"Ugh." I awoke in a daze. I noticed I was in an unfamiliar location, "Where...am I?" After a moment, I snapped out of my sleep-induced gaze and realized where I had awoken, "Is this...a hotel room? What am I doing here?" I tried recalling what had happened the prior night to have ended up here, but nothing came to me. "Why... can't I remember? It's not like a spirit can get hammered." I chuckled to myself, then tried getting out of bed. "Hm-AAAHHH-bonk...ow...wait, how did I get hurt, but more importantly...HOW DID I GET HURT?!" I said in a mix of fear and confusion, "Just what's going on here."
I picked myself up from the ground, then turned to the bed, "Great, now that I can't levitate, I must constantly be reminded how short I am, yay. Huh, considering the lack of use my legs have been receiving, I'm surprised at just how well I'm managing to stand." I never needed to walk as a spirit, as I could float around wherever I wanted. I suppose that's one of the few perks of being dead. Well, it was.
After coming to terms with the state of my body, I looked around the room to see if I could find anything that could help me piece together what happened last night. The room was a standard one. It had a bed, a bedside drawer with a lamp, a couch with a coffee table, a T.V. mounted above a clothing drawer, and a bathroom with a shower. There was also a window that showed an outside area in the middle of whatever building I found myself in, on the floor below us; it seemed to be some kind of courtyard. I could also tell that the building was tall, probably about six stories tall, with many weird areas branching off the building. It looked like some abomination of architecture a kid would design. "I really need to figure out just where the hell I am."
After not finding anything of note out in the open, I decided I'd just try leaving the room. I walked over to the door to try and do just that, "Hnnnnnnng... HNNNNNNNGG- ah, nothing. Must be locked then." There must be a key around her somewhere. I proceeded to check the drawers until I found something in the bedside drawer, "Huh, a key. It has a number...Room 719? That...doesn't seem right...hmm? What's this?" After getting a look at the room key, I noticed a piece of paper along with what looked to be a map which was also in the drawer. I picked it up, and it read: After finding this note, make your way to the lobby marked on the map.
"That's it? Well, at least it was something." After reading the note, I put it and the map in the satchel I had on me. "Wait...did I always have this satchel? Well, it's convenient considering my lack of pockets, so I'll take it." And with that out of the way, I walked to the door, put the key in, and opened it.
When I stepped outside it was...normal? No, that's not right; it was...more normal than expected. Then again, when you exit what appears to be a hotel room you don't really expect to see a singular door on the other side of the hallway. Aside from that, the place was very well furnished. There were nice looking planets stationed about, with comfy looking couches and sofas with coffee tables at both corners I could see. "Yup, this is definitely a hotel lobby alright. I swear I don't remember checking into one though," I said out loud in hopes of jogging my memory. Which didn't work.
Before doing anything else, I pulled out the map, " Hmmm, so that red square must be the room I was just in. In that case, the room I need to go to is on the opposite side of where I am." After figuring that out, I put the map away again and took a left.
As the map indicated, there were three rooms down the hallway. The first one appeared to be a bathroom, the next looked to house an elevator, and the last one seemed to be some kind of laundromat. "Aside from the shocking lack of windows and that weird doorway from earlier, this seems to be your standard hotel lobby." I then turned a second corner that looked identical to the last, and there it was, "The doorway to the answers I'm seeking," I said in a whisper. However, when I opened that door...all I got was even more questions.
I don't know what I was expecting to find when I opened that door, but it certainly wasn't what I found. Upon entering the room, it was clear that it was some kind of cafeteria, but that wasn't important right now, as there were 18 people in this place whom I didn't recognize.
Before I could really process what could possibly be going on, a blue robot spoke up and said, "Oh, look! Another friend has joined us!" The screen on his chest quickly changed from yellow with a smiley face to pink with a heart eyes and then back to a smiley face.
"It seems so, " said what looked to be a high school student with brown, mid-length hair wearing a white shirt and a red tie.
