Play Date **JUST UPDATED**

Show's Over: Shadow to Light

Adara paced in the dimly lit cluttered room. It looked like a party long over and left abandoned. Assorted props, furniture and boxes sat everywhere. She didn't expect Candy Pop to help. He was the type of fairy who let people figure things out for themselves, most of the time. Her situation looked hopeless. She was no good at riddles or even interpreting clues unless they pointed to something obvious. Where was she supposed to start here? Nothing was jumping out at her.

Then she stopped when she saw one of the walls. It was black with red letters. Paint or blood, she didn't want to know. There were some tiny handprints here and there. She felt a shiver. It was a letter that read: "Dear John, The time has come to rmove our path to the Secret look out point and stop using th phrase at the tlephone. 2839 on the kypad is a Code to find the hotel stay which Is good for Six nights and Seven days. each night will be full of Three hours of dancing. sweet treats will fill th ball room. They say a prince will be there with four guards, so watch out! face your fears and unlock th secrt!"

The bold letters were the most noticeable parts. Reading it again, she saw some words were missing letters, so THAT had to mean something too. The number had to be a code.

"Need a little help there, missy?"

The man's voice made Adara jump out of her skin. She crashed with a yelp into a set of drawers with a mirror and broke two of the lights with the impact of her flying body. Bracing against the furniture, she saw it was Rainbow Jack. He chuckled somewhat guiltily and extended his arms toward her. "Let me help you up, Love."

"How did you get past your evil twin?" she said when she finally caught her breath.

     "I put him in a time out."

Adara was agast. "How?"

Jack smiled almost as wickedly as his other half. "Magic!"

Adara smirked. "I'm gonna need magic to get out of here."

RJ walked over to the wall Adara had just stood at. "Ah, magic won't be necessary! All you need, my dear, is to use your wits." She rolled her eyes.

"I've been going cross eyed trying to decipher this clue here." she pointed to the wall. "I know there's something I'm supposed to see, but I can't figure it out."

     "Time for a lesson in the puzzle profession." RJ smiled. "Everything he knows, I know. We made everything in this room."

"So what am I supposed to be looking at?"

     "Start with the words in black."

Adara moved closer to the wall and noticed there were five. They said "Look at the watch face. Ok."

"Now, notice the words that have missing letters? Read them and tell me what they say."

This took longer. "Remove the telephone keypad, find the secret."

"Now, the capital letters."

This took her a little longer. "The secret code is 6734. I knew the number was a code, but this makes it even more obvious. Anything else?"

"One more. Look at the first words on the left side."

     "Goodnight sweet prince. But that dosen't make any sense."

"First things first. Let's start with the phone over there." RJ pointed to an old crusty black rotary phone that looked like it had been dug out of a junk pile. Adara remembered the 6734 code and dialed it in. RJ told her to pick it up. Though it wasn't connected to a power source, a song started playing that quickly led to the chorus that said 'goodnight sweet prince'.  When it finished, the front panel popped off of the phone to reveal it concealed a tiny watch key. Laughing, RJ hugged her. "You found it! Good girl!"

Adara giggled and hugged him back. "I can always be bad later." she winked. His eyes narrowed and he smiled with a purr, "Mmm, I'll have to spank you then."

"I don't know if I wanna escape this room." Adara joked while adjusting her dress. "Where were we?" She picked up the small key and remembered part of the prior message had said to look at the watch face. "Duh, obviously!" The lightbulb went on and she looked for the opening to put the key in. The key was the winder. But instead of moving the hands of the watch, it projected glowing green morse code lines on the wall. Then Adara noticed that the watch had all the letters of the alphabet instead of numbers. She groaned. She didn't understand morse code at all.

"How much of a sugar high were you on when you invented this?" she half teased.

     RJ smirked. "Enough to put Candyland out of business." Adara smacked his ass. "Ooh! Careful, you might wake up Jack in the Box Junior!"

"Pervert."

Adara looked at the neon green lines again. "Ok, I wanna get outta here how about you? What am I looking for here?"

"It isn't numbers." Jack hinted. Adara peered harder at the shapes, then a lightbulb went on. "Oh, I see it! They're LETTERS! It says 'the way out is up.'" She looked up, noticing a tower reached by a ladder. The tower was a replica of the one LJ was stuck in though she didn't know it. RJ jumped up like he was flying.

     "Come on, slow poke!" he teased, watching Adara scramble up the rungs. She showed slight annoyance at his showing off, but soon caught up.

It was then that he vanished. Her breath caught in her throat and she panicked. "Jack? Where'd you go?" She reached the top and noticed she was outside overlooking the carnival rides. She had to slide her way down off the roof. Maybe it was all a dream and she had just wandered into this place randomly.  There was no sign of either Jacks. Had she gone through all this for nothing?

"THERE you are, Missy!" a familar smartass voice sounded from behind her, making her jump. A pair of hands covered her eyes. "Guess who?"

     "A clown with too much time on his hands." she answered sarcastically. Her eyes were uncovered and RJ stood there, yet he seemed...different. She jumped away from him. "Oh shit, not again!" He put up his hands defensively and waved them.

"No, no no, it's me!" RJ reassured her. "It's both of us united as one. It's too complicated to explain. I will say this much. It's like Peter Pan attaching his shadow securely so it can't run away again."

     "Wow, I thought I'd heard everything." Adara said. "Nothing suprises me anymore." RJ smiled.

"I bet this will. How would you like to live here with me? And this time, it's all real. No more creepy crawlies jumping onto your back out of murky pools." He tickled her back with his long fingers, making her jump and laugh.

     "I could never control my sweet tooth." she joked. They walked off into the neon sunset, arms around each other.

                                                                      THE END