⊹ ｡ ﾟ⁖✦ •𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘢 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘰 𝘈𝘜⁖ °✦ ･ﾟ⋆

Chapter 15

Adam was back in his casino attire; black slacks, a baby blue waistcoat with a small silver chain decoration, a white dress shirt, and a red bow tie.
The differences now were the top button of his shirt being left undone and the bow tie tied around his neck to hide the scar from his incident.
He was glad to be back to the way of living he'd become accustomed to, but being up walking around felt alien to him. He took a deep breath in and out, and opened the door to go out to the hallway. Jonah was coming his way! The energetic boy ran up to him and jumped on his back, howling celebration. "DUUUDE!"
"Agh! Yeah," Adam responded. His voice was raspy. He had to get used to speaking again...
Jonah got off his back and stood waiting to follow his friend down the stairs.
There was something new about Jonah too, now...a very slight difference. He was now wearing his hair tied back in a small ponytail. He'd done that before in their past lives, usually during the summer on especially hot days. Adam wondered what prompted him to tie his light fuchsia pink and brown hair back now. Maybe he'd ask later.

Cesar's face lit up with a big smile when he saw Adam walk into the dining room for breakfast. "Ah! Adam! It's lovely to see you again, everyone has been so worried!"
Adam shot him a doubtful gaze. "Yeah, not like this isn't your fault or anything, dumbass..." his raspy voice trailed off.
"What was that?" Cesar asked, genuinely not hearing what the frustrated blonde said.
"Don't worry about it, let's just be happy my bestie's back!!!" Yelled Jonah, pulling Adam in for an awkward hug. He was happy to be back and well, not dead, but everyone and everything was happening so fast. Would he ever get back on the same page as everyone else? He thought.
"I'm relieved to see you again, Adam." Mark said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Adam didn't really believe it, but...Mark was a nice and genuine guy, so there probably wasn't a reason for him to be lying. "Oh...thanks. I think.." Adam mumbled.
"Aren't you happy to be back too?!" Cesar excitedly asked.
Adam's expression hardened again. Was this guy serious? How was he even supposed to answer that question?
"I'll get back to you on that one.." he replied. Cesar and Jonah giggled, thinking he was joking.
~~~
Tonight's game was Uno. Jonah laughed and made jokes about it throughout the whole three hour session. Uno is a family game! What's it doing in a casino?! Type of things. He was definitely enjoying himself.
Mark kept the same stony neutral expression he always had.
Cesar was smiling and chatting as usual.
Adam was his same grumpy self.
Even his attitude was missed! His irritability vs the loud triumphant"HAH!" when he won was something lost during his time away from the group.
What if Jonah was taken next? He also contributed to the noise of game time. His comments, jokes, whines, etc would leave the room eerily quiet.
"Uno!" Cesar giggled placing his last card down.
"UGH! DAMMIT!" The blonde yelled, slamming his hand on the table. Jonah burst into laughter again.
"Ah man! I really missed this part of game time, Ad!" He said, wiping a tear from his eye.
"Yeah, whatever." Adam scoffed, taking his seat again.

Mark was observant. He easily could've won.

But after his encounter with Hearts (aka Archangel Gabriel, aka Lucifer), he purposely let everyone else win. Or he'd come in 2nd place. He was afraid of winning.
"Well, boys! That's been our seventh round, I believe? I can release you all early tonight."
The other three exchanged glances.
"Okay," Jonah spoke up for the group.
"Okay? Great! Goodnight, fellas!" Cesar started picking up the deck while Mark, Adam and Jonah slowly left. They partially believed this was some trick. This had never happened before...and why did Cesar say "release"?

As Jonah and Adam walked out into the lobby and made their way towards the stairs, Mark jogged over.
"Hey,"
The other two men turned their heads.
"Oh hey Mark! What's up?" Jonah responded.
Mark quickly looked back over his shoulder making sure Cesar wasn't in earshot. "Um, wanna go have a meeting in the library? I thought we were going to earlier today after breakfast or something, but..you guys left pretty quickly."
Jonah and Adam looked to each other. Adam gave a small nod.
"Yeah, sure!" Jonah said smiling. "Now?"
"If it's not too late, yeah. That's what I was hoping for," Mark replied.
"Let's do it. I don't care how late it gets." Said Adam, turning towards the direction of the elevator that went up to the other floors.

Now upstairs, Adam slumped into a chair. "Alright. What's up?"
Jonah hopped into the chair next to him.
Mark took his place on the other side of the table. He already had some books and papers there; notes about his life and experiences in this hotel.
