My other half (PERCABETH)

Chapter 17: Escape room- Part 2

Yes, I'm alive!!!!!!!!!!!

Sooo... I just finished my story 'A Royal Affair' on Instagram. So I'll be updating frequently once again. To all my previous readers who have waited for two months and are still reading this, You are amazing. Here's a cookie for you 🍪. To all my new readers, I hope you have enjoyed this story!

Inside the hole, Percy could make out the outline of a locked door. It was extremely small, like the lockers that they used in school. After a lot of fiddling he managed to unlock the door using the key in his pocket and  found a small backpack. Not wanting to spend anymore time in the dark, he grabbed the bag without checking its contents and came out. 

By the time he came out, he was covered with some kind of black powder. The moment Annabeth saw him, she burst out laughing. Percy grinned sheepishly while trying to brush off the powder and held out the bag towards Annabeth. Annabeth immediately pounced on the bag forgetting about him. He might be her boyfriend, but right now all she was concerned about was winning this game.

Inside the backpack, there was a flashlight and a book. 

Percy immediately grumbled, "The flashlight would have been useful before climbed into that hole."

Annabeth chuckled and opened the book. She flipped the pages but they were blank. However on close examining she found that in every 25 pages there was a small number scribbled on the top of the page. And on the 50th page, that is at the exact half of the book, there was a picture of a QR code. Annabeth glared at the book. How was she supposed to use the QR code? They were required to keep all their belongings including their phones outside the room.

Annabeth glanced at the clock and her eyes widened. Half an hour was already up. They had another 30 minutes left only. Hurrying she memorized the 4 numbers and went to work on the number locks. Meanwhile Percy busied himself by playing darts on the dart board.

Inside the  drawer, Annabeth found a phone. She searched for the scanner and found it on the second screen along with another app. Scanning the QR code, she got a code of 6 characters. Confused, she looked around the room. There were no more places where a code should be entered except the vault, but the vault had a number pad only. Sighing with frustration, she sat on the chair beside the table and that was when she noticed that Percy had been playing with the darts.

"Percy!!! You dumbass!"

Percy glanced at her, confused at her sudden outburst.

"Those could have been clues! You shouldn't touch anything that might be a potential clue." Annabeth groaned with her hands in her head.

Percy walked up to her, made her stand up and gave her a huge hug. "You know, I brought you here to have fun and not stress about stuff. You need to calm down." Percy murmured into her ear.

"What I NEED is to win the game" Annabeth grumbled back, clearly pissed. Percy just chuckled and then started tickling her. Annabeth squealed and swatted away his hands, her mood brightening. 

"You know, Annabeth we could stay like this and forget about the game." Annabeth immediately sobered up. 

"No way. I need to win this game"

She went to the door and pressed the red button. Two minutes later, someone came to help them. The moment he heard their problem he cracked a smile and rearranged the darts. (A/N this actually happened to me. I was the Annabeth and two of my other dumbass friends were Percy.) 

She still hadn't figured out where to put the code. Annabeth was about to give up. But then she opened the other app that was beside the scanner. It was a notepad and it required a password. Excited, she put the password that she found from the scanner and the notepad opened. Inside there was a code pattern with each multiple representing a different single-digit number. Percy who was seeing this from behind her shoulder and immediately connected it with the dart board. The points in the  dart board were also multiples of 10. Seeing the 4 darts they noted the 4 numbers corresponding to the code. However, what they couldn't figure out was the order of the numbers.

Annabeth glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes left. Giving up on trying to find a clue to the order, she decided to figure it out using the hit and trial method. She walked up to the vault and entered the password. It was wrong. She tried switching up the numbers. Five minutes later, she finally got the correct order. 

Hurriedly she peered into the vault and saw that it was a huge room and there were red lasers all across the room. Not literal lasers of course, but she had a feeling that if she touched them, the game would come to an end. On the other side of the lasers, far away there were stacks of money. Annabeth knew that the game would come to and end the moment all the money was out of the vault. But there was so much of money and no container to carry them. They would have to make multiple trips.

Slowly, the two of them made their way through the lasers, careful not to touch them. Annabeth had the bag to carry more stacks.By the time they were done with two trips, there were five minutes left and they had finished taking out only three-fourth of the total money. Annabeth sped up acting like a machine, only breathing whenever necessary, only stopping when necessary.

"Speed up Percy we are so close!"

"Calm down Annabeth. you are taking this way too seriously." 

2 minutes left.

"Faster Percy!"

1 minute left.

"Do you know the meaning of faster? It means more fast!!!!!"

When the buzzer finally went there was only a few more stacks left. 2 more minutes and they would have finished. They both collapsed on the floor, tired.

"You know Annabeth, not even Coach Hedge can make me swim this fast."

"But we didn't win" Annabeth pouted.

"It's not always about the destination, it's about the journey"

"Since when did you become a preacher, huh?" Annabeth exclaimed as she poked Percy's side. Percy yelped and glared at her playfully, with a glint in his eyes.

"Oh, its on!" With that Percy started tickling her. 

Few minutes later, a very astounded owner of the escape room entered the room. He couldn't understand why the two of them weren't coming out, after all the game had ended five minutes ago.

When he did enter the room, he found two teenagers on the floor, laughing without a care in the world.

'Soulmates' he thought shaking his head, smiling.

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-A