+ • DOORS • + The Series

+ 👁 C H A P T E R : E I G H T 👁 +

"Oh, yeah, as if asking nicely is gonna work!" Screech shrieked, swiveling to try and find the source of whatever was speaking to them.

"You'd be amazed how effective asking nicely can be. Maybe if you tried it, you'd know." Then the whole room went dark and a blue light suddenly appeared on the ceiling. It shifted around and then went out the door, causing all the lights to flicker on its way out.

Everyone just stared.

"Go," said Glitch suddenly, before wrenching Halt and Figure by the arms and yelling her head off, "We need to go, NOW."

"Why?" Seek asked, somewhat lost and still finding himself asking tons of questions, "What's happening?" The entity looked at where the light had gone and saw that the lights were beginning to glow blue. "It's going to block the elevator. There's an elevator that goes deep underground, I think. Maybe we could use it to get down and away from here." Glitch huffed, running outside.

Everyone followed Glitch as she crashed through the doors, until they came to Room 50. Figure stopped and started to grab at a bookshelf, slamming its head on it as if it were in a panic.

Halt, for some strange reason, teleported away, as well as Screech and Ambush, who ran out of the room mindlessly. They completely ignored Seek, Glitch and Figure, like they couldn't see or hear them.

"What's going on?" Seek whipped to face Glitch. "Why are they leaving?!"

"There's another one," Glitch said quietly. "Another one of them."

Seek couldn't even reply. It was like someone had flicked a switch and made all his thoughts just turn off.

"I asked you to be reasonable.

Here's my deal; you kill it, I let you all go.

Let's start, shall we?"

+ T W O       H O U R S       L A T E R+

The Guiding Light, waiting by a door in a dark hallway, probably would have been smiling to itself if it had a face. The new guest, what was their name again? It didn't matter. The Guiding Lights wouldn't mind keeping them alive until it figured out how to maintain permanent control over the entities, and then it would eat the guest. Besides, why not trick the entities it had made into staying inside the hotel forever, where its influence was strongest?

The guest ran through the hallway, looking in panic for the Guiding Light, before swerving to the left of where they had come and speeding through the door. The Guiding Light shifted to the end of a long hallway, watching as chandeliers fell and dark, inky hands began to reach out of shattered windows. It barely managed to hide its scoff. They were desperate, all right.

The guest crashed past the door, almost tripping and falling over as the Guiding Light slammed the door on Seek for the second time. 

"Gosh, I hate that thing. I can't do this. I'm gonna die here." they started coughing, heaving themselves up. "Come on, [Player], pull yourself together."

"Just as I was thinking," said the Guiding Light, "That monster is a freak of nature and it may come back to haunt you. You should hurry and leave this place."

And so the guest nodded, venturing deeper into the hotel, away from true safety, and deeper into the Guiding Light's ruse.

+ O N E       M O N T H      E A R L I E R +

"Hey, Dad?" 

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"Is it true? About the hotel?"

The man tipped his head to one side thoughtfully, then nodded. "I think so. You know, kiddo, now that I've thought about it more, I could just have been hallucinating." 

"I don't think so, Dad. There's been a couple of disappearances from a few years ago, even before you and your work buddies went to check it out," this earned them a look, and they cleared their throat. 

"Who... all happened to be murdered there. But I'm going there to investigate. And..." the person looked around the room they were in, "I'd like to prove you're not wrong about all of this. You see this guy?" they whipped out a newspaper and pointed to various photos. "Your  witness statement said he stayed in a closet the whole time. You said it ate him right up." They started muttering to themselves, aggravated. "Psh, if they wanted to know whether you were lying, they should be able to tell from your hysterics."

"Too late now, [Player]," the man said, face getting grimmer and grimmer. "Whatever's in there, it won't come out."

A woman, somewhat in her late 40s with thin, scraggly hair, knocked on the door. "Time's up, [Player]."

"Bye, Dad," said [Player], shuffling out of the room.

"Bye, kiddo. Hey, one more thing?"

[Player] turned around, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't go back there. Please."

"I have to, Dad," they said, and left.