Seek Out

First Encounter

You woke up feeling dizzy and lightheaded.
It's like you just blacked out as soon as you entered the elevator.

Your friends were still lying on the floor except for one. They just woke up. You asked them if they knew what happened, but they shook their head.

A jam started playing, and it was surprisingly good.
"I guess this is our opening theme, haha."
You were too distracted by the music to notice that your friends were already waking up.
A few minutes later, everyone was conscious again and were ready to proceed despite literally fainting the moment you stepped into this.

It was very strange sure, but you did read that it was known to have paranormal experiences and this just might be one of them.

The elevator doors opened, and you were greeted by a small lobby with a reception desk. There was another fireplace and more seatings.
It looked normal, just really old. Nothing was extraordinary, just normal everyday items, but you felt eerie and unsafe. It was so lonely even when there were 3 of your friends with you.
There were closets, plants, bookshelves, and a door.
The door had a metal plate lined with gold. It read "001". Oh, this must be the first room, you all thought. However, there was a padlock, preventing you from opening the door.

Your friends tried to call hotel assistance, but there was no service. Hell, there wasn't even a receptionist at the desk.

"Is this place out of order or something? Why is there no staff?"
Some of them tried to break down the door, while the rest tried to find the key.

"Guys! Look! I see the key! I-It's on the board thing behind the desk!", your friend exclaimed.
You grabbed the key and hurriedly opened the door.
It slammed opened and the next room was pretty empty, aside from two closets and a painting.

The next 6 doors you opened were pretty uneventful.
You heard your friends chattering.

°"Did we even book a room? What were we going to do here again?"

°"I don't know, I thought [friend] was the one to do that."

°"Me? No, I thought it was you! I messaged you telling you to do that task!"

°"What? I didn't get a message at all."

°"Then you have to pay more attention!"

You started getting annoyed and told them to stop.

"Stop it, just tell me if you remember a room that we were supposed to stay in."

"Uhm, well I don't really remember, I just saw it while searching and I decided we'd go there.."

"You didn't need to book a room??"

"Yeah, I thought I said that already."

All of you continued through the rooms, occasionally finding some more locked doors that you easily opened since the keys were easy to spot.
You opened door 9 and the lights started flickering. You didn't think anything of it as you were not aware.
There were tons of closets, but no one paid attention to them.

"This is really messy.. Who uses closets instead of boxes or shelves.."

"Door 9 and we've found nothing! Where's all the paranormal stuff that we were promised?!"

"
"Shh, be quiet! I hear something."

All of you noticed a distorted, sort of screaming noise getting louder. It was accompanied by sounds of lights shattering. You looked back and saw.. something... coming closer. Every door it went through turned pitch black as the lights broke.

You were about to tell everyone to hide, but they already entered the closets.
You hid in one too at the last moment, and for a split second you saw its face through the cracks of the closet.
It looked like a boy, with a big head and it had a smile. A very large and creepy one. It was greyish and had a black aura surrounding it. It ran and moved impossibly fast.

You could feel everything shaking violently and your heart pounding.
After it passed by, you could no longer hear any distorted noise and the room was dark.

However, you were afraid something was going to happen if you stepped outside, so you remained in the closet out of fear.

Your head started feeling dizzy. At first it was a slight ache, then a fuzzy feeling, then it felt like you were about to collapse. As if something was keeping a tight grasp on you and started slowly choking you. Your heart raced and you started hearing whispers telling you to get out.
You thought it would just pass and was a result of panic from what happened earlier, but you were wrong. You started having hallucinations of the words "Get out".

In the background, you could hear someone exiting the closet.
You heard a few more thuds like something fell to the ground.

You abruptly got pushed out from the closet and your chest felt extremely painful. It quickly faded, though, and you opened your eyes to see 2 of your friends also on the ground in the same condition as you were.

Your other friend was standing, trying to find a way to help them.
Everyone got up and hugged each other, glad that they were okay.

What.. was that thing? You didn't see that on the hotel description. Is this one of the ghosts?
You shook your head and decided to focus on other stuff.
You looked to the next door.

"Come on guys, get up."

"But what if it comes back?"

You started contemplating whether or not you should enter the next door.
Looking back, you didn't see any other option. The doors behind you were already shut.

"I think we'll be fine. Atleast we know the warning signs."

"But I don't know the warning signs."

" Well, let's see.. The lights flickered and we heard weird noises as it arrived. "

" Oh, okay. "

All of you hesitantly stepped into the next door and looked around.

"There's nothing much. Let's keep going. "

" Wait, wait, there's a drawer, maybe there's gold in there."

"Gold? Why would a hotel keep such a valuable material in a drawer?

"I saw gold in another drawer a few rooms back. Also a lockpick."

"A lockpick? Do you still have it?"

"Yeah, it's in my pocket."

"Great, keep it there until we need it ."