Yes you know that it all comes together, it all comes together, all comes together as you grow

It took Marley and Nick a second to process what they were seeing. The green laser had struck smack-dab in the center of the circular mural on the wall.

So that was the next puzzle they were supposed to figure out.

“Come on!” Marley rushed over to the wall and they stopped in front of the mural to take a closer look at it.

The mural looked like a large circular labyrinth. There were countless interconnected lines, but none on the outside could reach the large chamber in the center of the mural, which was right where the laser had struck.

When Nick and Marley looked at it, they saw something interesting.

“Look at the light,” Nick said, pointing to the center of the circle. “It’s spreading across the whole mural!”

Like water flowing down a track, the light didn’t stop where it had struck. It began to flow through the openings in the circle, filtering through the pathways and filling up everything it could reach.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t go all the way,” Marley pointed out. “See? It stops at the edge here, because none of the paths actually connect to any further paths. That’s a little weird, don’t you think?”

She turned to Nick to see what he thought about it. But Nick had barely heard anything she said. He was still staring at the mural, trying to see where the different points connected.

“Nick?” Marley grabbed his shoulder and gave him a shake, snapping him out of it.

“What? Uh… what?” He looked at her for a moment, confused.

Marley frowned. “I said that the green light is only contained to this part, in the middle.” She pointed to a circle about a foot in diameter, which was as far as the green light would actually travel due to all the paths being cut off by walls. “So what are we supposed to do here?”

Nick considered that. This seemed really tricky, but it had to mean something. And there wasn’t really anything else in the room that they could use; at this point, they’d solved pretty much every puzzle in the room.

“You think maybe we have to do something with the dais?” Marley asked, looking back at the podium in the center of the room. “Maybe that’s connected to something… the star kind of looks like it could be connected to this…”

Nick wasn’t sure that was it. “No, I don’t think so… but there’s definitely something up with that podium… the way the star spins in place, that’s gotta… wait…”

He took a step back and took another look at the lines on the mural. “…No… it couldn’t be… could it?” He smiled.

“What? Did you figure something out?” Marley asked excitedly.

“I-I think so,” Nick nodded. “I think so… okay, look, this is gonna be really crazy, okay? But I think it’s just crazy enough to work.”

“What?” Marley pressed.

“So this mural, it looks like a big maze, right? But it can’t be. For one thing, there aren’t any exits or anything like that,” Nick pointed out.

He raised a good point. The outside circle was completely solid, with not paths out; if it was a maze, it wasn’t a very good one.

“What does that mean?” Marley asked. “It can’t be a maze anyway, since nobody could even get out of the middle. The fact that the light is stuck here proves it.”

“Yeah, but… what if we can move it?” Nick suggested.

Marley’s eyes widened. “Oh, man! Nick, that’s brilliant! You think…”

“Yeah, I think this mural, I think it’s sort of like a dexterity puzzle,” Nick explained. “This middle part here, it’s stuck in place. But what about the next layer? I think maybe… we should be able to…”

He maneuvered around the laser beam and put his hands on the parts of the mural outside the glowing green area. Straining himself slightly, he pushed, and to his surprise and excitement it actually began to turn.

“Yes! Oh, wow!” Marley quickly moved to join him, standing on the other side. With two sets of hands, the work was much faster.

A ring about a foot wide began to turn around the stationary center of the mural. As they moved the ring, the pathways, which were blocked off before, began to align with one another. Then they both heard a loud click, and suddenly the ring refused to keep moving.

The light, which had been stopped by walls, had nothing in its way now. It spread through more of the mural, filling out the areas of the ring that they’d just moved until they were **** to stop by more barriers. The glow from the laser-lit wall filled the entire room it was so bright.

“Okay, then there’s just this outside part left,” Nick said, moving to the last part of the mural. The outside ring was also about a foot wide, but it was a little trickier to move since it was so large. But with Marley pitching in, the two of them were able to slide the ring into place as well, and they heard another, definitive click.

The light continued to spread. It flooded through the mural, filling every passage and crevice of the intricate pattern. It looked much more coherent now, a completed maze of fine lines and paths that all linked together through a bright green sheen.

Then the wall began to rumble.

“Whoa, get back!” Nick pushed Marley back as the wall started shaking, and then the two of them gasped in surprise as it sank into the floor.

A new chamber opened up in front of them, and they stepped forward to see what was inside of it. They had to walk around the laser, which was obviously still going, but that was easy enough. The laser ended in the center of a large altar, another one, striking right in the middle of what looked like a vertical bowl; a conclave cavity in the side of the black stone.

“So… what do we do now?” Nick wondered. The chamber was barely larger than a closet. It was big enough for them to step inside of, but beyond that, there wasn’t really a lot they could do. It wasn’t like a brand-new room had opened up for them or anything like that.

Nick turned to Marley to see what she thought, and Marley just shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we should see what we can find?”

There was one obvious spot to start looking, the altar itself. There was something that looked like a dome on the flat surface of the black altar, the only bit of color on the darn thing. It was made out of a shiny golden metal.

