"Come on," Mari gently nudged them as they tiredly slumped against her, she knew that they were tired. The way that they looked at her without even understanding, trying their hardest to blink words and thoughts told her that after eating what little she had... they needed sleep, and desperately at that. It wouldn't do to have them start hallucinating on top of everything else. "We can't stay here, soon enough we'll be in the housekeepers' way." Mari knew well enough what would happen if the human brain didn't get enough sleep, and there was no telling how long this unnamed person had been here. And if they had staved off sleep the entire time that they had been here, well it wouldn't exactly be good for them. She'd rather avoid their brain trying to eat itself if she could, and other much more horrible things that could happen to someone who had sleep deprivation psychosis.
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Their head slumped in a tired nod, and Mari had to nudge them a little rougher just to get them going. They needed rest, their broken arm needed some time to heal. They needed to leave...
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Now.
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"Come on," Mari coaxed again, hooking their good arm over her shoulder, finally able to get them moving towards a single direct. Their feet occasionally scuffled along the ground, and they definitely would have fallen flat on their face had her iron grip not been holding them up. "I know a place where you can sleep." She assured, "It's much more comfortable than sleeping on a hallway floor, and..and..." She swallowed thickly, she needed to keep them safe and completely out of harm's way if she could. She needed to do her best, and to actually succeed this time. "Once you're all comfortable I'll tell you about some of the things I've seen here, it might be a bit more than what you've seen. Since you're new and all." Mari chattered on and on, practically dragging the other person down intersecting hallways and rapidly changed directions.
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She was certain that they were asleep, or in the very least almost unconscious enough to not be able to answer back. At least until...
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"Have you seen the pool creature?"
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The question was so soft that Mari almost missed it entirely. But it was that one question that made a blaze of hope burst inside of her, like a tub of gasoline being thrown a lit match. Questions were good, questions meant curiosity, and curiosity meant a drive to in the very least survive to see something new. Mari had seen plenty of people who had no drive for anything, no curiosity, no anger, not even any kind of sadness for what they had forgotten. Those kinds of people didn't last too long in face of the creatures that lived here. Many of them just waited for their end no matter how she tried to help, some of them were just reckless. Trying to get into rooms that didn't belong to them, or attempting to take things too obviously. So this.. this was good. She would take anything over the blanket numbness that seemed to envelope many of the present and past guests that came to this hell-hole of a hotel.
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Mari readjusted her grip on the other person, "I've seen some of it," She finally answered, the memories of the creature raising goosebumps along her arms and the back of her neck. "It's big, bigger than you would even think. The pool is too, I took the pool net and tried to measure it once. It's deeper than any kind of pool that I've ever seen." She remembered the last time she had been in that pool room, the feeling of the heavy metal net in her hands and of sweat soaking through her shirt rolling down her back as terror had gripped her heart. "I'll tell you more once we get out of the halls." She instead said, this wasn't exactly the place to tell such stories, especially stories that anyone.. or anything could hear her. It wasn't wise to gloat or relish in such things, getting too cocky would be an end that she did not want to meet.
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The person she was carrying wriggled a little, "Where are we going?" They finally asked, at least attempting to sound more awake and alert as they propped their head up on her shoulder.
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Mari could see the way that their greenish hazel eyes attempted to take in the direction they were being pulled in, but it was useless, they had been out of it for so long that they no longer recognized any kind of key features that they had previously established. Hardly anyone came this way, there were no guest rooms for hopeless victims to try to break into and as such there were no housekeepers either to take away the dirty laundry. This was an area that had been largely forgotten about, with a pair of doors that opened up as one. The person that this room had belonged to was long dead, if they could have even been called a person at all with how they ended up. She didn't imagine that this place would be forgotten for long though, the receptionists always noticed areas of the hotel that were quiet for too long. Soon enough there would be another, she would have to find a new space all over again.
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Nothing stayed empty long here.
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"This," Mari managed to pull one of the twin doors open, and stuffed the two of them inside. "Is home away from home."
