Overnight - Part 2 (Patreon)

She celebrated, perhaps, a bit too hard. Given the long road she'd travelled to get to this point, it seemed fair, yet she did wind up downing a few more drinks than she was used to. That was probably why she felt the need to rub her victory in the faces of anyone she saw at the party who had also entered the contest, most of whom claimed they didn't really care about it.

It was definitely why, on the way back to campus, when she noticed the daycare, she asked her friends, "Do you dare me to break into there?"

For their part, her friends didn't exactly encourage it, despite being tipsy themselves... But Adrianna found the idea so funny, she talked herself into it. "I'm an award-winning baby," she reminded them, for likely the hundredth time that night. "I ought to fit right into a daycare!"

And, to her surprise, 'breaking in' was much easier than she ever would have thought. With her friends telling her it might not be such a great idea, she marched up to the front door, tested it... And it swung wide open. It had looked shut, but it was open just enough that the lock hadn't engaged. "See?" she turned around to face them, grinning goofily, "I'm meant to be here! They were waiting for me!"

Of course, that late at night, nobody was actually there, and, in the excitement of Halloween, somebody had probably just made a mistake on their way out, but, to her, it seemed like a sign, an invitation. "Are you guys coming?" she asked.

"Come on, Adrianna, let's just get you home," one of them said, shaking their head.

"Fine!" Adrianna shrugged and stepped inside, pulling the door shut. She'd intended it as a joke, planning to open it a moment later, expecting to see her friends out there, waiting for her, and maybe a little more willing to join her on her adventure, but when she tried to turn the doorknob, it refused to move.

She frowned, staring down at it, searching for a lock, something to allow her to get back out, finding only a panel with a red light, and a Post-It note spelling out a code taped above it. It must be some sort of electronic lock, she surmised... There was no place to put the code in, so there was probably an app she could download to interface with it... If only she'd had a place to carry her phone in the costume.

She scooted to the window beside the door, pulling open the curtains, although, as she'd seen from the outside, and already forgotten about in her haze, there were shutters on the windows as well, and, while whoever had locked up had neglected to shut the door completely, they had remembered those. She tried slamming on the door, hoping her friends would hear and realize this wasn't a joke, and come to the door so she could get them to use one of their phones to unlock the door.

The door was pretty thick, though, and she couldn't hear anything from the other side herself. Even if her friends heard her banging on it, would she be able to explain the situation, and relay the code to them, through it? Maybe they'd think to open the shutters so she could show it to them... Or maybe they were tired of her shenanigans, and were already headed back to the college, leaving her there, alone.