Beyond that, they couldn’t see anything else in the chamber; it was completely bare.

“Maybe there’s something under here?” Nick suggested, palming the dome with both hands and lifting it up.

He nearly fell over because it was so light.

“What is that?” Marley took a closer look at the object in his hands. Nick had suspected it would be like the covering of a serving tray or something of the sort, but it wasn’t. The dome was a hollow bowl, with two holes in the sides. Through those holes stuck tiny golden screws that held a mirror in place; and the mirror could twist and turn in all sorts of directions, almost like the mirror of a car.

“It’s kind of like a gyroscope,” Nick compared it, turning the dome over in his hands. “But I don’t know what we’d use it for. Unless you think maybe… could it fit in there?”

He looked over at the dent in the altar, where the laser had ended.

“I think that’s the idea, yeah!” Marley’s heart was pounding in her chest. “Come on, let’s see if you can fit it into place!”

Nick agreed with that, but that also meant getting into the path of the laser.

And he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t hurt.

Come on, don’t be a baby. Dakota wouldn’t actually put anything in here that could hurt you, he chastised himself for his cowardice.

It might make him horny, though.

He would have to take this place.

He took the mirror and he slid it into place. Just as Marley suspected, it fit perfectly into the dome. Now they had an adjustable mirror they could turn in any direction they wanted, which worked out perfectly for the laser- they could redirect it at will.

“So now we can basically move this thing anywhere we want, huh?” Marley took hold of the edges of the mirror, and began tilting it to send the light bouncing all over the room.

She turned to Nick and grinned. “Imagine if Dawn were here?” She joked. “We could get her scurrying all over the place trying to grab it!”

Nick rolled his eyes. “I don’t think she’d appreciate that idea very much,” he replied, but he couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of it anyway.

Marley laughed it off too, but Nick raised a good point.

In the meantime, they had to focus on what they were actually doing.

“So we can move this however we want, is that right?” Nick turned his head back into the room. “Because I think I just figured out what that dais is for.”

Marley gasped. “Oh my gosh! Nick! You’re brilliant! Just brilliant! I could kiss you!” She moved to do just that, but stopped herself before she lost control. Turning red, she cleared her throat. “But, uh, I won’t, though.”

“Right, uh, yeah,” Nick stammered, thinking back to what they’d already done together. They’d gone a lot further than kissing today.

“I think that’s why the dais over there spins,” Nick pointed out. “To help align it with the laser.”

Even though they could tilt the mirror in pretty much any direction they wanted, because of the depth of the chamber they couldn’t actually move the light to any corner of the room. They would need to move their target into its path.

For example, by turning the rotating dais so the crystal could be put right into the path of the beam.

“I’ll start turning the dais,” Nick said, his heart racing with excitement. They were doing it! They were actually solving the puzzles! This was so exciting.

“Great, I’ll try and redirect the beam over to you,” Marley agreed, maneuvering the mirror. The two of them worked together to try and get the laser to penetrate the crystal on the altar, which was so far the first act of penetration they had actually made efforts towards accomplishing today.

Nick squinted at the entrance to the chamber, trying to align the crystal so that it would be within range for the laser. Once he was pretty sure he got it lined up where he needed to go, he stepped back to give Marley all the room she needed to aim.

Thankfully, just like with the door earlier, Marley’s ability to calculate the angles was superb. Nick wondered if this was some residual effect of her Fast Learner transformation, turning her into a wiz with stuff like that.

“Okay, I think… I got it… almost… there!” Marley squinted, and shifted the mirror, and aimed the beam right into the heart of the crystal.

The laser struck the crystal, and the green light met the purple light, and began to react.

Marley, excited to see what would happen, rushed over to the altar.

“What’s happening? What’s it doing!?” She asked excitedly, grabbing Nick by the arm as they watched the altar shine.

Something was happening with the crystal. Only now that it was shining could Nick see that there were etches on the surface; tiny scratches that were now being illuminated by the light.

And not just any scratches, either; these were letters!

Letters that were being projected down onto the altar in front of them.

When the light struck the crystal, it caused the message inscribed on the crystal to become visible, and now that message had been transferred onto the altar for both of them to read.

YOU DIDN’T EVEN THINK TO TRY THE DOOR FIRST?

Marley and Nick stared blankly at the words for a few seconds, then looked at each other.

“…What?” Nick mutely asked.

Marley shook her head. “…No fucking way.”

The two of them both turned to the door immediately, and raced for the stairs, practically pushing each other over to climb them. When they got to the top, Nick grabbed the doorknob and turned it with all his might.

It wasn’t even locked.

As it never had been.

He practically kicked the door down in frustration.

“You didn’t try the door!?” Nick exclaimed.

“Why would I try the door!?” Marley demanded. “All the other doors were locked, why would I think this one would be any different!?”

Nick almost replied, but he caught himself. Getting upset at Marley was the obvious wrong thing to do. After all, he had thought the same thing.

