Power Outage

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – A Way to Spend the Night

                “So what you’re telling me is that Allen and Carol were fighting over the sleeping arrangements and then fell off the railing onto an escalator, ending with several sprains and Carol a broken wrist?” questioned Damian.

                “That sums it up,” answered Marvin nonchalantly.

                “So much to say, so little time, so what did they want?”

                “Let’s see… if I remember correctly, Carol wanted to be separated by who was already living together and Allen wanted to separate by humans and animals.”

                “That sounds like something she would do.”

                The trio of them are in one of the various rooms in the 3rd floor, which solely exists as a small hotel. I say small, but the floor has over a hundred rooms, mostly due to the Dimension Door (patented by Man-a-Lo-or-Hi Technologies), when opened leads to an area in an alternate dimension.  In this case, the Doors in the hotel lead to a moderately sized room with two beds, a table and chair in a corner, long but low counter opposite the beds, and a TV on top. The three humans in the group decided to separate by gender and the room that Marvin and Damian are in is actually a normal room that has a balcony. Same applies to the girls’ room next door. Feeling tired, Alex leaves to her room.

                “So how long do you think it’ll be until Carol and Allen are released from the Clinic?” wondered Damian, “I called Carol half an hour ago and she sounded fine.” The door to the girls’ room can be heard being slammed, mostly because the boys’ door was partially open (the rooms are almost soundproof).

                Marvin responds, “I think now.”

                Allen gets on the counter and curls up, muttering before going to sleep, “I don’t know what I see in that bitch…”

                “Today was rough, I think I’ll turn in too,” Marvin yawned before going to his bed.

                Unable to sleep, Damian heads outside for some air. He looks in the direction of the girls’ room. The lights are still on.

                At the same time in their room, Carol and Alex are chatting. “So there were only five people there?” exclaimed Alex as she changed into the hotel’s bathrobes.

                Carol, taking a soda from the mini-bar, replies, “Mhmm, besides us, there was a robot, a gay-looking guy, a girl that was in the same class as Marvin, a guy with a lab coat, and James.”

                “Huh… Are you sure it’s a good idea to take things from the fridge? I hear people complain a lot about prices whenever I go on trips.”

                “It’s fine, it’s free, here,” Carol says, handing a pamphlet that says the minibar is free.

                Upon reading it, Alex replies, “Alright then, pass me a… what’s it called,” she checks a list of items on the back of the pamphlet, “…a Coke-Cola.”

                “Here you go,” Carol states after giving a can of Coke-Cola to Alex. She finishes the soda she had and opened a bottle of beer.

                Alex sits on the bed, opens the can, and takes a sip out of it. She puckers up after a sip, not used to the taste since Coke-Cola was considered a delicacy up until last year when the true secret recipe was lost in 2132, after the assassination of the executives in possession of the recipe by rival companies (unconfirmed).  The recipe had been constantly attempted to be reproduced by other companies, but had only been successfully reproduced by the family of one of the deceased executives. “I’m still amazed this place has so many old brands and stores.”

                Carol, already drunk from half a bottle, sits next to Alex and starts talking in strange tones, “Yeah, James was always into retro stuff…”

                “Umm, are you sure you can hold your alcohol?” Alex asked, scooting a bit away from Carol.

                “Yeah, I’m fine~” Carol puts the now empty bottle down and leans to Alex, her face a few inches from Alex’s, “Why does he have to think you’re so sexy? I mean it, really,” Carol starts crying as she talks, the sobbing gets louder with each sentence. She also leans closer to Alex each time, “He has me, so why you? I know what he likes. His favorite colors. His favorite songs. His favorite everything. I just don’t get it.”

                At this point, Carol is crying into Alex’s chest, her words drowned out by the crying. Alex pets Carol in a weak attempt to comfort her. This goes on for about ten minutes, until Carol exhausts herself from crying and falls asleep, reverting to her dog form. She’s heavier in this form, what the hell… thought Alex, as the sudden change in weight pushed her to lie on the bed. She then grabbed a pillow and slowly substituted herself with it. Once that was done, she turned off the lights and headed to the balcony to collect her thoughts.

                As Alex stepped out, Damian had one foot back into his room. Alex was about to say something, but Damian had just closed the door. Alex leaned on the railing of the balcony, admiring the view of the city. Damn, just when I was about to ask something important… I wonder what I should do about those two… I like him and all, but seeing how much Carol tries to garner his attention is discouraging… I don’t know anymore… She sighs. I wish my life was more like a romantic novel, then the answer would be obvious…