Hotel Selten

Forced Fates

“Woah, Woah. This is not the exact thing I am hoping that this hotel has. I thought this is just full of maintenance things.” Blaise said as they entered a place that would look like something Asante could have to ask to build. Inside it was lit up with some capsules and clear liquid in it with some creatures they never have seen, even in someone’s dream. “Don’t tell me Asante has a connection in every underground in France,” Thilda said as she looks at all of the abominations he has created. “Some of them are clearly humans, this one still has his human body shape. I suppose he only has changed his strengths or even abilities.” Miss Eve commented as she observes everything.

“They are just resting, are these of Asante’s aces if he ever had a chance again to crush us? It’s like they are just waiting to be released.” Hugo said as he looks at a being with a lot of spikes and horns. “This one looks like MewTwo! Damn, Asante could recreate Pokemon in just a month.” Diether looks at amusement as he looks at a creature with a really curvy body and weird paws. “Stop with your geekiness, Diether. That can’t save you right now.” Eshne said as she rolls her eyes at the young adult with just pure excitement and amusement. “Don’t kill his joy right now, it’s adorable,” Roche said as he just giggles at Diether’s pureness.

“We should not do anything about these things because we don’t want to have more problems after another one. Trust me, it’s just another headache to endure.” Thilda said as she stopped in her place when the alarm to this place goes off. “Re-initiating security protocols.” They were shocked as a robotic voice spoke from the speakers. “What is happening?” Hibi asked as she looks around. “Activating all alert systems. Warning, a breach in the west-side vault. The vault door was detached. Initiating lockdown.” It continued to speak, “Initiating lockdown!?” Blaise said as he turns to the entrance of this vault. It was being closed by a secondary door. “Melvin! Stop it!”

Melvin runs to it and tried to stop it. He was got the hold of it as he goes against the force that was pushing the door to shut by pushing it back. For him, it was a bit harder since Asante has made it so that it can resist force more than his primary doors could handle. “Roche! Give me a hand here! Not only one, though.” He said while he grunts as Roche turned his arms again to rocks as he helped Melvin. Now there’s massive visual progress of them stopping the door. “Just hop out! I don’t think we can’t open it wide enough and I bet this would never stop!” He shouted as they all agree. Hibi went first since she is the thinnest of them as she was hopped out of the chamber that they were in. Next was Hugo as he just walked out of it.

“Resistance in the secondary door was detected. Initiating secondary defense.” Arabella was pulled out of the room with the assistance of Hugo and Hibi. “What secondary defense?” Ophelia said as she was about to go next but suddenly, she smells an aroma. Her eyes went a little bit blurry and her head became dizzy. “Ophelia! Go on! I think I can’t hold on anymore!” Melvin shouted as she heard that like it was just incoherent noise. She can’t resist the urge to close her eyes. The last thing she felt was a pain in her back, her friends she thinks that shouted her name, and the sight of blurry light.

Ophelia slowly opens her eyes as she looks around. It wasn’t the vault she was in earlier, nor the room she has in the hotel. It’s not even the Hotel Selten. She was in a house, in a room, an unfamiliar one. It strikes a vague familiarity, but she can’t tell. She looks around and looks down at herself. She noticed a sketch pad just near the table. She reached it and looks at it. She looks at the drawing, it was a sketch of a dragon. She never liked dragons, nor anything related to it. She played some dragon-related games before, but she’s not a fan of it. Again, it gave her a vague familiarity.

Suddenly, the door opens, her eyes widen. It was her mother, she was so shocked that she was just staring. “Mom?” She said as the lady in front of her smiles, “Yes, Lia, my sweetie?” She was confused, ‘Lia? Is that how my mom called me before? Is this my childhood room? Is this my true home? Is this really my mom? If I am here… I must be…’ Her eyes widen, she shook her head, “No. No…” The woman she dismissed as her mom sits on the side of the bed. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” She looked at her, “No… You can’t be my mom. She’s dead! I am not dead yet. No. No… Tell me I’m not dead!”

“You aren’t, sweetie. You are alive, how will you be in front of me? Just calm, tell me, do you have a nightmare again?” Her mom smiled sweetly as Ophelia doesn’t buy anything of it, “No. This is just a dream… It’s not real.” Suddenly, her eyes widen as a familiar voice called, “Ophelia!” It was vague, but she knows who is it. “Mom, as much as I want to be with you. You aren’t real, and I am certain I am not in heaven.” She said as she holds her mom’s hand. “Ophelia!” Another call was heard as she looks at her mother, “I love you, mother.”

