Out of everything that was fucked up with the place that they’d found themselves in, if there was one blessing to be found in this place at all…
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One thing, just one…
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It was the sun roofs that could be found sprinkled about the entire hotel, there weren’t many of them to be found, in fact it almost seemed like they were in entirely different places where they hadn’t been before.
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Opening and closing like the wide maw of a mouth that would yawn at different times of the day, it was interesting to see them close in upon themselves. Shrinking until they got smaller and smaller, until it disappeared like a raindrop on the windshield of a car. There was no telling where it would show up after that, or if it would just show up in the same exact place, only different somehow. They had chased one of them once, the very first time they had seen one of the windows getting smaller and smaller. The gapes of them had been closing all along the walls, sinking the entire hall into darkness. Moment by moment, until not even the faintest bit of light, outside of the harsh and fake sterile lights of the hotel remained.
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It with its own kind of darkness.
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They had continued rushing along the halls, completely looking for the next one, and the next, and the next.
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The housekeepers had glared at them, with their pupil-less red rimmed eyes. They fully believed that had the housekeepers not been stuck in their daily tasks, and their writhing bundles they would have grabbed them and shoved them right alongside those steaming hot bundles that would have scorched their skin with blisters.
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Lucky them.
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It had exhausted them though, running how they had.
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The hunger was already tearing at the inside of their stomach, demanding to be satiated. And the burst of adrenaline had left their legs a quivering mess, begging for some kind of rest or even just fuel to keep going. There was nothing to be had in this kind of place, no sleep and no food that would nourish them back to health. It felt like a damnation, like a slow and torturous death that would leave nothing but agony in its wake, there was no way that they weren’t going to die here.
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Alone, lost, and so very hungry.
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But in the very least they still had lots to time before then, lots of time to explore this weird hotel and everything that it held, and lots of time to see the monsters that laid in the very center.
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As it turned out, a lot of the windows were like the ones that they had seen before, slowly vanishing until they reappeared, they were never the same as the other.
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One being off or just being an entirely different shape, and another just showing something utterly impossible to the human eyes.
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Honestly, they weren’t even certain if the cycles of day and night even existed here, that in itself felt just as impossible as the windows. Which even that in itself they knew not to be too certain of something as simple as that, time in itself felt laughable here. This place just made them feel like that, like it would twist even the smallest of things just to watch even the most scientifically assured people crumble up and wither away. Like an itch that would leave you scratching your skin off, until all you had left was bone. This place felt like it would get satisfaction out of making that possible for every single person who walked those halls, if a building could even be alive at this point.
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Truthfully, it wasn’t something that they’d put out of the realm of possibility.
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That being said...
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The windows were there, giving just the slightest glimpse of the outside world to them. Giving them something other than the living breathing walls, that groaned with the breath of something that once was alive and moving. Something other than the unmoving receptionists at the desk, and something else other than the housekeepers that took things away in the blink of an eye into the hot sweltering room never to be seen again. Something other than… the other things that they had seen here. This was the one thing that seemingly wasn’t touched by anything that even remotely looked human, it was just a simple pane of glass with the stark whiteness of the building to hold it in place.
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As if that had ever stopped the other windows from moving however they pleased.
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There was always one right over the receptionist’s desk, that one alone had never moved. Not even an inch, as if that was just another way to taunt them with the one nice thing that was here. But… regardless of how badly the receptionists had creeped them out, and how badly they never wanted to smell the scent that came with the opening of those doors that would not let them pass no matter how long they stood in front of them…
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It was where they had found themselves more often than not, whether it was hours, days, or just minutes that passed. It was like a trickle of sunlight whilst trying to weather a storm.
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Or maybe it was just the eye of said storm, and it was more dangerous than anything to be here.
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With the unreadable keycard burning in their pocket, and no way to know just where to go this was where they had found themselves regardless of the perceived danger.
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Just sitting on the floor, their back pressed against the desk, just out of the receptionist’s line of sight. But even they knew that was only a mere lie they told themselves. Both of the receptionists knew that they were there, they could… feel it. They were absolutely sure of it, they had no way to prove it, at least not without peeping up to look at the two figures that laid behind the desk. But they were sure, the two of them were as aware of them as they were of them.
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It felt like the scolding gaze of a disappointed teacher during detention, not looking at them… but also looking at the same time. It was like being watched from the corner of someone’s eye, not entirely given the full attention of someone, but also being stuck knowing that no matter how out of sight they were… there were always eyes on them at all times.
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Like the plastic eyes of a mannequin, pointing in one location at a time and everywhere all at once.
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Nothing was ever said of course.
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Not between the two receptionists who apparently worked with one another, let alone towards their little hiding spot. They had managed to sit there for long enough to catch a glimpse of the other one, the one who’d had his face hidden by papers.
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It was just as hard to see his face without them, as it was with the papers obscuring him. A dark green, almost black tube of fabric covered his lower face as well, leaving the short red hairs to be all that was seen of him. Thin smoke wafted around his face, the smell of it something awful. Like the outside of bars in the middle of the night, where smokers would hang around to smoke one last cigarette before heading inside. It clung to him, obscuring his face, and hiding even more of the details that they desperately wanted to see from him. His fingers were thin and spindly, like that of a spider as they restlessly flitted through the seemingly endless stream of paperwork he had been given.
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Everytime he spoke there was an exhale of smoke, but even so, the other receptionist hardly batted an eye at it. Standing on their end of the desk, far away from the putrid smelling fog around their co-worker.
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Their dynamic was weird, the more that they thought about it.
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The one with the striped mask seemed cold and robotic almost, only ever giving one worded responses, or in the very least putting on an obvious fake persona of a welcoming hotel worker. While the other one, seemed almost natural, he oozed charisma that most hotel chains would have loved to have. He must’ve been there longer, at least that’s what it appeared to be. While his stiff icy cold associate was newer at this, they must have been.
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At least from what they could glean from the awkward conversations held by the two.
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The man with the short red hair always did most of the talking smoke pouring out of him while he did, while the one with the blonde hair always seemed to give up and agree with whatever he’d chosen the topic to be about just going along with it until the conversation was finally pulled back into a dull silence. He didn’t seem to realize that any and all topics of conversation were useless, and honestly…
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They had no eagerness to be the one to tell him that either, they could only imagine just what he could do with those spindly fingers of his.
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They could almost forget about it all while they sat there staring up at the crystalline glass that led outwards, the background noise of the receptionist’s talking becoming a sort of white noise. Allowing them to just lose themself in an endless void of unknowing beyond this.
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Just looking up, they could forget momentarily about all of this. The people on the other side of the desk, the people who would come to collect their keys, or the fact that they couldn’t leave…
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It all fell away.
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Really though, if there was just one complaint to be had… and there were many of them to be had here in this place.
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It was that there were no stars to be seen.
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No sun.
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No moon.
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No stars.
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Only the black emptiness of a void that lingered just beyond everything, seeping into all of the cracks and crevices.
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Just… 291Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPBrBYxIL7T
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Absolutely nothing.
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How...
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Bitter.
ns13.58.39.209da2
