theirs • ahs hotel

Chapter Eight: Invited

I had always known there were things wrong with my town. The way everyone acted and kept things from each other. The way everyone smiled at each other, but it hadn't reached their eyes. Everyone talked about unison and equality there but they all tried to fight over the same thing: to look good and get a higher place next to the Leaders.

My town was split into three sections: One was the Leaders, the richest and the most political out of all of us. They controlled what happened in the town, who got to stay and who got to leave and who got more money.

The Centers were the group my father and I fell under. We were pretty much the middle class, with suburban homes and nice lawns. The Centers had enough money to make us look good. But the Centers were normally the ones with the worst home living situation.

Then there was the last group, The Antipodals. They were the poorest of us all, the untouchables, but the ones that kept the town running. They were farmers and merchants, bringing in our food so we didn't have to leave our town to go buy things from Walmart and Publix.

This class system had been in play for fifty years when a family up in Kentucky with a father whose only goal was to revert back to the '50s, moved to South Carolina because they wanted to leave the complicated lives they had once lived in this "rambunctious" world. They recruited others, handing out flyers and getting people online.

I had looked up my town when I left. We were considered a cult to other people.

I couldn't disagree.

I have thought about coming out to people to tell them of the strange occurrences that had happened, maybe even arrive on one of those tv shows that talked about ex-cult members. But, from what I knew, no one was doing anything illegal in my town like killing or raping anyone like the other cults such as The Manson Family or the Kool-aid Jim Jones group did. If I told anyone about them being indeed a cult, I would be the one to get into trouble considering I ran away.

And even if I told them the truth about what my father kept secret...

They wouldn't listen.

 I had been sitting on my bed, starting at the bottle of knocked over pills for I think twenty minutes. Maybe longer. And no matter how long I looked or blinked...it still wouldn't disappear. I hadn't dared try to touch it. I feared I wouldn't like what I found out.
The bottle of Apap the woman had left in my room had stayed there since yesterday. I had noticed it again when I had come back from the dinner with James.
After he had hired me, he told me everything I would do here. I chose to stay in this room. I didn't need anything big and I already loved that it had a built-in bathroom. I was fine with it. I would be manning the counter with Liz and Iris, who would be told of my employment by James later today. The dinner itself had tasted amazing, and the dessert after was heavenly. He had kissed my hand when I left once again, which I was beginning not to mind all that much. I had come back to my room, happier than ever. I don't think I had been that happy in a long, long time. I had a job, a place to stay, and people to talk to. I had my life straightened out.
I had just forgotten one, simple thing.

I was still off my medication, and I was supposed to be hallucinating, so you could see it being a bit of surprise for me to find the knocked over bottle still sitting there...when I thought the transaction hadn't been real.
So here I sat ever since this morning when I had woken up, thinking that my mind was just messing with again last night.

I waited...and waited...and waited...but yet that bottle did not disappear.
Was I going insane? I think I was. This might be the part in a story where the main character has to accomplish some mentally challenging act, like confronting one's own illness or looking deep into themselves to find the " true " meaning of life or some bullshit like that.
My eyes were starting to water from how long I hadn't blinked.
They aren't real. I had repeated this one sentence easily a hundred or more times since this morning and I still didn't know if I was right.
I would know, though, if I did one very simple thing.
All I had to do was get up and pick up the bottle. If it wasn't real, it would disappear or fade or I wouldn't be able to feel it in my hand. If it was real though...that meant the woman that had been in here was real, and had gotten in when I had been sleeping.
I didn't know if I wanted to know the truth, but I couldn't sit here all day, I had a job to do and I couldn't be late on my first day.
I breathed in and out slowly, gripping my sheets with such intensity I felt my nails digging into my palms through the fabric.
"Fuck it." I decided then stood up quickly, walking over and-
When I closed my hand around it, I felt it. I felt the plastic slightly dip under the pressure of my fingers. I felt the couple of pills shake as they fell out of the bottle. I felt the slight sweat that had coated the outside from whatever pocket the woman had kept it in.
It was real.
"Goddamn it!" I yelled and hurled the bottle at the wall, the pills that had remained inside of it spreading out across my floor and some cracked against the wall they hit, spreading a little, hazy tan powder behind it. The bottle hit my door and bounded off to roll to my feet.
I put my hands to my head, curling them into my hair and closed my eyes.
I hoped that that woman had left because if I saw her again, I didn't know what I would do.