Chapter Text
I followed the entity through door "042", still not entirely trusting of him from his earlier pursuit. I mean, come on! I must be logical if I don't want to go anywhere near him in a 10 foot radius. "Are you always this slow?" Seek said, stopping to lean backwards slightly and cross his arms over his chest.
"Why do I have to follow you?" I asked, mirroring his pose, "I've been just fine on my own so far. I don't need some snarky guide to tell me where to go every second of the way." I huffed out. Deep down, I knew his help was more than appreciated. I'd much rather not die anyway, but all the same, I still couldn't get over the lingering feeling that I couldn't trust this entity. Seek's gaze turned piercing as I regarded him with an air of annoyance... which soon turned nervous as he let out a harsh sigh.
"They're always like this..." I heard Seek mutter under his breath as he looked back up at me. "So, you're going to be like all the others before you, yes? Stubborn and driven by your anxiousness despite needing the help? You humans are all the same. You should be surprised I didn't kill you on your first run like I typically do." Seek's cryptic message did not slip by me as he turned his attention to a bookshelf full of old books. They were in need of urgent cleaning.
"What do you mean by 'first run'?" I asked, tentatively approaching him. He picked a book off the shelf and examined it in his hands before looking up at me.
"Oh? So, you haven't seen what happens when you die yet?" He scoffed, shaking his head, "Figures, considering your confident demeanor." He takes a moment to put the book back on the shelf before taking a breath. "Humans, when they first come here, never return for the soul reason of never even being able to get past the first 100 doors the hotel has to offer. They usually give up after too many deaths. But, they come back. I don't know how, but they do. Something wants them to keep going that I'm unfamiliar with. I'd get used to chasing them and never get bored, but when they stop coming back, something tells me they've given up. All the entities that inhabit these walls haven't seen another human in years. Your the first one to come and fill that void. But, I'm not sure if it was just by fate or chance of luck..." Seek trails off, signaling the end to his explanation. A silence washes over us, the gears in my head churning at top speed.
"So, all of this is super natural..." I muttered, loud enough for Seek to hear. I heard him make another scoffing noise.
"What? A talking entity who can shift into anything didn't convince you of that already?" Seek asked incredulously. My eyelids dropped in annoyance.
"Well, I had already been informed beforehand that this was all caused because of a witch from the early 1900's, but I didn't see any reason to believe such fairy tales." I defended myself in a monotone voice. I then pinched the bridge of my nose and continued, "So all of you guys have just been stuck here ever since?" Seek looked off ahead of me before diverting his attention back to me.
"It's hard to recall all of my memories from so long ago. Centuries of living in the same environment can really do a number on you." Despite Seek's words, he still looked like he was attempting to remember what it was like when he first came here. "Well, I do remember my first feelings. I felt enraged and hungry. Perhaps I was made to always feel that way. Killing was first nature and it came so easily. I watched the halls transform into a labyrinthine, the sounds of screams echoing all around me as I mindlessly indulged in the pleasure of taking life after life. I didn't know any better. So, when the halls suddenly went quiet and there was nothing else to kill, I felt useless. I didn't know any of the other entities, so we grew accustomed to one another, mostly because we knew nothing else but each other for a fairly long time, still to this day in fact. The only thing we were certain of knowing was our names and I knew mine before I even knew what it felt like to kill. My name was Seek."
"It still is Seek." I added.
"Ugh, did you not register anything else I said?" Seek asked with a growl. I giggled as he shook his head in disappointment.
"Of course I did! Though, you say that you were created. Do you not have any memories from before that time, like, being summoned from Hell as demons to plague this rotten hotel, or were they erased?" I inquired curiously. Seek looked at me with a neutral expression before answering.
"All I remember is that I was sent here for one purpose: to kill. Of course, I'm going against that by not killing you, but..." He trailed off, giving me a feeling of interest. There was something he wasn't telling me, but I thought trying to pull it out of him might not end well with me. He was already very temperamental. He started up again, "Any memories before my time here do not come back to me, so I assume I was created." I nod at him, feeling it was best to leave it off there. I looked around me before my eyes landed on door "043" behind Seek. I figured we should keep moving. I brushed passed Seek and started towards the door, but Seek stopped me.
"On the earlier topic of names, I might be able to introduce you to some entities depending on who we meet on our way to the Library." Seek told me as I reached for the door knob. The idea wasn't refused by me. I thought if I was going to be here a long time, I might as well get to know faces I would become familiar with in time. I entered door "043" and the lights flickered. I didn't panic as much as the first time, but I looked around for a closet. I found one closest to the next door and hid in there. I wasn't exactly worried about Seek because he was a fellow entity in this hotel. As the screaming sound of the entity got louder, I heard the door bang against the wall and then a voice.
"Heya Seek." Went the gargled and distorted voice of the monster as he zoomed passed my closet and into the next room. Quickly afterwards, I stumbled out of the closet and was met with a rather pleased looking Seek.
