Perhaps as I explore this hotel, I can explore my subconsciousness too. Slog through the Swamps of Sophistry, maneuver past the Mountains of Miscellany, track the traces of Trepidation, and arrive at an Answer—but this journey’s impaired by a pinkish haze that Lily’s brought to my spirit. I travel at about ninety percent speed and fifty percent mental capacity, though physically, at least I can still see.
To the right of the trial chamber, there’s a long hallway leading to the elevator, the suites, the maintenance room, the kitchen, and stairs that climb up to the other floor. To the left, there’s a second corridor that stretches towards a long series of locked hotel room doors.
We follow that second hall, passing paintings and plants and bowls of plastic fruit. Their colors have faded from poor maintenance and age, and a faint line of dust runs between the carpet and the floral wallpaper.
This second corridor then spits us into an enormous lobby. A computer rests on a slate counter, and though I press the “POWER BUTTON” its screen remains black. Brown leather couches are tucked away in another corner, encircling a gaudy statue of a pelican stuffed full of bronze fish.
A newspaper rack hugs the wall to the right of the front entrance. Any maps or brochures have been removed, though several magazines remain sloppily ajar. Muscle cars, landscaping tips, male fashion models, the economic and political state of the world… my eyes glaze over for all of them, bar one.
A single music magazine rests alone on a vacant shelf. It’s a copy of the ‘WEEKLY IDOL,’ the same tabloid that the Rat had scattered around his room. The dashing dark-haired boy on the cover is a pop star named Shinji, so it has to be an old issue; that pop star’s already been “retired” after an unfortunate incident. Middle center, the Horse and the Ox grunt near the lobby’s main doors. As I move to join them—
“That tabloid’s rather intriguing,” Lily interrupts.
“I thought you’d be more into rulebooks. Oh, and now you’re picking it up— could Shinji be our mastermind? He’s pictured on that magazine, so he has to be, of course!” I grumble back.
That ‘Shinji’ is good-looking, but to be honest I also find him kind of ratty. A surge of hate inexplicably surges through me.
“Lily, don’t tell me you’re into that empty-headed gigolo. No, no, no…”
“He’s pretty handsome. But don’t worry Yuri, he’s no longer active , so there’s no way we could ever meet. At least, there shouldn’t be.”
“Worried? Why would I be worried? If I’m worried, it’s about your reputation as disciplinary committee chair. What will people think if you hold onto a magazine that features such a distasteful, shady, slimy, sleazy, scummy—”
Rappppppp.
Lily wears a thoughtful look as she tears off the cover. I can’t imagine what she’s going to do with it—and don’t want to imagine it either. But before I can interrogate her, she bounds over to the Horse and the Ox.
The Horse has taken off her track jacket to tie them around her shorts, and the Ox’s dark T-shirt sticks to well-built physique. He pounds the wooden doors guarding the entrance, and they rattle and thud in reply.
“Oh! Hello!” The Horse waves at us as the Ox grunts his acknowledgement. “These wooden doors might trap us. But no wooden door can halt our iron wills!”
“Us four might be able to batter ‘em down. Come on and help,” the Ox follows up, and I squeeze one of my forearms. There are supposed to be muscles there, but…
“Let’s push as hard as we can on the count of three,” the Horse cheers, ignoring my questioning gaze. “One… two… HEAVE!”
We push. Someone groans, but the door itself remains silent. The two massive slabs are about twice the size of the Ox and at least three times the size of me, and the entrance’s squeaking hinges seem to laugh at our exhaustion.
“I don’t think this is going to work…”
The windows are welded over with great metal sheets, so seeking egress with one of those would be impossible; at this current rate we’d have better luck punching through the wallpaper and hoping the structure behind it is just cheap plaster.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“We’re fine,” the Ox says. “We just need tools. What’s the rest of the building like?”
“We haven’t looked yet,” says Lily. “And actually, we wanted to ask you some questions first. What happened right before you were kidnapped?’
That’s an interesting angle. We’ve never made an effort to coordinate our stories, since we’ve had to spend all our time dealing with this game… and since every participant, except Lily and me, seems to be a complete stranger to everyone else.
