CHAPTER SIX  ⨾  Twin Dolls.

PREVIOUSLY ON AFTERGLOW . . . Joey's secret has begun to unravel, the adventurers have found half the artifacts, and one escaped the strong man's prison. Rosanna uncovers a Lazarus coin. Romance is sprinkled into the story when Mat is killed in the final challenge, leaving a woeful Vivienne.

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THE GROUP WAS IN FAT MAN SLIMS.

"I'm over this, all my friends are dying! Mat was one of our last hopes. Now he's dead because of Joey, thank you so much, and we have a gloomy Vivi!" Colleen ranted.

"If there's someone you should blame, blame Manny!" Joey accused.

"Me?" Manny asked, offended.

"You were the one that went up against him!"

"Because I'm the strongest bitch here!"

"Nobody misses my Mat like me and Ro do. We miss him so much, my heart is throbbing in pain, and I can't do nothing but survive and cry about it later!" Vivienne stood up.

"Listen up, guys! I've come to the conclusion that we're all gonna die anyways, let's might as well enjoy our last moments!" Colleen announced.

"Cheers to that." Nikita and Vivienne nod.

Joey: Honestly, Colleen can go somewhere else. She keeps pointing the finger at me, go ahead Colleen. Go talk to Mortimer.

"I don't wanna be around Joey, because I'm positive he's lying. So why don't you and I just leave together..." Colleen spoke with Mortimer.

"We need to find that coin, we have to do it for my Mat." Vivienne spoke, trying to get back into the right mindset of puzzle solving.

"I'm gonna make it my mission to find it." Joey spoke. "In honor of him."

"Thank you..." quietly murmured Vivienne.

Joey: If I have to prove myself, I will.

"I would honestly, love to do that." Mortimer put a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Let's go upstairs, they're all gonna die anyway." Colleen replied.

"You mean we're gonna die anyway." Mortimer said.

"Colleen, what are you doing?" Vivienne questioned. Why was she acting like that?

"Let her live her own damn fantasy." Nikita replied, fed up with the behavior.

Nikita: Honestly, Mortimer was so last hour ago, so Colleen can have him.

"Alright Colleen enough flirting with Mortimer, get over here! We have work to do." Joey beckoned.

"Something has changed on the map." Calliope announced, showing it to Safiya.

"There will be blood on all of your hands. The price of being a hero in this town of horrors." Safiya read.

"What else is new on here?" Colleen looked.

"Definitely the Dollmaker's shoppe." Joey answered.

"I would say this couldn't get any worse...but I think we've hit rock bottom," muttered Vivienne. Not even the creepy dolls could scare her now.

"Creepy dolls are the worst. They're creepy!" Rosanna frowned.

"It says the Dollmaker's children have changed, they want to spin in circles, but keep fighting over which horse to ride and ripped each other's throat out. The Doll Maker promised they'd get a surprise if they got along. Maybe you can help?" Joey read.

"Clearly, they're gonna be dolls, but what about the horses?" Safiya asked.

"Spinning in circles..." Vivienne thought out again.

"That's obviously the merry-go-round!" Nikita answered, Joey gasped.

"Let's go to the merry-go-round! Good job, Nikita." Joey complimented.

Colleen: I'm pissed at people, but at this point I have to work with them if I want to survive, so I follow them out to the merry go round.

Nikita: We see a box and a big button, and I'm like, do I press it, I don't know guys do we start this thing?

"Can we do it?" Nikita asked.

"Go for it," mindlessly replied Vivienne. Nikita pressed it, and on the merry go round went on.

Vivienne: Nikita presses the button and the carousel started to spin. Thankfully there was no note anywhere where we had to do a whole quest to turn on power.

"It worked!" Joey said, suddenly, the box opened. Safiya grabbed a note inside it.

The night killer's doll is split in two, the body and the head. To begin cleansing the doll, you must find the body and reconnect the head, but be careful, the doll maker's children were corrupted by the artifact," she read off the note.

Safiya: To cleanse this artifact, we're gonna have to reattach this head to the body. Wherever that might be.

"We need to find a body." Vivienne said while looking the doll's head.

"I think the doll maker's shoppe. It's the most obvious place." Nikita guessed.