"Oh, should we have brought stuff too?" Asked Jonah. "I can probably go get something quick! Or-"
"No, don't worry about it. If you want to, do that tomorrow. We don't have much time tonight." Said Mark.
"'Kay, so whatcha got there?" Adam already had a pen he was fidgeting with in his hands, his legs up on the extra chair on the other side of him. He pointed to Mark's pile of stuff with said pen.
Mark looked down. "Oh, yeah. Uh..." he opened one of the books and shuffled some of the papers.
Adam and Jonah watched him intently.
"I...I noticed something new about Cesar." He kept one of the pages in his hand. It was the one he wrote everything he saw of Cesar that strange night...when he was "sick".
"Oooo, what is it?!" Jonah chuckled.
"Well, okay um, I guess I just don't know if you'll believe me, but.."
"Just say it. We all know how weird Ces is." Adam interrupted.
Mark sighed, glancing up at Adam, looking him in the eyes. He definitely didn't lose any of that attitude he had before...
"O-okay. So uh...Adam, you weren't around when this happened, but-"
Adam interrupted him again with a loud exaggerated sigh; "Uugghhh. Of course! All of the interesting shit has to happen when I can't see it. Fuckin' hell."
Jonah shushed him, causing Adam to scowl at him.
"Well anyway," Mark continued, "he was just...off that night. He ended the game session early and looked...I don't know, just..weird?" He looked to Jonah hoping he would fill in the blanks.
"He was sick or something, wasn't he?" Jonah added, shrugging.
"Sick...'sick'. I guess he did sorta look like he could've been sick, but when I saw him later it was...something I would say is completely different? Just..abnormal. Abnormal for sure."
"We already know he's abnormal, what else?" Adam chuckled.
"Yeah, what I saw when I was on my way to my room was...I don't know how to explain it! It was..." Mark started getting overwhelmed. He pressed his face into his hands.
"Hey, you good?" Jonah reached across the table to console him.
"Just...go ahead and read it yourselves. I-I need a minute." Mark got up and walked away.
Adam watched Mark go, and then turned his focus to the page. He snatched it up and read it, his eyes widening and brows furrowing the further down the page he read. "Jesus Christ," he said.
"What?"
"Look at it." Adam held the paper up for Jonah to take for himself. He read it and had the same facial expressions.
"Oh...my god.." he cupped his hands around his mouth and looked at Adam in fear. Adam looked back at him, then at the page again. "I'm gonna go find him." He said, getting up.
"Wh-who? Mark or-or Cesar?"
"Mark. I'm not confronting that little freak Cesar alone."
Jonah felt the pit in his stomach grow deeper. Even Adam didn't like this...he didn't want to face the situation alone either. This had to be serious if even Adam Murray himself was concerned.

Mark stood by the doorway of the library. There was no true door, but more of a large opening where a set of doors could be. He held one hand on the wall to steady himself. Why was he so shaken up? He would probably be getting a mocking from Adam when he returned to the table. If that's how Adam was going to welcome him back, Mark had no plan of actually listening to him.
Mark stuck his head out into the hallway, looking up and down for any sign of Thatcher, Ruth or Cesar. He got a spook by Adam appearing behind him.
"You good?" He asked, his voice still raspy from the incident.
Mark jumped. "Y-yeah..I mean.." he sighed "no. I'm really not. And if you're going to tease me for that, I don't care."
Adam sighed silently. "Yeah, I...I know I do that a lot. But I'm with you this time."
Mark was surprised. Wasn't Adam a paranormal investigator when he was still alive?
"Really?"
"Mhm. I don't have anything to say..."
Wow. Now did that just make the situation better or worse?
"Okay folks, it's time to go to your suites." Thatcher stepped out from around the corner.
"Maaan!" Jonah walked towards the others.
"So you aren't wondering how we got up here or anything?" Asked Adam.
"I'm not stupid, Murray. I know about that elevator. You're allowed to be in the library anyway. And even if you weren't, I wouldn't really care."

Thatcher escorted everyone down to the floor the suites were on and ensured they all stayed in for the night.
He didn't have anything else to do at the moment, so he went back upstairs to the library. He took in the area, the endless shelves full of books. The liminal emptiness of it all.
Then he found the table the boys had been at. One page was sitting out aside from everything else.
Written in black ink, a description of some entity supposedly seen in the Ace of Heart's (Cesar's) room. Thatcher read it and he really wanted to believe it was just an uncanny horror story written by a horror enthusiast with a wild imagination, but it seemed...too real. Part of him knew it was a true story. He picked it up along with everything else on the table and brought it all down to the security office.
He and Ruth had a new case.