Escape the Night: Freak Show

A/N: Matt is missing and they still haven't found the music box. Will they be able to find the music box before the Guardian captures them all?

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

CHAPTER FIVE: MIRROR WRITING

"Oh my God," Joey gasped through the clown mask that he was still wearing, staring at the spot that Matt had been mere moments ago. "Matt…"

Lele turned to Eva. "I'll distract him," she told her friend, "and you get that mask from Joey." And before anyone could stop her, she bolted out of the safe zone, and she began shouting and waving to get the attention of the Guardian. "Hey! Over here, ugly!"

"You have to stay close to him!" Joey shouted, not wanting to see anyone else get taken by the Guardian, and he was hoping that both Tim and Matt were still alive.

Eva ran to the exchange circle while Lele kept the Guardian busy, and when she was inside the circle, she took the mask from Joey, and he ran for the safe zone the moment she had the clown mask on.

Joey was halfway back to the safe zone when Lele retreated back to safety and the Guardian suddenly came after him. "Oh crap!" he screamed and increased his speed, practically flying, his coat flapping in the wind. Just as it reached for him, he somehow managed to leap over its' outstretch arm, and landed in the safe zone, where he nearly fell over.

Relieved that Joey was safe, Eva hurried to the pool house, where she found Oli and Dawn working on the combination lock. "Hey, what do you have?"

"A combination lock and way too many numbers to use on it," Dawn informed her. "We heard shouting out there. What happen?"

"The Guardian got Matt when he tried to get the clown mask from Joey," Eva replied, lifting up the mask so that she could get a look at the chest and noted the two plaques. "What is this?" she asked, examining them. "It's backwards."

Both Oli and Dawn looked up at that. "Really? What does it say?"

"I don't know," Eva admitted, squinting at the writing. "N…G…nine?"

"Check the mirrors!" Joey shouted from the safe zone. "Look at it in reverse! The mirrors! Use the mirrors!"

Dawn looked between the mirrors and the plaques and felt like kicking herself. "Of course," she said, getting up to grab the mirrors. "It's mirror writing! Just like in The Da Vinci Code!" She handed one of the mirrors to Eva and they held them up to the plaques while Oli got ready to put in the numbers. "Ok, ok, we got an eight."

"Seven!"

Oli nodded and tried the numbers. "Three, seven, eight, four!" But when he tried, the lock still wouldn't open. "Nothing."

"Oh come on!" Dawn groaned, and started when the gong went off. "Not now…"

"Dawn, you stay here," Oli said, getting up and backing toward the door. "I'll go and hopefully Joey can make back in here to help."

"You sure, Oli?" Dawn asked him and he nodded. "Ok."

Oli ran out of the pool house and toward the exchange circle. They were close to solving the combination, he just knew it. He reached the exchange circle and while Lele and Sierra distracted the Guardian, Joey ran out of the safe zone and over to him.

"Here you go," Oli said, handing over the mask. "Do you-?"

"Yeah," Joey said, quickly taking the clown mask and put it on. "Can't talk. No time. Go!" And when he was certain that Oli had made it back to the safe zone, which had resulted in another close call with the Guardian, he hurried back to the pool house.

While all of this was going on, Kabuki was having fun alternately tickling Matt to the point that he ended up wheezing and covering Tim's face with licks and kisses, getting a bunch of protests out of him. Oh, she knew that she was suppose to be torturing them, but she didn't get to play with humans all that often, and she was having a lot of fun with the two boys.

Kabuki was saving the torture for when the rest of their friends were captured by the Guardian, for she wanted a large audience for that. She turned to go back to tickling Matt, who'd recovered by that point, when Tim asked her a question.

"Earlier, you said something about the Hatcher girl having a Light in her, what did you mean by that?"

Matt stared at Tim, wondering why he was asking about something being inside of Dawn, and then realized that his friend was trying to distract the cat woman until their friends finally defeated the Guardian and got them out of there. He also realized that his friend was trying to get as much information out of her as he could, too. 'Keeping talking, Tim, keeping talk.'

Kabuki hesitated for a moment since that was a topic she wasn't suppose to share with anyone, but she figured that it wouldn't hurt to give the two boys some information. "Well, your friend is special," she informed them. "She has a Light inside her that can't ever be corrupted, and it can banish darkness and evil if she can focus it properly. Of course, she doesn't even know about it, so it's pointless to hope that she can use it to save you both," she added with a sly smile and turned to Matt, tickling him once again.

'That's what you think,' Tim thought, filing away the information to share with the others when they got out of there, and he was hoping that their friends would be able to defeat the Guardian and get them out of there soon, since he wasn't sure how much more he could take with all the licking and kissing. 'I wager that this 'Light' inside Dawn will be very useful.'

Joey hurried into the pool house, where he found Dawn and Eva holding the mirrors, and he was out of breath from running, but he had figured out the combination, he was sure of it. "The third number is four," he gasped, pointing to the lamp with the four on the front and the three on the side. Then, he turned to the other lamp, the one with the three on the front and the one on the side. "This is the first number. First number's three. And then these…" He gestured to the two plaques.

"Eight and seven," said Dawn, nodding. "That should be it."

Setting down the mirror, Eva knelt next to the lock, and she inputted the combination into it. For a few seconds she thought it hadn't worked, but then the lock clicked open, and they all cheered. "Yeah!"

Kneeling down next to her and setting aside the other mirror, Dawn and Joey opened the chest and inside was a music box, which was shaped like a carousel, and the brown horses were dancing on their tiptoes.

Joey grabbed it and they all got up. "Okay, we need to play the music, because-" he began and stopped when he saw that there was something on the bottom of the music box. "Wait… a note." And he quickly read it. "'Stand on the circular stone platform next to the house. Raise the horses to the sky and let the music play'."

"There's a stone circle just outside," Dawn said, recalling it since she'd had to run past it earlier. "That must be it."

Benny was watching the pool house and he spotted Joey, Dawn, and Eva run out with the clown masks on, and Eva was carrying something in her hands. "They're coming, guys. And they got something with them."

"Yes!" Oli cheered.

The trio reached the stone platform and climbed onto it. While their friends were wondering what it was they were doing, Eva turned a knob on the music box, and they raised it above their heads as the music started to play.

The Guardian roared and started toward the platform – when there was the sound of a whip cracking through the air.

A/N: Victory! Right? R&R everyone!