“You’re from Elyssia Isle too, right?” the Horse asks suddenly. “I think I know that uniform, though it’s from another school…”
“Oh? That’s convenient,” Lily says. “If that’s the case for everyone, then you don’t have to try to give a latitude and a longitude or anything like that. Just mentioning where you both were in that city should be enough for us to understand you.”
“I was walking from Kawatogan Gym to the daycare. It was dark, I was tired, and I whited out on a side street,” Ox hesitates.
Lily hmphs and hmms, writing the stout boy’s statement on another hotel notepad.
“I was jogging laps around the east side of the city,” the Horse adds on later. “But I don’t remember where I was exactly, it’s all super foggy to me.”
“A mist rolled in… that’s pretty notable too,” Lily nods thrice. “Let me fill in the rest. Your eyes started to water, your lungs started to burn, and after about thirty seconds of flailing you finally passed all the way out. Mystery solved.”
The Horse shakes her head. “No, no, the weather wasn’t foggy, just what I can picture in my mind! It’s so weird!”
“...Aren’t you like this all the time?” I mutter back.
“This is different, Snake! Way different! When I’m hazy on math, it’s because I don’t know what to do. But this is something that should be there but isn’t, like a ‘brain fog!’”
The Horse tackles the door again, frustrated. Something from her jacket rattles onto the ground and I pick it up without thinking.
It’s a bright red plastic device resembling a small bent pipe. A rectangular hole gapes on one side and a silver button plugs the other, and as I foolishly press it it puffs a pale white cloud.
“T-That isn’t anything!” she says, as she pushes the fog machine away; she boxes away my hands, as I read her guilty face. “I don’t want to be associated with this—forget you ever saw this—that thing definitely isn’t mine!”
That’s it! She’s the mastermind! She whited out everyone’s minds with this!
“I know that it might be dangerous,” I whisper. “But you have to tell me—who’s giving your orders?”
“Huh? Dr. Larson, I guess.” the Horse says.
“I see, it’s Dr. Larson. Who is he? A wealthy billionaire? A politician? Some sadomasochist game designer?”
Lily interrupts us. “With your condition, Horse, I don’t think it’s safe for you to go without this. Yuri, please give that back. ”
My face falls. I kind of expected this to happen, but if I can’t be the mastermind, it would have been fun if I could be an ace detective cracking the case. Well, I’d feel bad if Horse was just pretending to be nice to us, anyway—she looks at me with a wistful expression, before speaking.
“It’s true that I had some close calls with asthma when I was younger. But I started to go on morning walks, then morning jogs. It might have been age or luck, but over time things started to improve, and while I might not be the fastest I definitely won’t be slow!”
Horse lowers her voice:
“…I still cough when I’m sick. But, I’ve been feeling great since I’ve taken the medicine in the fridge.”
“Why would I keep your inhaler? Take it,” I sigh.
“I don’t really need it.” the Horse hesitates, and slips it into her pocket. And then finally, the Ox waves a calloused hand:
“Let us know if you find any tools. If you can’t find a hammer or a crowbar, we’ll try to construct a battering ram. To do that, we’d need something long, heavy, and sturdy, or something like duct tape to bind a lot of different things together into one supertool.”
“We’ll let you know. Just…”
I imagine the Ox with a crowbar. Give someone with that rippling physique a few pounds of iron to work with and he could surely shatter any wooden door.
“Yuri? Were you going to say something?”
If the Ox can cleave through wood, he could also shred through bone. There’s no malice in his eyes: this is the boy who made everyone pancakes for breakfast. But I had worried so much about the ‘death’ part of this game that I had forgotten about the chance for violence.
“It’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Something had been irritating me about these rules… another itch in the back of my brain.
CODE OF CONDUCT
- Players who fail to vote before time is up will be punished with death.
- Players who say their own name will be punished with death.
- Players whose roles are shown will be punished with death.
- Players who cause other players to be unable to vote will be punished with death.
- Players who attempt to remove their collars will be punished with death.
- Violence against the host will be punished with death.
- Causing rule paradoxes or conflicts will be punished with death.
- All other conduct is permitted during the game.
I can’t help but feel like there’s something I’m still missing. But this I know for sure:
- So long as other players are ‘able to vote’ and aren’t going against the host, violence is always allowed.
And…
- A massive stockpile of weapons already exists in this hotel
In fact, I stumbled into one such stockpile just this morning.