Colleen: I bolt over there because I wanna figure this out and I wanna go home, and suddenly right in front of the front door I see a little tiny baby doll foot.

"Wait, there's feet." Colleen pointed out.

"Follow the trail, guys!" Vivienne directed.

Manny: We see the next foot, then another little foot.

"There's more over here!" Colleen said.

Rosanna: It's like a trail of bread crumbs! Reminded me when I did a collab with Vivienne and she spilled bread crumbs all over my floor.

"Oh my god there's a key on this one!" Vivienne picked up the key attached to the doll foot.

"Here's a lock." Colleen spoke.

"That was the last foot." Nikita commented.

Nikita: It leads us to this door in the sketchy part of town.

"We have a key." Vivienne muttered as she unlocked the door.

Manny: It feels like I'm watching a horror movie with us and I'm like yelling myself on the screen, don't go in there you dumb bitch! Then we're walking in.

"Oh my god. A warehouse full of freaky doll shit." Vivienne commented.

Rosanna: This warehouse looks like a torture chamber for dolls.

"This is literally out of my nightmares." Nikita comments.

"Wait is that the body to the head, Joey?" Vivienne questioned.

"Yes it is! Guys, the body! It's over here!" Joey called.

Safiya: So Vivienne found a glass case, and it's what looks like a body that corresponds to the head of the doll we need to connect.

"Okay, what's this?" Rosanna asked, holding onto doll feet. "Not that I want to be reading a creepy journal!" Rosanna added, seeing that it came with the doll feet.

"I didn't know what the carnival master had given me. It's no ordinary doll, I discover it's made from the skin of a serial killer." Manny read, making everyone sigh or groan. "Known as the night killer. I couldn't fanthom the things he did to people. I locked the case each act only the sick and twisted mind will be able to open it and will deserve what they find."

"Sick and twisted mind, Joey that's you!" Colleen joked as Joey sarcastically laughed.

"There are these clues in front of every doll, and by the looks of it, you guys, i think we have to torture these dolls." Safiya looked around the room.

Safiya: Each torture device basically tells us how we have to torture each doll to open one of the locks on the glass case in the middle of the room.

Colleen: The first doll I'm sitting by a big bowl of water, and I immediately know I need to drown this doll.

"Come on over here, let's drown this bitch." Colleen called over.

"Who wants to do it?" Nikita asked.

"So the note says the bad ones he sent to the bottom of the lake." Safiya read.

"This is full of coins, there's one on this ankle so we have to put on on the other. This can make him sink." Colleen said.

"I do not like being a serial killer." Rosanna comments as they drown the doll.

"Good thing you'll never be one," commented Vivienne as a lock on the glass case opened.

"One of the locks just opened." Safiya pointed.

"It's working you guys did it! You drowned him! Okay, keep going, let's get it done." Colleen said.

"This one says this one is tongue-tied. Getting her to talk may be a stretch. I have to stretch something, what do I stretch?" Colleen asked, she grabbed small tweezers on the table and picked out pieces of the doll's tongue. "Well the tongue just broke..."

"Oh wait, what is that?" Vivienne went up to Colleen, and picked out a clump of the tongue with tweezers. "Did it work, Mortimer?" Vivienne asked, unknowingly to her that it has.

"I think you got it," encouraged the man.

"Guys I don't understand this one, sawing right down the middle is the key. No touching the doll, but you may still have to get your hands dirty." Safiya told Joey and Vivienne.

"We need to find a saw." Joey told the two.

Safiya: Joey, Viv, and I end up in front of this doll that needs to be sawed in half, but we don't have a saw.

"Guys!" Joey yelled in disgust, holding a jar with a dark liquid inside of it.

"We found a jar!" Vivienne and Safiya announced.

"It says reach inside if you dare." Joey added.

"I bet it's in there! The saw could be inside that thing!" Manny answered.

"Someone hold my jacket." Joey told.

"I got it." Safiya said.

"Ooh! That is some weird texture." Joey exclaimed in disgust, the girls, now worn Rosanna watched.

Joey put his hand out of the jar, "Okay! That looks like ramen noodles...old and crusty."

"That's definitely doll hair." Safiya suggested.

"Even worse," chuckled Vivienne.

