I think I’ve gone insane. There is no way this
place can be real… No, I have to stay strong. My brother is trapped somewhere
here, and if I don’t find him… I won’t even think about what might happen to
both of us…
Mabel ran.
At that point, it was all she could do. She had to find Cipher’s room so she
could finish her deal with Saki. Then, she’d find her brother, somehow, and
they’d escape this living hell.
When she
arrived at a staircase, she leaned against the railing for a moment, trying to
catch her breath, before proceeding to climb the stairs. She came face to face
with a door; it looked so much different from all the other doors, like it
didn’t belong in this hotel. It was made from dark, almost black wood, and it
lacked a number plaque, instead it just had some weird pattern carved into it.
Mabel
carefully opened the door, poking her head inside. Inside was a short hallway,
three doors on each side, with the hallway ending in a final seventh door. The
seventh door had a golden pattern similar to the one she had just gone through.
It only made sense that the souls would be hidden behind that door, so Mabel
ran to it, trying to open it, only to find it locked. She heard footsteps from behind
the door; they sounded panicking. She then heard the sound of someone running
up the stairs.
Panicking,
Mabel ran to one of the other doors, ripped it open, and hid inside, praying
that whoever was coming wouldn’t find her.
Luckily,
she heard the footsteps walk right past her and open what she was pretty sure
was the door she had tried to open.
“Is
everything alright!?” she could hear a muffled voice ask; it sounded worried,
scared even. She couldn’t hear the response, but it didn’t seem to soothe the
other person’s worries. “What?!” they exclaimed.
There was
the sound of another door opening, and someone else speaking; “It was me, Bill.
I wanted to give you an important message, and I thought you were in your
room.”
“Well? What
is it?” the first speaker asked, and now that Mabel knew it was Bill, she felt
even more scared than before; she seriously doubted Bill would forgive her for
breaking into what appeared to be his home.
“Our guest
decided to leave,” the other person said. “Guess she gave up on finding her
brother.”
“What!?”
Bill exclaimed. Mabel could faintly hear someone respond to his outburst, but
it seemed to be the person who had been in the room Mabel tried to break into;
the one Mabel couldn’t clearly hear. “Will, keep Pine Tree in your room; guard
him with your life. If anything happens to him while I’m gone…”
He didn’t
finish his sentence, but even Mabel could feel his threatening gaze. There were
more sounds of footsteps along with more doors opening and closing. Mabel
waited for a couple of seconds with bated breath before she dared to go back
into the hallway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The hallway was abandoned once again. I don’t
know who the two people Cipher spoke to was, but… One of them was either
seriously misinformed or, the somehow more likely solution, they covered for
me…
Mabel
decided to try the door she had originally wanted to go through; it was no
longer locked and, as she poked her head inside, it was empty. The room was
golden and black in color, and basically looked like a normal bedroom; a very
fancy and expensive bedroom to be fair, but still. There was a king-sized bed,
a violin lying on said bed, a dresser, a desk and office chair, both of which
was covered in papers and documents, in front of the door was a big mirror, a
low table underneath it, with two ceramic pots growing flowers; the room was
also decorated with some potted plants. Cipher hadn’t seemed like the caring
type of guy, but maybe he acted differently to plants than his hotel guests.
She walked
over to the desk and began to look through the various papers; at first she was
curious what they were, but then she realized that they were all related to the
hotel. There were work schedules, lists of activities and arrangements,
maintenance notes; they looked like they could have belonged to a normal hotel.
Then, after digging through various notes, she found stacks of papers that were
different; they looked almost like… police files or public records.
The first
one she picked up had a picture of a young man with a strained smile. Then
there were pages on pages describing what appeared to be his life, specifically
how he had been verbally abused by his mother for playing with dolls, how that
had led to issues socializing with others, how that had turned him into a
hermit, and so on, escalating until the last page described how he, in a fit of
rage, had murdered his mother by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife, then
attempted to… sew her back together, and when it didn’t work, the file simply
said: “He could no longer face reality.”
Mabel
looked through some of those other files, and they were all the same; from
early childhood they would describe how certain events led to others,
eventually escalating to some kind of tragedy, and then ending with the words
saying that they “could no longer face reality”.
She
clutched her head in her hands. What did all of this mean? Who were these
people? How did Cipher have such detailed files on their lives? And why did
they all end the same way?
It was then
that Mabel spotted another file, hidden between the various papers strewn
about. She could only see part of the picture poking out, but there was no
doubt about it; that was a picture of her. She hesitated for a moment, but
forced herself to pick up the file and read it.