“Let’s just go,” he muttered.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Marley groaned as she stepped through the door, pulling at her hair. “So you’re saying that the door was unlocked this whole time?! There wasn’t any point of figuring out all the puzzles in that room in the first place!? We could have just ignored the whole damn thing and walked through as soon as we got there?!”

“That’s right.”

Nick and Marley turned to see Dakota sitting at a nice, hand-carved wooden coffee table. She was bundled up in a nice black fur coat and sipping a mug of hot cocoa. A large window was behind her, showing a canvas of white snow.

“But wasn’t it a lot of fun?” She pointed out with a cheeky smile.

“Where are we?” Nick asked, walking further into the room. He took a quick look at his surroundings. Unlike the dreary and creepy dungeon that they’d just escaped from, this place seemed almost cozy. It looked like a log cabin, with a roaring stone fireplace, comfy-looking chairs and a couch, and a nice throw rug in the center of the room. There were a couple of unseemly parts that made him uncomfortable, like the animal heads mounted on the wall, but other than that, this looked practically like paradise after the struggle that they’d just gone through.

“I take it by the fact that you’re here, that means we completed the escape room?” Marley guessed. She wanted to hock the walkie-talkie at Dakota’s smug smiling face.

“That’s correct!” Dakota applauded them. “Congratulations! You managed to solve all the puzzles! Even the ones you didn’t have to do! And you did it all without any hints! I just knew you could do it! And so, here is your reward!”

Nick and Marley both looked around.

“Reward?” Marley scowled. “I thought that this date WAS supposed to be my reward!”

“Well… kinda,” Dakota admitted with a resigned shrug. “I mentioned before, that where you kids would be spending your date was up to audience vote, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah,” Nick nodded. “Yeah, you did. And the audience wanted us to do a sexy escape room.”

“And you did! You finished it perfectly!” Dakota nodded, tapping her cane against the floor. “And you both had a lot of fun in the process, right?”

Marley and Nick looked at each other.

“…I guess so,” Nick reluctantly admitted.

“There were some issues,” Marley said quietly. “But yeah, solving the puzzles and working together… it was a lot of fun. We’re really done?”

She didn’t know she would feel so sad saying that. She’d been trying to clear the escape room for what felt like hours, and now that they were done…

It meant that her alone time with Nick was quickly coming to an end. Soon, she’d have to go back to being Marley, the girl who couldn’t go more than ten feet away from her sister without melting into a puddle of slime.

“So you’re going to send us back now?” Nick pressed. “Since we cleared the escape room?”

Dakota frowned. “Were you just ignoring what I said a second ago? We were talking about the audience and their vote, remember?”

“Yeah, but what does that matter?” Nick asked.

“It matters quite a bit, actually,” Dakota replied. “Because you see, there were a few voting irregularities. The escape room wasn’t actually my first choice, but because we couldn’t actually prove voter fraud, well…”

“Wait, voter fraud is a thing that can happen on this show?!” Nick exclaimed.

Dakota rolled her eyes and waved her hand. A grunt was her only answer to what should honestly be a very important question.

“Don’t worry about it. The point is, I spoke with the producers, and we’ve decided that, as a little bonus, and as a reward for completing the escape room without relying on any hints from the host, you two will get to spend the remainder of your time in Dream Alley here! In a nice, cozy cabin, where you can enjoy each other’s company for as long as you like!”

Dakota glanced at Marley. “Although… some of us may not be dressed for the weather…”

“Hey!” Marley turned red and covered her chest. “This isn’t my fault! It’s that stupid straightjacket you tied me up in!”

Another noncommittal grunt from Dakota made it clear how little she thought about Marley’s objections.

“So, let me get this straight, you’re not sending us back to the hotel yet?” Nick asked. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or frustrated about that. As much as he enjoyed spending time with Marley, there were a few things he was worried about involving the other girls; Mary and Rose were probably freaking out in their own ways about Amelia, Ella was a ticking time bomb that he doubted would result in anything that WASN’T messy, and as for Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin…

…

On the other hand, enjoying some more time in Marley’s company wasn’t exactly a problem for him either.

“I think you two have a lot to talk about,” Dakota purred. “So enjoy your stay. The cabin is fully furnished, and I’ll be getting out of your noses.”

She tapped the cane, and the walkie-talkie in Marley’s hand vanished.

“…You’re really going to leave us alone?” Marley found that a little hard to believe, frankly.

Dakota shrugged. “Well… I won’t be directly interfering, if that’s what you mean,” she clarified. “But yes. Of course I’ll still be watching everything that’s going on.”

She winked saucily at the brunette. “I wouldn’t be doing my job otherwise.”

“…I suppose that’s as good as it’s gonna get, huh?” Nick sighed. He knew better than to mess with the host.

“Yes it is,” Dakota nodded, rising from the table with a smile on her lips. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a leprechaun in the basement I need to see to.”

And with that, she walked past them and into the escape room, shutting the door behind her. As it locked shut, the door itself vanished, as if it had never been there at all.

Nick and Marley glanced at each other and silence filled the cabin. Only the soft flurry of snow outside could be heard between them.