Not wanting to choose the wrong words, I stood there for a moment in silence. Before, a guy in a white high school uniform spoke up and said, "Don't just stand there! Introduce yourself already!"
The sheer abrasiveness of how he spoke gave me the words I was looking for. "Okay, first of all, calm down. There's no need to shout. Secondly, hi, my name is Sothis, nice to meet you. And lastly, who are you people?!"
That's when someone with purple eyes wearing what looked to be a black high school uniform said, "Since there's likely only one more individual left to appear, it'd be preferable to wait to do proper introductions, so we can avoid repeating ourselves. However, there's something I want to confirm." The boy proceeded to roll up his sleeve, revealing a bright red watch-looking thing, and asked, "Do you also have one of these bracelets?"
It took him saying that that made me realize there was something light attached to my right wrist. I quickly scrambled to roll up my sleeve, showing that I did indeed share the same device. "What is this thing?" I said in response.
"That's what we've been trying to figure out," said a tall woman with horns and a tail, "all we've been able to get it to do is reveal a number by pressing both nobs simultaneously."
I then turned my head to look at the device and proceeded to get a better look at it. It looked incredibly similar to a regular watch but with a digital face. However, it seemed impossible to take off. Choosing to ignore that for a second, I pressed the nobs, which caused the face to light up in a dim blue. And it indeed did show a number: 19. It took me a moment to realize what that number meant. I reached into my satchel, grabbed the key to the room I woke up in, looking at the number again, "Room 719...," I said in a slight whisper.
"Yeah, it seems that the number matches up with the rooms we woke up in." I was taken by surprise and turned around to see who said that. She was a slightly mature-looking woman with long blonde hair. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," she said as she went from bending over to standing up straight, revealing she was fairly taller than me. Which is something I'm all too used to.
I chuckled a bit before saying, "It's alright, I'm just a bit on edge is all."
"Considering the circumstances, I can hardly blame you," she said sweetly in reply. I proceeded to look around and see just who else was here. Aside from the handful of people I had met already, there was a young-looking girl with long blue hair in some kind of uniform standing next to another blue-haired individual in some kind of armor-less knight apparel, but I couldn't tell whether they were a boy or not, though.... There was also a red and white robot-looking dude who was standing alone in a corner, a black-haired dude who looked like he had his face burned around the mouth area, he was also wearing some kind of warrior garb and was currently chewing out the white-uniformed kid for ordering people around; there was a man who looked to be a leopard as well, he was standing quietly observing everyone else; there was also what looked to be a man in a big moldy looking bunny suit.
As I was processing that image in my head, there was a sudden loud, piercing noise that screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" It was only after covering my ears that I realized I wasn't hearing anything but having sound injected directly into my mind. I looked around to see who was doing this, only to find that everyone else in the room was reeling from presumably the same screaming. And after a few seconds, the screaming had stopped as abruptly as it began. Then as the screams in our heads ceased, screams of panic filled the room.
"Mama Mia, what was-a that?"
"What in the realms?!"
"What in the blue hell?!"
"That didn't sound good friends!"
"AAAAHHHHH!"
"Man, haven't heard this much noise in forever."
"Oh no, that sounded worrying."
"Whatever that was is not welcome in a school environment!"
But before the chaos could continue, a loud shattering sound echoed across the room, bringing it back to silence. Everyone turned towards the sound to see what had happened, only for the brown-haired high school kid to be standing next to one of the many tables in the room, with shattered glass on top of it. He then spoke up and said, "Now that everyone is calmed down and I have your attention, we need to find the source of whatever that screaming was."
"I agree," said the purple-eyed high school kid, "finding out what just happened should be our top priority."
The lady, who was still standing next to me, then chimed in with, "And considering the relatively small area we have to search, it shouldn't take too long. Especially if we split up."
"Wait, isn't this building massive? What do you mean 'relatively small,'" I said in response.