"So... Who was that?" I asked curiously.
"Rush." Seek put simply. "You'll find that most of the entities in this hotel have rather uncreative names."
I raised an eyebrow at Seek, "Like yours?"
Seek's eyelid lowered, "You seem rather insistent upon that today."
"Well, you were the one to mention "rather uncreative names"." I said with a sarcastic tone to my voice. "Why do you talk all fancy anyway?"
"I'm not simple-minded or driven by primal instincts like most entities inhabiting this place. We have a library. I learned to read. Simple as that."
"You mention the word "simple" quite often for someone who claims to have a lot of complexity." I crossed my arms with a sly smile.
Seek seemed to be getting increasingly annoyed, "How about we move on from this...?" He asked, not exactly giving me time to answer. I assumed he didn't want me to. "Behind you. That entity is named Hide."
"Are you and Hide like best buddies? Your names get along."
Seek's face seemed to maintain the same expression. He didn't seem very fond of me, but still tolerated me none the less. I wondered what made him that way suddenly. "Well, not exactly the best of "buddies" as you so eloquently put it. I'm just at least happy he's not very useful to humans when they are being chased by me. I'm no idiot anyway, I'm chasing you the whole time, so I'd know if you hid or not."
"Huh, no wonder why I didn't see any usable closets while running from you..." I said, placing a finger to my chin as if in thought. Seek sighed and continued onwards without me with a swing of his foot. I didn't notice until the next door opened. I hurried to catch up with him, passing through the frame of door "044" as I stopped beside Seek. He investigated the blue outlines of the paintings and where they were supposed to be placed.
"How peculiar..." He pondered aloud. "How about you finish this puzzle? I'm obviously not supposed to be here anyway." Seek leaned against one of the chairs on the dining table in the center of the room, examining one of the candelabras on its surface. I rolled my eyes, but worked on the puzzle anyway. I moved the paintings on the walls to match the teal outlines before the fireplace in the front of the room made a dinging noise and started moving downwards to reveal our next door. "Clever one, I see." Seek... complimented as he passed me by. I raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"It wasn't that hard. The outlines showed me where to put everything." I replied unsurely, following Seek as he led the way to the next door. "You really like playing leader, huh?"
"It's in my nature..." Seek responded ominously. The next door, "045" was a dark room, which made me recoil. I loathed the entity that lurked inside. Seek was already halfway inside the room when he noticed I wasn't following. He sighed. "It's not really that big of a deal." He said impatiently, turning to face me and tapping his foot against the floor. "It's just Screech. He's a little annoying, but he's easy to deal with." Then, he muttered out more harshly, "Such a wimp." Seek was like a wild card. You could never guess how quickly he would change. First he was complimenting me, then he was insulting me. I was baffled.
"I don't like people who insult me about being a wimp in a hotel full of entities that can and probably WILL kill me!" I shouted into the dark room at him.
"And I don't like bratty little humans that make me want to give them a taste of what death is all about..." Seek said menacingly, his eye narrowing dangerously. He had clever retorts that made my blood boil, but my gut sink. I'd much rather not test his patience. I shuffled inside tentatively, waiting for the wretched creature I now knew as Screech to come out and attack me. If Seek had a mouth, he would have the slyest smile on his face. Instead, to convey that, his eye stayed narrow, but upturned slightly. It made me seethe with distaste for him, but held my tongue, fearing saying anything smart to him might set him off.
Suddenly, the forbidden sound of the entity 'Psst'd in my ear and I looked around EVERYWHERE. My eyes caught his, those glowing white orbs or soulless color and, as his name imply, he screeched in my face before disappearing. Without wasting another moment, I rushed past Seek to door "046" and flung it open to get out of that room. I heard Seek laughing, a garbled, almost distorted slimy sound as he came back to stand at my side. He threw his arm over my shoulder and said, "You really are a spectacle, human! Seriously, Screech ain't that bad. Besides, he wouldn't have bitten ya because I was there." He chuckled again before taking his arm off me and starting forward again. "Come on, let's keep going."
The next few doors, "047" to "049" were pretty normal besides a searching room at door "048". Seek had yelled at me for being unable to find a "simply hidden key" as he had put it as he stood around and I opened every drawer until I heard the familiar sparkling sound of where the key was. He was not very helpful, so I wondered why he even decided to join me in the first place.
At door "049", the room had changed to be bigger. Bookshelves were on the walls were two bigs doors sat at the side of the room, and a desk at the back center remained dusted and untouched. "Why is this room different?" I had asked while climbing up the stairs.
"This is the room before the Library. It's just a safe room break from everything before until you enter through those doors." Seek and I approached the doors in question after I had scavenged the drawers in the desk for whatever I could find. Seek gestured forward. "Go on," he started, "This is YOUR adventure after all." I hesitantly stepped forward. There was an entity in here, no doubt.
Now I just needed to see for myself.
I pushed the big doors opened and they made the loudest creaking sound.
The next thing I heard was a roar.