CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE !

[ real life, social media ]

— ❝ HORROR BIRDWATCHING ESCAPE ROOM ❞ 💌

ʳᵉᵃˡ ˡⁱᶠᵉ !

when nick walked into the living room earlier this morning and discovered that he and matt had completely forgotten to buy the supplies they needed to film wednesday's video, chris was actually scared for his life. he usually just laughs when nick gets mad about dumb shit but when it comes to youtube, he gets really serious about things. chris knows he should probably start taking it more seriously if they want to hit a million subscribers before they graduate, and eventually do youtube as their full-time career. he and matt are just tragically lazy.

anyway, the fact that they had no supplies for the planned video idea has resulted in the entire friend group being dragged to an escape room, just as astoria had joked about in the group chat a few days ago.

"what the fuck is this supposed to be?" luna asks, looking around. astoria nods in agreement, honestly confused at what this escape room's theme is. the walls are painted to make it seem like they're outside in a giant field with tall grass, and the interior is full of fake trees, plants, and finally a large brown shed.

"it's a horror birdwatching escape room," chris says proudly, meanwhile matt grins.

"WHAT?" nick yells. "i thought we were doing the insane asylum one?"

"yeah, we were gonna, but this one seemed more fun," matt answers with a shrug.

"not sure why though," chris adds sarcastically with a grin, causing nick to scowl at both of his brothers.

"this just got a whole lot funnier," skye sighs happily, and nick elbows him in the ribs.

"if any bird starts flying at me i'm using you as a human shield, skye," he says, and the boy just shrugs with a smile.

astoria has been filming the entire interaction on chris' vlogging camera. each of the triplets brought one, so they can take turns filming different moments of them trying to solve the escape room. already, everyone looks confused because of course, matt and chris didn't pick an escape room with a regular theme like normal people, and none of them know anything about birdwatching.

"where do we start?" chris asks, furrowing his eyebrows with confusion. everyone just kind of murmurs and shrugs in response, also confused.

"i guess split into groups and look for clues?" kali replies. "god, that sounds so stupid."

"stupid?" skye counters. "i feel like sherlock holmes." kali just laughs, shaking her head.

the group follow kali's advice and end up splitting into groups: kali and matt, luna, skye and nick, and then astoria and chris. the final pair are sitting together on the ground in a pile of fake leaves, rummaging around for any sort of clues.

"what are we even supposed to be looking for?" astoria questions, running her hands through the pile of leaves but finding but just more leaves.

"i'm honestly not sure," chris replies. "maybe i should've listened to the instruction message the worker gave me before we came in here."

"there was an instruction message?" astoria sighs, shaking her head in dismay. looking around, she can tell that not a single one of them has made any sort of progress yet. for all she knows, they might be trapped in here all day.

"yeah, but the worker had a really bad lisp, so i couldn't understand a word she was saying anyway," he answers with a shrug. in response astoria raises her eyebrows at him.

"you literally had a lisp until you were like, nine," she reminds him, and chris' jaw drops open in what looks like both offense and surprise.

"no i didn't," he says defensively. "i grew out of it when i was five."

"sure, buddy," astoria grins.

"buddy?" he repeats. "i'm hurt, rory."

astoria sticks her tongue out at him, distracting chris for a moment while she subtly grabs a handful of leaves in each hand. she pretends like she's about to say something in response to his words, but instead she just raises her hands and throws both pile of leaves at his face.

he gasps slightly, clearly a little taken aback by motion. chris tries his best to brush them off of him, but a few linger, stuck in his hair.

"can you help me get them out of my hair?" he sighs, and astoria just laughs. "c'mon, you did this."

"okay, fine," astoria answers, leaning forward so that she can reach his hair. she realizes a millisecond too late that she's just walked right into his trap, and out of nowhere he shoves a huge pile of leaves right into her face. astoria jerks back immediately, pushing them off of her.

chris' laughter echoes around the room, catching the attention of their friends. kali turns and literally sighs when she sees what's going on, meanwhile skye and luna just laugh. matt doesn't even bother looking, since he seems to be deep into solving some sort of puzzle box, and nick is too stressed by the possible threat of a bird jumping out at him to see the funny side of the situation.

"shut the fuck up, chris!" he shouts. "your loud, mickey mouse ass laugh is gonna summon the birds!"

"mickey mouse ass laugh?" luna repeats, half mockingly and half confused by the comparison. chris just furrows his eyebrows.

"your yelling is louder than my laughing, nick," he deadpans. "the birds are gonna come straight for you," he adds, a smirk taking over his lips.

"don't fucking say that!" nick exclaims, moving closer to skye for comfort.

"use my as a human shield and you're dead, nick," the boy says, shifting away.