It had her
name, her age, her birth date. It detailed how she and her brother had been
friends since they were born. How they had always considered each other their
best friend. How Dipper had excelled in school, and Mabel had grown jealous. How
said jealousy had caused her to seek away from her brother, getting new
friends. How when Dipper had begun to struggle in school, Mabel had been
secretly happy. How Mabel had still tried to help her brother, but had
eventually given up and convinced herself that her brother was just lazy and
didn’t try hard enough. How she had abandoned her brother when he needed her
the most to pursue her own social life. How her brother had stopped answering
her scarce phone calls and messages after his exam. How after he came back, he
got his grades back, and learned he had failed. How Mabel had told him to just
try harder. How her brother had gone quiet once again. How a suicide note had
been found in his dorm room. The file ending such: “Realizing she had caused her
brother’s death, she could no longer face reality.”
Mabel let
go of the file. It had been right. Mabel couldn’t deny it any longer. She knew
now why she was in this hotel, and why she was being tormented like this; she
had killed her brother. She curled into a ball on the chair and started rocking
herself back and forth, crying softly.
“Are you
really gonna give up like that?” a voice asked from behind her. Mabel turned
around and almost screamed at who she thought was Bill, but she realized it
wasn’t Bill, just someone who looked a lot like him.
“Who are
you?” Mabel asked, drying away a tear.
“My name is
Will,” he responded. “You know now why you’re here?” he nodded towards the
various papers and files.
“Because I
killed my brother,” Mabel sobbed.
“No!” Will
shouted. “Come on! It literally says it in every single file!”
Mabel
blinked her tears away, mostly because sorrow was getting replaced with
confusion.
Will picked
up Mabel’s file, which was still on the last page, and used a finger to
underline the last sentence.
“I can’t…
face reality?”
“You
couldn’t face the fact that your brother was dead,” Will confirmed. “But it
seems like you’re able to now, which is… interesting.” He got a pondering look
on his face.
“I need to
know one thing,” she paused and tried to brace herself for the answer. “Did my
brother ever… end up here?”
“… Yes,”
Will responded. “I actually thought he’d be the first to escape, but… he came
back. And now, he’s dead.”
“So… he
came back because he couldn’t face reality either,” Mabel nodded to herself.
Now she knew what had happened to her brother; after everyone, including Mabel,
had pushed him away, he had decided he would rather return to the hotel and die
there, than face reality.
“Don’t
blame yourself,” Will said and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “This
hotel has taken so many souls; it’s to blame.”
“No,” Mabel
shook her head and stepped away from Will. Her voice was hoarse with emotions,
but her expression was steadfast and stern. “I am not going to lie to myself
any longer. If I had been a better sister, my brother wouldn’t have died. But
that doesn’t mean this place doesn’t share some of the blame. I am going to
leave this place, but not before I destroy it, so it can never hurt anyone
again.”
“Wow,” Will
looked at her in shock, but slowly a smile crept on to his face. “Yes,” he
nodded. “That could work… In one of the hotel’s hallways, there’s a jar
containing The Eternal Flame. If you let it lose, it can burn down the entire
hotel. But you have to promise to never return to hotel, otherwise it won’t
work.”
“Okay, but
first, I have one last piece of unfinished business; Saki saved my life, and in
exchange I promised to bring her one of Cipher’s souls… Also, how do I find
that Eternal Flame?”
“Follow
me,” Will led her out of the room and through another door, which led to an
enormous room filled with shelves upon shelves of jars with different colored
lights inside. Will surveyed them before grabbing one and rearranged the
others, so that it was less obvious one had been taken. “Here.”
Will handed
Mabel the jar. “Give this one to Saki. And don’t worry about finding her or The
Eternal Flame; this hotel has a habit of showing people exactly what they want
to see…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know now why I’m here. I can choose to either
give up and receive my punishment for letting my brother die, or I can make
sure that no one will ever suffer because of this hotel, again.
Wandering
through the hallways, it didn’t take long before Mabel arrived at a hotel door
different from the others; like the door to Cipher’s home, it lacked a number
plaque and was also more fancy than the other doors, albeit not to the same
degree as Cipher’s.
Mabel
knocked on the door and it didn’t take long before it opened. Saki’s head poked
out and, as soon as she saw the jar with the soul, she snatched it out of
Mabel’s hands and popped opened the lid.
“Oh! I’ve
waited so long for this,” she said with an almost orgasmic delight. She plucked
the soul out of the jar using her thumb and forefinger, and proceeded to lick
and suck on it while making obscene sounds.
“Um… I’m
just gonna go now,” Mabel said and began to shuffle away.
“Mhm,
sure,” Saki nodded between her moans and headed back inside her room. Mabel
wondered how long that soul would even last…
As Mabel
began to traverse the hallways once more, hoping to find that Eternal Flame
that Will had mentioned, she heard that familiar song from behind her, slowly
getting louder; “Do you know who I am? They call me Judgement Boy~”
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