"Oh I got the key!" Joey said.

Joey: I dig around the mixture and find a key.

Safiya: Which corresponds to a red tool box that was also on the shelf.

Joey unlocked the box. "That's the saw." Vivienne said as Safiya reached for it.

"Saw down the middle..." Manny read.

"And no touching the doll," finished Colleen and Safiya. Safiya took the saw and got straight to cutting down the middle.

"Did it work?" Colleen asked, seeing Safiya finished cutting the doll in half.

Vivienne turned around to the glass case. "Yup, the last lock is opened!" Vivienne said.

Safiya: The last lock falls off, we have the body.

"The night killer murdered over a hundred people before he was carved up and turned into a doll. His evil acts live on in this child's toy. Granting it the power to bring the inanimate to life." Joey read.

"After reconnecting the head, play the doll in the base of the maiden of madness to complete the cleansing. Rumor has it the doll maker locked the maiden away inside his shop." Also read Colleen.

Safiya: We're gonna have to put this doll inside the maiden of madness—whatever that is.

"No, you guys I have a really bad feeling about this one." Nikita commented as Joey connected the doll. Suddenly, something else opened.

Manny: Boom! Another clue gets unlocked.

"Be careful of the twins." Manny read, confused.

"Twins?" Vivienne questioned.

"And we have a key." Manny took it out the box.

Manny: Then we had a key, I don't know exactly what they key's for...

"Okay let's go back to the doll shop." Joey said. Everyone went out, only to find two small children in a mask holding knives.

Vivienne was completely tired of having to run from things, and the fact she could possibly die every hour.

"Oh...my god...guys come on!" Joey nervously walked.

Vivienne: So the note said BEWARE OF TWINS! Here they are right in front of us, not so scary at all...

"Hi are you guys nice?" Joey questioned.

Manny: All of a sudden,  these bitches break out to full speed racer.

The twins sprinted, Vivienne sprints away as well, running away to be at the Dollmaker's shoppe, meeting up with manny, Nikita, and Colleen.

Manny: I realize the key that I have is actually the key I use to unlock the Dollmaker's shoppe.

The four run inside. "Where is everyone?" Vivienne asked, noticing the whole group wasn't there.

"We're faster than them." Nikita comments.

Manny: We bust open the door, and we're safe for the moment.

Nikita: We barely make it inside this dollmaker hellhole, and I'm like, oh my god why is there so many creepy things in this room!

Manny: So now we know we need to find the maiden of madness chamber.

"Guys! This says I've hidden the maiden of madness behind three tasks, one of fear, one of pain, and one of blood. For the trial of fear, hit the switch and then place your hand inside the chute for ten seconds. Count out ten as a group." Joey read. "Is that a garbage disposal?"

"Yeah, I'll do it." Nikita volunteered.

"You will?" Vivienne asked incredulously.

"Yeah I'll do it, press the switch!" Nikita said, hearing a chipping sound.

"Alright, good luck, girlie." Vivienne muttered, glad she wasn't going to do that.

"It's a challenge of fear, I'm the troublemaker I'm not supposed to be scared," Nikita reassured herself.

Nikita: Maybe I'm not good at puzzles, maybe I'm not good at being the strongest. But I'm probably the most fearless in this group!

"Wanna take your jacket off? I'll hold it for you." Vivienne offered.

"Yeah you're right. Thanks." Nikita thanked, and handed Vivienne her jacket.

"Pull your sleeves up too, we don't want that sleeve getting dirty!" Rosanna spoke as Nikita followed.

Nikita sighed, before placing her hand inside. "You got this, Nikita!" Safiya and Vivienne cheered.

The girl began to count as Nikita screamed in intervals. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!"

Nikita: (pretend screams for a few seconds) Done.

"Are you okay?" Safiya asked, now that the chute was turned off.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Nikita answered.

"You still have your hand?" Colleen asked. Suddenly something else opens.

"Pull the lever if you can handle the pain. It's quite shocking how hard it is to hang on to." Vivienne read.

Vivienne: So we just saw Nikita go through the rest of fear...I volunteer as tribute, bitch!

"I'll do it." Vivienne went to grab the lever. "Geeze!" Vivienne yelped , feeling the electricity go into her.