"what are boyfriends even for, then?" nick questions, raising an eyebrow.

"i've been trying to figure that one out as well, don't worry," astoria adds, earning her a glare from chris. he shuffles back over to her, so that they're sitting side by side once again. they look at one another briefly, astoria breaking eye contact as her gaze wanders up to his hair, where a leaf is still stuck.

"hold still," she whispers, leaning forward to pick it out from between the strands of his chestnut brown hair. chris looks up at her and smiles, placing his hands on her hips to steady her while she readjusts his hair back to the right place. astoria feels her cheeks heat up at his touch.

once she's done fixing his hair, she shuffles away and sits back down next to him. chris' grip falls from her hips, but he does snake an arm around her waist and pull her closer to him so that their legs are touching.

"no need to sit so far away," he says quietly, and she rolls her eyes. turning to look at him, astoria finds him sitting there, looking at her with a huge smile on his face.

"what are you smiling at?" she says.

"my girlfriend, obviously," chris says with a roll of his eyes, like she's just asked the dumbest question ever. astoria can't help but laugh at his serious expression.

"cute," she answers, before gazing around the escape room. "now, are you done? 'cause i feel kind of bad for leaving the others to do all the work."

"i'm sure they'll survive," he shrugs, grinning.

astoria goes to say something else, but she is cut off by all of the lights suddenly switching off, leaving the group in pitch black darkness.

"what the fuck?" she hears skye shout from afar. astoria squints her eyes in an attempt to try and see anything, but it's no use. knowing there's nothing she can do except wait for the lights to turn back on, she blindly reaches for chris' hand and interlocks his fingers with her own.

"you okay?" he asks her.

"yeah, just a little weirded out," she replies. "is this place broken or is it a part of the act?"

"i'm praying a bird comes flying out and scares the shit out of nick," chris says quietly, and astoria can practically hear the grin in his voice and chuckles.

right afterwards, bird sounds echo through the room, just like chris predicted. a screech is heard from the other side which astoria automatically assumes is nick, followed by more bird calls and flapping noises. she swears she feels a breeze or draft also wafting around the room now, sending a chill down her spine.

"what the actual fuck?" kali says. "i was in the middle of trying to solve a riddle and now i can't see shit."

"same here," matt says. "i was like, five seconds away from opening this stupid box." his voice sounds evidently frustrated.

"why is nobody talking about the fact that we can all hear birds in this fucking room?" nick speaks, sounding absolutely terrified.

"there's no way they can get real birds in here, nick," luna assures him. "you're fine."

a deafeningly loud screech is to be heard then, and it takes astoria longer than she's willing to admit to realize that it's the sound of a bird and not nick screaming. despite herself, she clutches chris' hand just that tiniest bit tighter, praying she doesn't get attacked by a crow or something.

a moment later, the lights flicker back on and astoria doesn't even manage to register the changes to the room around her before nick screams, jumping backwards and hiding behind skye. while the room was just filled with trees, grass, and a birdwatching hut before, it's now got hundreds of stuffed birds around the room. at least, astoria thinks they're stuffed.

"okay, what the fuck?" chris says as he takes in the sight.

"get it away!" nick yells into skye's ear, causing the boy to wince and move away. "there is a bird right in front of us!"

"i can see that," skye deadpans. "but it's literally fake, so stop yelli—"

he's cut off by the bird beginning to move. skye flinches, and by now nick is literally ducking behind him.

astoria notices a few of the other birds moving and tries her best to ignore how uncomfortable it makes her, instead focusing on looking around for clues. on the door, she can see three different holes, so she assumes that there's three different keys to be found. matt's currently in the process of getting one of them, kali and luna are working to get the other, which leaves her and chris to find the final one.

"i don't think we're going to find anything here," she says to chris, who nods in agreement.

"let's check the hut," he replies, gesturing over to it. "i was enjoying seeing nick all scared for a while, but if he screams one more time i think i'm gonna go deaf."

"imagine how skye feels," astoria laughs, looking over at him. his face appears neutral, but she can tell he's at least a little pissed off.

astoria and chris walk over to the birdwatching hut, climbing up the few steps to get inside. she gazes around and is disappointed to find it practically empty, excluding a broken lawn chair, a telescope, and a map.

chris reaches for the map, opening it and looking at it for a second before setting it back down.

"i can't read maps," he admits sheepishly. "so you're gonna have to figure that one out."

astoria chuckles, picking up the map and looking at it. she's met with a map of boston, and furrows her eyebrows at how this is supposed to be at all relevant. she's not great at reading maps either, and her lack of patience means that she's sick of this already.

"pretty sure it's useless," she says with a shrug, before walking over to chris. he's preoccupied with the telescope, looking through the lens as he tries to find something.