She slowly opens her eyes as slowly, the caller in her dream was revealed. “Blaise, she is awake!” A familiar feminine voice shouted, as she opens her eyes wider, it was Thilda, she knew it. Blaise approached her, “Gladly she fought back the effects of whatever drugs Asante have created. I thought she will be sleeping a lot.” She looks around as Thilda assisted her to make her sit properly, “What happened?” She asked them, “The secondary defense got into us. Which is some sort of aerial chemical that was dispersed to us. Can you tell us what did it do to you?”

“I dreamed of my mom. It seems so true. I thought I was already in heaven, but me fearing death saved me. My mom is already dead, so it will be so impossible that her will be with me. I don’t know. Everything there was vaguely familiar, but I don’t remember anything. I…” Thilda comforted her as Ophelia embraces her to feel better. “Huh, I think the effect of it is to project your fears, your weakness.” Ophelia looks at him as she looks at Thilda. “His theory must be right, I dreamed of my mom too. I felt like an unexplainable euphoria, happiness that I didn’t even be experienced for years. I thought I was in heaven, with her already. But I heard Blaise, I know this was something. I even thought this was another of Asante’s simulations.”

“It might be like that, but it’s not controlled. It’s controlling your subconscious, which is the brightest thing ever. Subconscious is the mirror of your true identity, him thinking that he can use that is just genius, plane genius. I am not even joking, he is really smarter than me, I wish I was, but this… This is just so smart of him. He might even be using this to manipulate people or even it was his way to create these abominations from scratch.” He just chuckles bitterly, “If he only used this to the better good of all that has supernatural abilities and the whole humanity. He could have been a billionaire now or even a trillionaire!” He sighs, “I should have saved him.”

“There’s no need for blaming here, the thing is how can we go out here?” Ophelia said as she looks at the knocked-out friends of hers, “Melvin and Roche is our only hope, but it seems they are still asleep. How long have we’ve been just… Asleep?” She looked at Blaise, “When I woke up, it’s already 5 in the afternoon, so like, 12 or fewer hours. It’s already 8 pm you know. It really took three hours to wake you up. And, we can communicate with the three that managed to exit this chamber. Hugo’s kicking was the one that woke me up. They said Hibi can’t breach the door, it was tightly locked on each side. They will try everything, even finding a C4 bomb to get us out here. I said we will be just patient until Melvin and Roche finally woke up.”

“I will bet it will be days until we are out of here. Typical scenario, nothing’s new.” Thilda groans as she assisted Ophelia to stand in which she got dizzy at first but she managed to stand like she used to. “We just need to wait. Besides, we can explore things, a door has opened earlier.” He pointed at an opened wall, it was not there 12 hours ago. “We should go back though, we still need to try to wake up one of them, at least.” Both of the girls nod as they entered the door, Blaise looks up at the ceiling to see any security detection. “I guess the security system of this thing is still on guard. Just don’t touch anything, the alarms will go off again, I don’t want to sleep with some fake happy scenarios.”

“You got us, we can traverse this hell hole easy enough,” Thilda said as they start traveling. They are finding a lot of the experiments that were like the others. Imprisoned in tubes with liquid that either makes them float or just preserves them. Some of them are hanging in these tubes or other methods to keep them attached there. “Is this still 2019? It’s like those sci-fi movies I watched before.” Ophelia said as she looks around. “I told you Asante is already far ahead to the current technologies today! He could have been made an industrial empire. But now he’s dead.” Blaise said as he looks around, “He is really into biology. He didn’t change, but it didn’t age so well.”

Ophelia found a room that piques her interest, she entered it as she looks around. There were a lot of folders, papers, and some untouched tablets lying around. She looked at them and it was a lot of drawings, scribbles, arrows, and just everything you could see in a brainstorming paper. She flipped some paper and read them. “They really are dedicated to researching our kind.” Blaise said as he picked up a paper, “Mind-Controlling Types. They are inconsistent, after 3 years of researching them, they still don’t have a consistent pattern. It piqued the doctor’s interest, but it did not go well with his authorities’ patience.” Blaise raises his left eyebrow, “If I were Asante, this person should have been fired. This is not how you take your research notes. This person is not good at keeping secrets.”

As Ophelia was browsing with the research papers on the desk, one of the folders seemingly made her curious. She reached it as she looks at the label of the folder, “Sea Serpents. Huh, this seems cool.” She flipped the cover as she looks at a well-made bio data of it. “Sea Serpents are prominent in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Few are existing these days or they are hiding so well with the environment. The Asante Research and Experimentation staff have retrieved one living sea serpent. They have the ability to shapeshift to their human equivalents and seemingly other sea creatures. This sea serpent that the laboratory has only lasted for 2 months until it seemingly disappeared.”

After reading everything on the first page, she flipped one of them that suddenly made her froze. “These… Are sea serpents?”