God's Gone AWOL

[3] The Puzzle Begins

As the bellhop turned around, Atticus caught the flash of his golden nametag pinned to the side of his chest. It read "Leslie". Atticus felt a little better now that he didn't have to refer to the bellhop as "the bellhop".

"Did you just bribe him?" he asked Bentley,

"Actually," she said, "He was bribing us first. Sometimes you just gotta play dirty,"

"You're unbelievable,"

"You're still here. Who's really the unbelievable one?"

Both of them stopped once they passed the elevators. There was a maintenance worker in black overalls poking at the electrical panel on the wall, and a red velvet rope had been hastily moved in front of each of the sets of metal doors. It looked like they were out of order.

"What's wrong with the elevators?" Bentley asked,

"Oh, they're old," said Leslie the bellhop, "They broke just after Mr. Feral arrived, so we're gonna have to take the stairs,"

They nodded silently and continued to follow. Atticus leaned over and whispered quietly to Bentley.

"This doesn't seem like a coincidence," he said.

"No," she agreed, "Do you think he might have known we were coming?"

Leslie led them through a heavy metal door. He held it open politely, acting as though he hadn't already broken his illusion of professionalism by accepting bribes from people who weren't even staying at the hotel. As soon as they entered the stairwell, Atticus couldn't help but internally face-palm a thousand times.

The height of these stairs... was just too much.

Much of the climb was obscured by layers and layers of banisters and walls, so they weren't even able to see all the way up. The stairs spiraled upwards, around and around and around, so high that they were seemingly endless. Even the golden staircase in the Library of Heaven wasn't this excessive. He wasn't sure what he had expected from a building of this size, but the ground still spun under Atticus' feet as he looked up the endless flights.

"Don't worry! It's just a short climb," said Leslie, "No elevator, no problem!"

"What floor is Mr. Feral on?" Atticus asked, his voice smaller than he meant it to be.

"The twenty-ninth!" Leslie enthusiastically began to climb those unending stairs.

"The WHICH NOW??" Bentley demanded, chasing after him.

Atticus had no choice but to follow.

The three twirled upwards, circling each set of stairs in a gradual incline. Leslie was energetically in the lead with Bentley valiantly attempting to keep up with him. Atticus brought up the rear. He had much less energy than either of the other two. And although theoretically he could go over thousands of steps with the power he had, climbing like this was still exhausting. This wasn't a hotel staircase, this was practically Jacob's Ladder.

Upwards, upwards, upwards. Each step pushing the ground further downwards. Each... agonizing step. Each sweat inducing, horrible, needless step. How did humans get by with so many stairs and no wings to back them up??

After what felt like an eternity, Bentley straight up collapsed on one of the landings. Leslie may have been made out of rubber, but she wasn't. She remained there on her hands and knees until Atticus caught up to her. Her red hair was drenched with sweat and her white face was flushed a light pink. Atticus on the other hand, showed no physical signs of weariness beyond the slight uneven breaths escaping his lips.

"Are you alright?" he asked her,

"If he wasn't a goddamn human, I'd just fly to the top floor in an instant. But nooo, gotta say in character,"