"i can't see anything," he says. "it's all black."

astoria frowns, confused, until she spots a coin slot for the telescope.

"hey, you got any money?" she asks, tapping chris on the shoulder. he gives her a weird look.

"you know i love you, rory, but i don't think right now is the best time to be leeching off of me," he tells her. "i'll buy you twizzlers once we get out of here, promise."

"no, bozo," she laughs, shaking her head. she then points to the coin slot. "we need to put money in the telescope for it to work."

"oh," chris says, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. he dumps a few coins into his palm and starts slotting them into the telescope.

"i'll still take those twizzlers, by the way," astoria adds.

"of course you will," chris sighs.

"love you, chris!" she grins. he smiles, about to say something when he is cut off by a strange sound coming from the telescope. the pair look at each other and grimace, praying that they haven't literally broken it.

"um..." astoria starts, looking at the telescope. "i'm not sure that was meant to happen."

"that's a fantastic observation, rory," chris replies with a grin, and she glares at him.

"fuck you," she says but not seriously, brushing past him to get a better look. right as she does so, a slot suddenly opens, revealing a key inside the telescope.

"oh!" chris exclaims as he sees it. "looks like you were right after all, rory."

"you didn't need to sound so surprised," she answers.

"yeah, alright nerd."

they exit the birdwatching house only to find the other five looking up at them.

"took you long enough!" luna says, holding up one of the keys. astoria sees matt holding the other. she clambers down the ladder and chris follows, joining the group as they all make their way over to the door.

"i am never coming to an escape room ever again," nick says, clutching skye's forearm with fear as he looks around at all of the birds watching him. "i'm also never listening to rory for a video idea ever again."

"this is not my fault," she replies. "your idiot brothers are the ones who chose this particular one."

"no regrets," chris smiles, earning him a scowl from nick.

all of the keys are handed to matt, who slots them all in before opening the door. he smiles as they're all met with a wave of cold air from the lobby. nick drops skye's arm, shoving past the group to run out of the room.

"i've never seen him run so fast,"matt jokes.

they all slowly make their way out of the escape room, and astoria knits her eyebrows with confusion when she spots nick at the reception, speaking to one of the workers. she walks over to find out what's going on, and can't say she's surprised by what she hears:

"so, you're telling me those weren't real birds in there?"

"no," the worker answers with a sigh. "they're animatronics."

nick shivers, quietly thanking the worker and stepping away from the desk. astoria wraps an arm around his shoulder, leading him back to the rest of the group.

"i'm traumatized, rory," he tells her. she just laughs.

"i know."

everyone is just kind of standing around outside the escape room center, wondering what they should all do next.

"i'm not gonna lie, i'm hungry as fuck," skye says, and astoria nods in agreement.

"same," she says. "should we go eat?"

"sounds good," matt nods.

"we're eating inside though," nick orders. "i'm not dealing with any more nature today."

"nick, the birds weren't even rea—"

"i don't want to hear it, skye."

ⁱⁿˢᵗᵃᵍʳᵃᵐ !

sturniolo.triplets

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kaliaaortizz

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rorysant

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liked by dante.nevarro, maevethatch, christophersturniolo and 150,281 others

sturniolo.triplets stay tuned to watch nick almost die (not clickbait)

tagged ; matthew.sturniolo christophersturniolo nicolassturniolo kaliaaortizz sky3.od1n lunaaarison rorysant

user chris defo captioned this

user the girls are so pretty i love them

lunaaarison I'M SO FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF CHRIS DOING ME DIRTY I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD
↳ christophersturniolo love you too lulu!

user feeling robbed of christoria content rn
↳ user and sick content
↳ user and kaluna content
↳ nicolassturniolo sorry we actually aren't allowed to hang out with our bfs/gfs bc matt starts to tear up
↳ matthew.sturniolo WHAT?

dante.nevarro successfully managed to tell the triplets apart in the 5th slide i am god
↳ christophersturniolo this is concerning
↳ dante.nevarro @rorysant control him
↳ user BYEEEEEEEEE

aelinslegend pretend matt doesn't have tattoos in all these pics lol

rorysant escape room was my idea where's the credit
↳ nicolassturniolo die this was a last resort video 

user i adore this friendship group

maevethatch what is the escape room supposed to be...?
↳ matthew.sturniolo horror birdwatching
↳ maevethatch what?
↳ kaliaaortizz no he's actually serious i'm afraid
↳ nicolassturniolo almost lost my life today maeve.
↳ maevethatch omg nick... 😭😔💔

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sorry i kinda forgot abt this fic (i didn't i just didn't wanna write this chap)

but this fic is almost over so i'll be trying to update as much as possible!!!!!

━ ava ᥫ᭡