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It wasn't a big room, barely fifty square feet. A thin layer of dust covered everything but the makeshift cot that was crammed into the corner, although calling it a cot was rather generous as it was actually a mess of sheets, pillows, and blankets clearly stolen from the housekeepers. A few boxed laid stacked up next to the mess, along with some electrical parts and long rubber gloves laid scatters around what little floor space there was. It was extremely cramped, with no air circulation whatsoever leaving Mari's and their cheeks to pinken almost as soon as she shut the door behind herself. It barely looked livable for one person, let alone attempting to fit two in there comfortably without suffocating to death.
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And...
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It was the best thing that they had ever seen since coming here, practically heaven in their eyes.
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"Down you go," Mari grunted, as she attempted to gently lay them onto the cot. But with the mess of boxes and other such things, it was easier said than done. And in the end, she ended up releasing them a moment too soon as they landed with a yelp and a faint thump as they landed on their back into the mountain of sheets, pillows, and blankets. "Sorry..."
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The apology was immediately waved away with their good arm, a look of utter bliss mixed with exhaustion washing over their face in an instant. Mari doubted that they had been able to relax for even a moment since getting here, so being able to rest even in a terrible little closet as cramped and dirty as it was must have felt... nice. For a moment they looked as if they would just nod off right then and there, with how heavy their eyelids looked and the dark circles that had etched themselves under their eyes. Instead, they shuffled themself in the cot, so that they could better look at Mari with that curious glint burning in their eyes anew.
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"How did you find this place?" Predictably the questions came, "Did someone have it before you? How did you know it was here?"
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Unbidden Mari felt herself twitch, "He was called The Engineer." She answered shortly, honestly half-hoping to leave it as that. He was dead, so there was no use in delving into past things to bring up things she didn't want to talk about.
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She should have known her friend better than that by now.
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"What happened to the engineer?" They asked before they could stop themselves, "What did he look like? Was he monstrous? Did he look like us? How did he act? Was he-"
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Mari raised her hand cutting off the flow of questions that just came bubbling out of them like a gushing stream, curiosity was an understatement apparently. This was something a little past curiosity, this was... fascination. Like a little child being put on their parent's shoulders and being able to look at the stars for the first time, being totally in awe and inspired by something they could neither understand nor touch concretely. Briefly she wondered if her new friend had been some kind of writer before they had wound up here, writing about things beyond imagination, or if they had worked on movies to bring such things to life. Either way, their allure to these kinds of things was certainly a little... weird to her, but she wasn't about to say anything about it. If they wanted to know, well...
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She'd tell them.
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She flopped down on one of the sturdier boxes next to her friend, and stretched her legs out until she could feel the muscles quivering. "He was exceptionally tall," She began, watching the minuet expression changes within the other gradually changing from excitement to pure wonder as she went on. "With frayed wires sticking out all over him sparking at random times, his face was covered in them. I could never tell where his mouth or any feature was on his face with all the wires. He wore goggles though, so I at least knew he had eyes." She leaned down, hunching her shoulders a little, "His hands were massive, you could often tell where he went just by the giant burn marks that he left with his hands, and..." Mari paused, taking in their expression before continuing. "He was quite lazy," She bluntly said, almost wanting to laugh at the look of disappointment covering her friend's face now. "He almost never left his office from what I could tell back then. Most of the time sending housekeepers to do something that required him."
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They were pouting, they were definitely pouting now. It was almost funny were it not so harrowing to recall the person who had almost ended her life on multiple occasions. She could recall the heat from his hands narrowly avoiding her head, and singed marks on her clothes and arms from where she had scurried past him in a dead panic only to just barely get away from being zapped by his wires. It had been terrifying when it had happened, and it was still terrifying now after all the time that had passed for her.
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Mari's eyes fluttered open as she felt a warm palm rest on her knee, and looking down at them she could see the worry in their face as clear as day as their fingers intertwined with the thin fabric of her pants.
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"Mari," They softly intoned, "What happened?"
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The answer was one that she already knew, but it still felt wrong coming out of her.
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"I killed him."
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