"Are you okay? Is it zappy?" Nikita asked.

"Are you sure you wanna do it? I've had lots of laser hair treatments!" Rosanna spoke.

"I'm fine, I'll be okay!" Vivienne said.

Vivienne: I grab the metal lever, I feel jolts of electricity go through my arm. Could I hold it long enough to pull it through the other side? Duh.

"Come on Vivi! Push through!" Everyone cheered.

"Oh I did it! I did it!" Vivienne quickly took her hands off as she jumped.

"She's right, it opened! Look! Look! Look!" Colleen ran to the opened box. "The group must divide in two. One will return to the warehouse to claim the blood doll, which can open the maiden's frame. The other group must remain and solve the trail of blood. But hurry the twins are coming. Sooner or later you must lead them to the jail cell, and lock them up, or they'll stab you."

"We don't have enough time, guys, we have to go." Mortimer persisted.

Manny: I'm like, great, we have to go into groups again. It's not like its strength in numbers or anything!

Joey: Somehow I get mixed into the group that has to retrieve the blood doll.

Colleen, Joey, Rosanna, and Safiya are group one, finding the blood doll. "Okay you guys, let's start!"

Vivienne: I'm staying with Nikita and Manny, we haven't worked a lot yet, so I'm excited! Anyways we have to find out what the next blood challenge is.

Vivienne opened a drawer full of doll heads, Manny and Nikita looked inside of it. "Oh wait! It's a book! Once upon a murdery time, maybe we have to read to them?" Nikita guessed as she found the book.

Vivienne: We're looking around, trying to figure out what to do next.

Manny: All of a sudden, a twin walks in.

Nikita: Then I remember we have to entice this twin into prison. What do those bitches like? Dolls.

"Y'all!" Nikita called her group.

"Yes?"

"We gotta come out and lure them with dolls, right now!" Nikita told. Even though Vivienne and Manny were not willingly wanting to do it, they go outside holding the dolls.

"Hi! You see this? You want this doll?" Vivienne said softly, running backwards. "Like it? Come on!"

"Hey this way! Look at the dolls we have!" Manny added in.

Nikita: Come here! Don't kill me! Then I was so shock that this is working, we're luring this demon doll into jail!

Manny: So we realize, okay we have this bedtime story we got from the clue.

"She left her family, to travel the world...and pursue the perfect method. Okay now!" Vivienne quietly read, then whispered to manny to shut the door.

Vivienne: And bam we lock the thing inside!

"Go to bed! Sleep!" Vivienne softly ordered as the trio walked out back to the shop. The doll thing was still staring at the group.

Manny: We're like, okay, we have one little bitch locked up in jail, let's keep it going and let's solve the rest of this clue.

Vivienne: So we run back inside, and grab the doll heads we need to figure out what to do with.

Nikita: It's the last and final piece we need to unlock this maiden of madness!

"Mine are in different directions..." Nikita said, examining the doll.

"Wait so are mine!" Manny realized.

Nikita: We notice the direction they're looking in are very very specific!

"Okay line them up!" Vivienne said.

"Okay so we have one looking right, up, left, down, down, and left." Manny listed. "Wait there's sticks over there! And a saw!"

"Then we have to put the heads on the sticks..." Nikita suggested.

"Wait get the book, the book definitely is a clue." Vivienne said, and grabbed the book to open and see any of the pages.

Vivienne: We notice that all of the eyes of the dolls are going in different directions, we have this odd book.

"Here! She left! Oh my god left! The direction! The clues are in here! Once upon a time a maiden grew up okay up!" Vivienne said as manny placed the doll looking up on the first stick.

Vivienne: So we need to put the doll heads in the order that the story tells us.

"She left her family to travel and purse her dreams—" Manny paused and gasped, "It's bleeding!" He looked at the doll heads.

"Just continue, maybe we're doing it right!" Vivienne insisted, Nikita agreeing with her.

Manny took a deep breath and continued. "Though many dissuaded her, she insisted the path was right."

Nikita: We have to put the corresponding doll on this spear thing.

Manny: We finally get the last doll head on, boom! Trapped door opened.

"What is that! It opened!" Vivienne walked towards the door.

Vivienne: Just as the trap door is opening, our friends come running into the shop!

