"Take a left here," Guiding Light instructed. "Oh! Closet to your right."
"Your hotel is more — how do I say this? — more confusing... and colorful... It's different from The Rooms." Curious Light's eyes wandered around the room.
When they first met the mystical blue light, despite their defensive exterior, they were extremely nervous. After all, they weren't that good on offense. They considered themself lucky that Guiding Light had no hostile intentions.
"We're almost there, Curi!" the warm, blue spirit sang.
"Curi?" Curious Light repeated.
Guiding Light smiled. "It's my nickname for you! Shortened names are easier to say than the full thing, right?" They chuckled for a bit. "Do you like it?"
"'Curi, hm." The yellow light flashed a small smile. "I like the sound of that."
"All right," Guiding began, "just one more door and we can—" Guiding Light stopped abruptly and sighed. "Oh, no... What door is—? Agh..."
"What's wrong?" Curious wondered. They noticed that the golden plaque on the door they had just passed through had its number scrambled. That... means something, doesn't it?
Guiding sighed sharply. "Okay, so... There's a chance that we might encounter a friend of mine." They shook themself lightly. "Just follow me, okay?"
"O— Okay." Curi looked around themself. They noticed two doors with rusted, golden plaques — one said Door 38, and the other said Door 39. This confused them as well — first the scratched-out door number, and now two doors?
Guiding Light was heading toward the door labeled Door 39, and Curious Light was following from behind.
Strangely enough, they could hear raspy breathing from the other side of the door. Curi was about to warn Guiding, but they were already opening it.
As soon as the door handle was bent, the door itself flew open. A strange and creepy face was inside, being surrounded on all sides by darkness. It let out a high-pitched scream, and almost bit Guiding Light's "face" off — all while Guiding Light themself kept a straight, unsurprised face; Curious screamed and quickly got into a defensive pose.
"AAAAAAAAAA— Oh, hi, Light!" The creature behind the door stopped yelling abruptly to greet the blue spirit. It didn't seem to notice Curi standing nervously to its right.
"Hey, Dupe," Guiding responded. "We're on our way to the entities' room. I thought everyone was on break?"
"Oh, they are," Dupe replied, ignoring the mention of the word "we're." "I just wanted to get some practice in for the next group of visitors."
Guiding Light shrugged; Curi stayed quiet. "Eh, that's fine. By the way, make sure to stop by the main area later." They shot a small smile at Curious. "I have something I'd like to show everyone."
"That sounds good to me!" Dupe exclaimed. "See ya' there, Light!" The face vanished into the darkness, the door closing with it; the aureate panel falling off onto the floor with a clatter!.
"Well, I should've known," Guiding whispered to themself. They turned to their yellow counterpart with a small worried smile. "You all right there, Curi? Dupe probably gave you a bit of a scare — he does that to all guests."
Curious themself didn't know how to reply — because personally, no, they were not all right. That entity nearly scared them half to death, if that was even possible.
Even though the vessel was deemed passive, Curi's hands were still slightly trembling, and their breath was somewhat shaky; but they didn't want to just admit that to them! Just be strong, like A-60 said.
"Yes, I'm fine," Curious decided to say. "I'm... guessing Dupe was the... 'friend' you were talking about?"
"Yup. He appears in a room where there are two or more doors with plaques on them," Guiding began to explain. "One door is real, the rest will have Dupe camping behind them."
"But... how do you know what door is the... the correct one to... go through?" Curious pushed open the actual door — Door 38 — and the two spirits continued forward.
"You can either keep count of all the doors you walk through — which is tedious but effective — or go up to each door and listen carefully for Dupe's heavy breathing," Guiding Light added, then smiled. "Now, come on! Let's go introduce you to the others!"
The blue-and-white spirit grabbed ahold of their counterpart's warm wrist, and flew at a fast speed, almost dragging Curious along.
Guiding Light was basically speeding through the last few doors, somehow knowing the exact direction to go when the roundabout-like rooms got in the way.
Eventually, both specters slowed down when they reached a grand hallway at Door 32. Large windows covered the walls; the ceiling was tall, a large chandelier hanging from it; a red carpet with a lined pattern was spread onto the floor.
"All right... I just need to remember which closet is— Oh! I found it!" Guiding motioned for Curious to come over. Curi absent-mindedly followed, still distracted by the majesticness of the corridor.
"To get to the area, just jump into any closet," Guiding Light instructed. "Hide'll know you're inside, and they'll drop you down."
"If we can... go through any closet," Curious Light began, "then why are we going through... this specific one?"
Guiding opened the closet's doors. "This one leads to the center room, where most of the entities here do all their weird things. I won't go too into detail on how weird they are, but I'll be able to catch their attention better." They turned their head to the open closet. "Hop in! I'll help you if you need it, all right?"
"Okay..." Curious mumbled. They climbed into the closet, using the doorknobs as support. They stuck to the left side as Guiding climbed in as well, closing the doors behind them.
The blue spirit knocked rhythmically on the closet walls, and Curious heard some distant knocking in reply. Guiding smiled at Curi. "We're going down — prepare yourself."
"Oh... A-All right." The yellow-and-cream-white light tensed, and the floor opened up beneath them.
The two lights dropped down, picking up some speed. A small, silenced scream escaped from Curious' mouth. When they saw a wooden-plank floor below them, they braced themself for the impact, closing their eyes shut. But for some strange reason, the impact itself never came.
Curi opened their eyes slowly. They were... levitating? Higher than usual, at least. A blue-green aura surrounded the bottom of their "body," hovering them above the ground.
"You all right there, Curi?" Guiding asked. The blue-green aura seemed to surround them as well — it looked like it was coming from them.
"Y-Yeah... I guess so..." Curious mumbled in response.
As the two lights floated back to the ground, the sea-green ambience followed both of them upwards, eventually fading away once the two of them were "touching" the ground.
The center room they had purposely fallen into was a medium-sized room, with a hallway branching off to the left side. At the very back, there was a raised platform covered with a red carpet textured with velvet. Next to that was a small shop-like alcove, with a couple of small wooden tables and chairs. There was a crowd of entities surrounding that area, one of them on the raised podium, holding a microphone, and singing a song that Curious didn't know.
"Oh my goodness, they're at it again," Guiding Light muttered somewhat disapprovingly.
"Pardon?" Curious Light prompted.
Guiding looked up at them. "What? Oh, never mind that." They chuckled softly. "Anyways, you can take all the time you need to calm down for a bit. It usually takes a while to gather everyone's attention." The blue light motioned to the hallway. "If you'd like, you could stay in my office. It's all the way at the end of the corridor — take a right turn and it'll be the first door you see." They paused. "Actually, here. Let this help you," they offered, cupping their hands together.
From what Curious could see, Guiding seemed to be... forming something? They didn't ask anything; they were silent, watching with amazement.
Finally, the blue spirit opened their hands, revealing a small, luminescent, bluish-green ball of light.
"What's... that?" Curi finally asked, their curiosity getting the best of them.
Guiding smiled. "It's my guiding light," they replied, letting the sphere of light float off into the hallway. "I usually make them for guests who need help finding levers, keys, or doors throughout The Hotel. If you hear a twinkling noise, follow it until you reach a door that's highlighted with a blue glow."
"Ah... okay," Curious said, faintly smiling. "Thanks... Light."
As Curious walked away, they could hear Guiding Light squeal with excitement and happiness. Their small smile expanded into a larger one as they walked down the passageway. Making someone else feel happy... gave them a warm feeling they didn't know existed. They liked it.
~{End of Chapter}~