Iflinch, my breath caught at the top of my throat, my mind going blank with fear. But my body presses onward and instead of backing away, my fingers circle the lever and yank open the door, ignoring the flare of bright pain in my skin from the healing wounds of the Emporium.
Iciness drifts over me, enveloping me like the rare cold whip of wind North Carolina experiences in the winter. It infects my lungs, the chill invading my chest cavity, but as I stare into the darkness beneath the hotel, I know it will take more than cool temperatures to keep me away from Sullen.
I dart through the door, risking one last glance over my shoulder, but I see nothing in the tangled labyrinth of stairwell above my head. The laughter is gone, too, and for a brief moment, I think of Sanford Rule and wonder if Iamlosing my grip on reality. If I’m no longer… here. Perhaps the cement beneath my white shoes and the prickle of ice along my skin and even this high-collared shirt of Sullen’s drifting along my body is all inside my head.
But if this is a dream or a delusion, then there is no obstacle to finding him. I can make everything what I wish for it to be. I can warp the world to lay eyes on him again.
The door clangs closed behind me, trapping me inside darkness once more, but not before the waning light lays out the space before me. It’s a corridor leading only one way, framed by burgundy bricks, some missing in places. The scent ofoldnessis heavier here, but maybe most importantly, there is no one. The laugh came from nowhere.
It came from inside your head.
The thought invades me like a demonic possession and my knees tremble. I stagger to the side, my shirt pricking at the brick as I lean my head against it, regaining my bearings, trying to find my composure. I’m so fucking tired and hungry and delirious and after being sedated twice and drinking too much wine and Jameson and getting truly intoxicated on Sullen, I am not functioning like I should be for something likethis.
I think of turning back.
I could beg Isadora and Von. I could ask them to see for themselves how Stein is treating his son. We could’ve done this together.
But they don’t trust me, and they are bound to Writhe.
I have never felt the same affection for my parents’ organization.
I am doing this on my own.
I amnotfucking pathetic.
I straighten away from the wall and keep going.
There is only the sound of my own steps, my own heart, and a raspy noise that I realize is my breathing.
I press my lips together, stopping the latter from making the monstrous, cowardly sound, and lift up my hand, to prevent myself from bumping into anything in the dark. The walls feel as if they are pressing in around me, despite the fact there is plentyof room; my shoulders don’t graze the wall and my head does not bump the low ceiling.
I am fine.
I will find him.
I keep going, the chill slithering deeper, to the bone. It is like a freezer here.
A scurrying, squeaking sound comes from behind me and I tense, but don’t stop moving.
It’s a rat.
Nothing more.
My mind conjures spider legs grazing my scalp, webs strangling my throat, cockroaches scuttling over my face, a snake slithering along my eye, but I push the fear and paranoia back and force myself to keep walking, arm still extended in front of me, my other hand curled into a fist at my side.
The texture beneath my soles changes, my Vans gliding over what feels like sand or pulverized rocks, perhaps crumbling brick.
Something grazes my cheek, soft and sticky, and I flinch away, slapping at my skin, dragging the spider web off with my fingertips.
I wrinkle up my nose, my shoulders hunched, but I don’t stop.
I blink in the dark, trying tosee,wondering what I will find at the end of this tunnel and why there are no lights here, but I gain nothing.
What if he isn’t even here?
What if I get trapped underneath this horror hotel for nothing, and I become a rotting corpse, accidentally locked beneath Number Seven for eternity?
I pause, desperately wanting to turn and run back to the light. To find my friends and beg them to be that instead of brainwashed members of Writhe.