"And just how would you know how big the building is!" Screamed the man with a scarred face.
I said with sarcasm oozing out of me, "Because the rooms have windows, and I can use my eyes?"
Then a woman with red eyes and a red dress asked, "What windows?"
That's when the red robot spoke up for the first time and added, "I didn't have a window in my room either."
"Well, I had one in my room," said a white-haired girl in a royal dress. Then everyone else began to chime in about having a window in their room.
"Well then, I guess us three just don't have windows," replied the red-suited woman.
Then the blonde-haired woman spoke up again and said, "Now that that's settled, the reason why our search area is so small is because the elevator doesn't work and the stairway door is locked."
"Wait, really?" I replied.
"Yeah, I checked them before arriving in the cafeteria," responded the woman.
"Well, that sounds awfully suspicious," said a blonde man in a purple jacket and checkered top hat.
"Yes, it is," replied the brown-haired boy, "but now's not the time to discuss this."
Then the boy in the white school uniform said, "He's right! We need to begin our search!"
After that, the nineteen of us split up in search of the origin of that scream. We searched everywhere we could, going down the hallway from where the cafeteria was. In about ten to fifteen minutes, everywhere that could be searched, was. All except for one room, the one I first saw after leaving the room I woke up in.
Once it was determined that it couldn't have been anywhere else, everyone was gathered there. "Is everyone ready," asked the tall woman with horns and a tail. All of us nodded, some more hesitantly than others. "Alright then, let's see what's going on here." She then opened the door revealing a somewhat large, dark, open area. But in the darkness were glowing lights, seemingly floating in the air.
"W-w-w-what'sa that?" Said a pudgy Italian man in green clothes and blue overalls in an extremely nervous whisper.
"I don't know," I replied, also in a whisper, "but I'm going to check it out."
"And what will a runt like you do if it's dangerous?" Said the leopard man very snidely.
"I'll whoop its ass and make it regret thinking it could stop these hands," I snapped back.
I then turned back to the dark room and entered it before anyone else could protest. I walked slowly and carefully, in order to not make a sound. But as I approached the mysterious light, I began heading towards what sounded like a distorted sobbing, as if the lights themselves were crying. I also noticed that there was one big, blue, and purple flame surrounded by four smaller flames. What the fuck is this thing? I thought to myself.
I then finally got close enough to the source of the flames to make out what exactly was producing them. It looked to be a kind of chandelier with a glass center that housed the big center flame. The glass center had a black bottom, where the arms of the chandelier sprouted and then curled at the end, which had two shorter arms on either side of it which held the other smaller flames. The most confusing part was that...it was moving, And it seemed to be the origin of that distorted crying noise I've been hearing.
Wait, I thought to myself, There's no way...
I then spoke up, "Um, were you the source of the-" Then, before I could finish my thought, the chandelier turned and looked at me. What I can only assume was its face had two yellow circles, which seemed to be its eyes, and it had a black horizontal line connecting them with two short vertical lines separated by a longer black line that seemed to cover the glass center in a pattern. It seemed that the short lines on the horizontal line were meant to be some kind of mouth.
Just as I finished processing the sight in front of me, a similar feeling affected my mind before I heard a wispy voice directly in my head, "W-Who in the distortion realm are you? Where did you come from? Were you the one who did this?" The last question sounded filled with seething anger.
"Do what exactly? I just woke up, and I-" I was then interrupted by a cold and wet substance touching my feet, "what the was that?!"
I didn't notice it before because I was so focused on the flames, but there was a large mass next to them. The darkness made it hard to make out, but it seemed to be a big creature covered in scales. Then I looked to my feet and was horrified.
"W-What the fuck?! Is that blood?!" In shock, I backed up and fell on my ass, which was when the doors burst open, filling the room with light. I then was finally able to make it out, the creature's face that is. It had two sharp-looking blades on both sides of its elongated face. But the more prominent and disturbing feature were its lifeless eyes. The creature was dead, and it was killed recently.