was about to protest when she double-checked the lightbulb she'd found and saw that she had the color wrong. "I have…I have grey. Never mind."


They took the lightbulbs back to the dining room, where they set them down next to the box and checked the numbers: 1. 5. 2. 1. Matching the numbers to the colors, Joey put them into the lock, and it opened for him. "Stupid locks," he muttered, but he was glad that they were a step closer to getting the hell out of that damn house. Opening the box, he took out a key that had a label saying "second floor" on it, and he lead the way out of the room. "Let's go."


Reaching the second floor, Arthur gestured to a door that they hadn't open yet, and Joey unlocked it with the key. They entered a large bedroom and it didn't seem like there was anyone in there until they turned around and saw standing next to a full-length mirror, and wearing a straitjacket, was the man they were looking for.

He was a slightly bulky, primarily because of the straitjacket, man with pitch-black hair, a beard, and wild brown eyes, and he looked like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in weeks, which was something Joey could relate to. He was in a white straitjacket and he was staring intensely at the mirror, ignoring them.

"Vincent?" Oli asked uneasily, but the man ignored them, still staring at the mirror.

"I know how to talk to him," Lele said confidently, approaching the lunatic, and she sweetened her voice with comfort and understanding. "Listen…honey…"

"Don't go near him!" Joey hissed, pulling her back. "I know you'veprobably been in a straitjacket, but-"

Lele shrugged off his hand and spoke to Vincent. "We're not here to hurt you," she said in a reassuring tone.

"We like lightbulbs," Eva added, hoping it would help.

Suddenly, Vincent screamed, scaring the group as he faced them, and he backed away, almost as if he'd only just realized that they were there. "Who are you?" he demanded, terrified. "How long have you been there?"

"We just got here," Joey answered.

"Did the doctor send you?" Vincent asked fearfully. "Please, I told him everything I know, every last vision, please!"

"No, no, no," Lele said calmly, and suddenly, she wanted to give this guy a hug. "We're not here for that! We're not here for that. We're here to help."

"It's true, we want to help," Dawn agreed, hoping that if they all stayed calm, Vincent would stay calm, too.

"We're good guys," Joey agreed, also speaking calmly. "We're here to help you. Can you help us, though?"

Vincent stared at them for a long moment before taking a deep breath, calming himself down so that he could speak. "Be careful of this house," he warned and winced a little, almost as if the evil was harming him for speaking. "When I first came here, I thought it was gonna be like the home I never had. I thought I would show the world that what I see is real. But this house…" He looked like he was about to cry. "This house has become a dark, unfriendly place that has locked me in this straitjacket…so I never leave it."

"The house is trying to trap us, too," Dawn agreed, which got Vincent to look at her. "We've been tricked, and if you can help us, then we can all get out of here for good."

For the first time in a long time, Vincent felt hope growing inside him, for there was something about the brunette that made him want to believe her and, to him, it seemed as if there was a Light about her, calling out to him, and then he startled the group by arguing with himself for several seconds. "Tell them about the keys, Vincent. I know, give me a moment, tell them about the keys! Okay! I will!"

"Where are the keys?" Oli asked.

Hearing the question, Vincent was able to focus again, but it was clear that his grip on reality was already starting to slip again. "There are three keys that are needed to unlock this jacket," he explained, showing them the locks on the back of the straitjacket, and his voice was coming out in a series of breathless bursts. "But…you're gonna have to dive inside my hallucinations to find them. If you go to the landing, there's an ink blot card. It'll show you to my most vivid hallucinations. Please…"

"We will," Lele whispered, trying not to cry. "We will."

Vincent suddenly tensed up, his eyes going wide with fear. "You have to go now, go now," he insisted. "I'm getting a vision, you don't want to be here for much longer, go, please, go!"

Everyone ran for the door, and Lele followed, but she made sure to shout a few last words of encouragement over her shoulder. "We'll be back, okay? We'll find the keys! We'll get you out of here!"

"Thank you," Vincent whispered before he was overwhelmed by the hallucination, and he screamed.


A/N: Poor, poor, Vincent. Here's hoping that our favorite YouTubers can help him, and I will see you all again on Thursday. Bye for now! R&R everyone!