The Golden Hotel

Seek and Seek

Jared grunted under his breath as he stooped down from time to time to keep his luggage closed. A few of his clothes had burst out of it right from the moment he carried it out of the bus' compartment. He had to endure some teasing from his squad for bringing an old hardside luggage. The lock must have broken off during their travel. Maybe it was his karma for calling Daren old. Hans offered to help him but Jared insisted on doing it himself. He urged them to enter the hotel without him.

Passing through the huge wooden doors, he stopped by the reception desk to give his luggage a little kick; it ate his clothes back. He sighed heavily and looked around. Strange? The receptionists were no where to be seen and the supposed chattering guests were missing. His friends weren't sitting at the waiting lounge as well.

It was dead silent.

He pulled his luggage again and came across a wooden double door carved with designs of nature. The walls surrounding it extended from east to west. The only way to enter the lobby was right before his prying eyes.

Jared tried pushing the double door. He advanced a foot, pushed and pushed until it opened wide. Then a strange aroma faintly greeted his nose. It could be something alarming, but he shrugged it off and continued on inside, not knowing about the danger that he was going to run into. He thought that he could finally see them seated on a couch, talking and fooling around, but that expectation was horrifyingly shattered. His face went pale at the sight of his friends laying unconscious on the floor.

Dropping his luggage, he tried to catch up to them but his eyesight suddenly went out of focus. He stumbled, swayed and regained his balance a couple of times. Inhaling the strange scent more into his lungs only clouded his vision and blocked his sense of direction.

"What the hell is this . . . smell? Sleeping gas?"

When his body could no longer muster the energy to go on, he collapsed onto the floor with a loud and heavy thud. Jared tried to crawl his way to his friends but his limbs were not cooperating. For the first time, he felt helpless and weak. What was going to happen to them?

Suddenly, the sound of hollow footsteps echoed throughout the lobby. It was slow, yet, cautious.

Despite the hallucination kicking in, he still managed to land his eyes on that person's shoes while fighting off the drug's effect on him. Whoever stood before him only laughed in a low, distorted voice. He or she patiently watched him until he had completely fallen asleep.

"I'm sorry, Jared. Apparently, you were too late to see who I am. You almost ruined my plan for the first game."

··························

Maxine groggily sat straight up with a soft moan. She creased her forehead and her hand found its way pressing her pounding head. It was tolerable enough to handle the pain. When the throbbing sensation receded, she turned to her right then to her left. Someone familiar was sprawled on the cream carpet near the wall.

"Daren!" She hurriedly crawled right to him and grabbed his shoulders, trying to shake some sense into him. "Daren? Can you hear me? Daren!"

"I hear you . . ." Groaning, he fluttered his eyes open and fixed his blurry vision on her.

"Can you get up?"

"I think I can." With her assistance, Daren managed to sit on the floor and lean his back against the wall. He remained seated for a while, letting the stored blood in his brain flush down his system. "What happened? Where are they?"

"I've got no clue. I think . . . someone dragged us here."

Maxine examined the room, appearing to be the hotel's suite. It was completely furnished with chairs, sofas, lampshades, tables and a bed, but with the exception of the telephone. The windows were closed or rather blocked by bricks, preventing the sunlight from shining through. The curtains became useless.

Their belongings were also missing.

"Uh . . . Maxine? You might want to check that out." Daren pointed at the door.

Whipping her head around, she rose from the floor and went to grab the white sticky note on the door. She came back to his side and shared the first game instructions to him. The words written were in red ink:

        Did the sleeping gas frighten you?

        It is part of the game, my friend . . .

        Today, we will play: Seek and Seek.

        This is not Hide and Seek.

        You need to find each other in this hotel, which has

        40 floors, garnering a total of 40,999 Rooms.

        Mobiles are prohibited. I took yours away to avoid

        meeting up as this will disqualify you.

        Before you can have your dinner together, find

        your way to each other. Then . . .

        dinner is served!

        This note will self-destruct . . . NOW!

        Kidding.

        You might lose your HAND.

        Ha ha ha. 

··························

Inside another suite, Meg harshly blew her bangs away after reading the note. They could be anywhere inside the hotel!

"Ugh," she pocketed the paper and darted him a serious gaze, "where should we start?"

"I don't know." Theo nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. "This hotel has 40 floors and 40,999 rooms. How are we supposed to find them?"

Actually, he was more worried about Faith. He should have been with her and not with this sassy woman!

"Well, the best possible solution is to start roaming around. The earlier we find each other, the earlier we get to eat dinner." She turned to the door, twisted the doorknob and exited the suite along with him.

··························

4:13 p.m.

"Kacey! We're on the 24th floor, Room 24,736." Klein had been standing outside the corridor, facing their suite's door with his mouth agape. "How is it possible to have this crazy kind of number in the hotel?"

"What!" Kacey's eyes bulged out when she closely looked at the door's number. "Are you kidding me? This place is enormous! How are we going to find them if we are not allowed to have a phone? We can't even meet up in a particular place!"

Klein instantly frowned. Roaming around would be too exhausting but what other options could they choose?

"Y'know, we should probably go before someone jumps out on us."

The yellow lights emitting from the wall lamps were quite dim, leaving several areas of the long corridor dark. The only thing lacking was an evil entity materializing to scare them off. Hopefully, that would never happen.

Shuddering, he wrapped his arms around himself. "This is givin' me the chills!"

She scoffed and crossed her arms on her chest. "Wow . . . I should be the one trembling instead of you. Don't be such a weenie!"

His cheeks instantly turned red. "W-Weenie is cute to some women!"

"Some women." She rolled her eyes. "First, let's try heading downstairs. That okay with you?"

"I'm just here tailin' you." He surrendered his hands in the air.

··························

5:24 p.m.

Yves nearly teared up as he roamed around the whole 34th floor until the last floor. His joints were giving up. They couldn't be seen at all so he had to descend again along with his partner.

"Yo, Jared . . . Can we rest for a bit?" Panting, he collapsed on the red carpet to steady his breathing. "All this walking is killing me!"

"Okay, but after five minutes. We can't bear to lose time." Jared leaned his back on the wall and lifted the hem of his shirt, creating some wind for himself. "This hotel is like a maze!"

"This is just the first game and I'm tired already. I thought this would be easy." Yves frowned. "I'm not the sporty type."

As if the world had stopped spinning, Jared fell silent on his place. A particular scene at the lobby - before the sleeping gas had totally knocked him out - popped in his mind. "Hold on a second. I think I almost saw the game master."

"You sure, man?"

"Not a hundred percent. I failed to see his or her face because . . . I began hallucinating back there." Jared clicked his tongue once along with a brief shake of his head. "Ah, crap. I couldn't remember anything after that."

Another frown crossed over Yves' face. They could have gotten a lead about the real identity of the game master, but he or she appeared to be clever. It seemed as though that he or she was avoiding to be identified in the first game. That was reasonable, but how about the way they were involved in this unpleasant situation?

"No pressure, man." Yves gathered his feet, stood up and patted his friend's shoulder. "We'll soon find out."