"Oh my gosh guys, I found the other coin!" Joey held up.

"What the hell is that on your hand?" Nikita asked.

Vivienne: Oh my god. we have two Lazarus coins!

Nikita: All this time Colleen was accusing him, he proved himself to the group!

Colleen: Now I'm eating my words, because when he found that coin maybe he was telling the truth.

"Anyway, we also found this door. We gotta go inside." Vivienne pointed to the trap door.

Manny: We need to go inside there and figure out how to cleanse this artifact.

"Oh dear." Vivienne muttered.

Safiya: The only stuff inside is just a large metal contraption in the middle of the room.

Joey: Yeah, she's really scary looking...

"Seal the blood doll, in the maiden's face to open the chamber, we have to reach up there!" Nikita pointed to the Maiden's face.

"Don't think I can reach that." Rosanna comments.

"I'm the tallest, I can do it." Manny offered.

Nikita: In order to open whatever is inside this maiden of madness, we have to present it with the doll we got.

"Okay, I'll open it." Vivienne said.

"I'll help you." Colleen spoke, the girls open the door, they gasp in shock.

Rosanna: There's spikes, tons of blood, organs on the floor...

Nikita: Honestly looks like something out of a horror movie, or a really bad Saturday night.

"You have opened the maiden of madness, regret will surely follow, to cleanse the night killer's doll it must first be placed in the chamber beneath your feet." Safiya read.

The chamber beneath the feet opened. "R.I.P., bitch." Nikita spat as she shut the door with the night killer's doll in it.

"One of you must be chosen by vote to forfeit your life and enter the maiden, once the door has been sealed and their screams have ceased, the doll will be cleansed." Safiya continued reading. "Choose wisely, their death will weigh on your consciousness."

"Wait so one of us have to suicide?" Colleen asked.

"We have to choose someone right now to go inside there." Joey pointed.

"I'm stepping down, don't wanna get murdered." Manny steps.

"Any volunteers?" Nikita asked stupidly.

"Hell no!" Colleen exclaimed.

Joey: We literally have to choose one of our friends to die right here, right now.

Safiya: No challenge, no chance to fight.

"I remember on the map it said they'll be blood on our hands?" Vivienne spoke.

"This is what they meant." Manny realizes.

"Do we all plead our case right now? What do we do?" Colleen asked.

"I don't know I was not expecting this." Rosanna shook her head.

"Okay guys, this is definitely a plead your case moment." Manny spoke as everyone nodded.

"I stuck my hand down that drain, down that pipe, I was very active as a member and especially in this challenge for bravery." Nikita defended herself.

"Agree, completely," said Manny.

Nikita: I'm not going in here, honey!

"I think everyone here is great, but besides me and Safiya, there's no one else at the moment to solve puzzles like us. I also went through the electrical lever and held on enough through." Vivienne defended herself and Safiya—who internally thanked her.

Safiya: We never just killed one of our friends before. I don't know what to do.

"I have a lot of heart, I have your back, 100%." Rosanna pleaded.

Rosanna: At this point, I love everyone in the room, it's a no win situation.

"I'm one of the strongest competitors here, I feel we need strength for something, because who knows?" Manny asks.

Manny: Please don't let it be me...

"I found this coin, we know this coin is going to give us an advantage someway. I feel like I brought an advancement to us." Joey pleaded, holding the Lazarus coin.

Joey: I proved myself, thank you...!

Next up was Colleen's plead. "One of the biggest things I feel I've done so far, even though it might've been a problematic was have a gut feeling of Joey, and because of that, we found out something important, and you have proved yourself and I'm sorry that I came for you."

Colleen: I'm super confused because I was so sure Joey was doing something terrible to us, but now he's trying to help.

"But we wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for that. I really think you need me to the end." Colleen finished.

Colleen: Any riff that I caused in this group is because I'm angry my friends are dying!

"So basically all we said is that we all need to be here." Safiya spoke.

Joey: This really isn't that difficult for me, I know what I have to do, and it's just right in front of me and I'm just gonna do it.

"I'm gonna be upfront and honest, I'm voting for you." Joey said to Colleen.

"Joey I said I'm sorry for accusing you earlier but you were lying to us." Colleen replied.

"But that was my secret to tell. You forced me into that situation."

"But you forced all of us into a town where everyone is dying."

"I understand—"

"Joey, do not vote for me, please." Colleen tried to beg, but knowing there was little to no avail.

"I think we're running out of time, let's start the voting."

Nikita: Mortimer tells us to line up to vote, and anyone did contribute in some way, this is tough, but at the same time we need to come to one conclusion here.

"Come." Calliope said to Colleen, who was the first to vote.

Colleen: I'm voting for Vivienne. I mean, her boyfriend is dead already might as well join him.

Joey: At this point Colleen is trying to cause drama between me and everyone else, we don't need that.

"I don't wanna be shady about this, I'm sorry, Colleen." Joey said, holding her card up.

Joey: I just want to prove to everyone that I have all my cards on the table.

Colleen: I don't understand how can you look at a person in the face and say, I'm gonna put you in this terrifying spike box and murder you.

Manny: I'm gonna have to vote Colleen in, I don't know if I can trust her fully. She switched up so fast with Joey, I'm wondering, could she do that to me?

Nikita: I think Colleen should go into the maiden of madness, she is a maiden and she's a little mad.

After voting, calliope shuffles the cards. "I will now shuffle, and draw one."

Colleen: I cannot believe that my friends are trying to kill me. I've never been more scared in my whole life than I am right now.

Calliope holds up a card, "The Disco Dancer."

"Please no, please don't do this. Please!" Colleen begged.

"Grab her." Nikita said.

Vivienne couldn't handle watching or trying to push her in the box. "Colleen, you have to!" She said, staying closer with Mortimer than trying to push Colleen into the box.

"Please don't do this please don't! Stop! Please you guys please stop! Please don't do this to me please!" She begged, the doors shut on her, her terrified screams could be that last sound her friends heard out of her.

Vivienne shut her eyes and covered her ears tightly. She heard them eventually fade, and took a deep sigh. "Okay, there's no time in shedding tears anymore, we have to all be strong."

"Yeah, if we don't cleanse all these artifacts by morning, then we did this all for nothing." Nikita added.

Nikita: I'm just as sad as everyone else that Colleen is gone but at the same time, hello people! We gotta go!

"We have the two coins. We have a box to open." Vivienne said, trying to feel hope, and walked out the room.

Manny: The artifact is cleansed, we gotta get going.

"Oh god what happened to it?" Manny asked, the it he was referring to being the twin dolls.

"Once we cleansed the artifact, they're goners." Vivienne reminded.

"Oh yeah you're right!" Manny grinned.

Now everyone was in the lounge, Joey put the doll on the artifact shelf. "There's also this." Joey held up the Lazarus coin.

Rosanna: Good news is, we had the second coin for the Lazarus box. So I pull out mine.

Joey: I'm just hoping that this coin can offer some sort of hope for us, because the moral in the group is pretty low.

"This better be worth it." Nikita spoke.

"One, two, three." Joey and Rosanna counted and attached the coins to the top of the box, the box opened.

Joey got something out the box. "It's a harp," he said, holding the instrument.

"The Harp of Lazarus only has one last song to play before its magic is gone. Its music has the power to bring one of your friends back from the dead. Name them and strung the harp three times." Rosanna read the note. Vivienne, and the rest of the group, was taken back in shock.

"Oh my gosh, I just got the chills." Manny covered his lips with his hand.

Nikita: Excuse me? We're gonna bring someone back?

Vivienne: This changes everything.

"The two who found the coins will make the final choice on who returns." Rosanna said.

"We have to decide who comes back." Joey spoke, to Rosanna.

"Please choose wisely." Nikita advised.

"Yes, please do," nodded Vivienne—already having her opinion in mind.

Manny: Who in the hell are they gonna pick? It better be someone good.

As the rest of the group sat down by the couches, Joey was speaking with Rosanna. "I think there's definitely one person in my mind that I wanna bring back for sure."

"There's one in my mind, too." Rosanna said.

Rosanna: There's a lot of people to choose, but I'm looking at Joey hoping our telepathy works with the same idea.

Joey thought of the person, and strung the harp, while looking at a specific girl fidgeting with a badge.

Joey: All I'm gonna say is, one person will be delighted.