The Alternate Timeline

Chapter 9: The Rescue Attempt

He put the crumpled paper directly in front of his face, and squinted. As there, at the bottom right hand side of the letter was a miniature sized logo. The logo was so faint that it appeared to blend right into the white background of the letter, making it very challenging to spot, even for the most observant of individuals. It was so well hidden, that he had nearly missed it earlier.[Especially considering his previous frantic (brief) search of the letter itself]. The golden shiny logo glinted in the sunlight as Diego tilted the letter up towards the ceiling to get a better look at it. But even in the bright radiance of the sunlight, Diego still struggled to make out what it said. Then after much effort, he had done it. He smiled, feeling proud of his mere achievement.

Then, turning to his siblings he said with a hopeful tone,

"Guys, I think I know where the kids are."

At this, the Umbrellas 'jerked' themselves out from their own respective thoughts and all made their way around Diego, crowding around him. It seems that Diego's remark had caught all their attention. They all eyed him with their gaze, as if probing him to elaborate further on what he had found. At which pointing towards the barely readable logo itself, Diego opened his mouth and read out,

"The Hotel Obsidian."

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*Bump*

That was the sound of the car door closing. The Umbrellas all got out, one by one at which for a few mere seconds they couldn't help but cower in the presence of the towering ,creepy looking, clearly abandoned hotel. There was a weird creepy aura about this place...

But the fact remained that they were here to do what they had to do. So, pushing aside whatever chills they had about this place, they took a deep breath and set foot through the dark entrance and into the hotel itself...

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There was a ear-piercing loud *CREAK* as the Umbrellas made their way through the turnstile of an entrance. It seemed that the various mechanisms of the turnstile had turned somewhat faulty, implying the extreme lack of maintenance from all those decades of no longer being used. The hotel itself was rather dim, with not much light present other than the sole stream of sunlight coming through one of the cracked windows. In addition, there were a wide variety of flora located all around the hotel itself, with some on the walls, some hanging from the ceiling ,and some on the floor --In short they were everywhere. But what was mostly unsettling about this was that majority of those plants were DEAD--probably from the immense lack of sunlight and other natural resources. To make it even worse, the disorderly cluttered furniture on the floor were now home to that of tiny little 'creepy crawles' , with some of them crawling in and out of big holes. All this coupled with the numerous cobwebs and evident dust everywhere was more than enough to make the whole interior of the hotel seem extremely dull and depressing, just as it looked from the outside. This of course made the Umbrellas couldn't help but wonder how it must have been when the hotel was still filled with buzzing tourists, and not long and forgotten just as how it was now.

Due to the apparent massiveness of the hotel, it was clear that splitting up would probably be for the best of the mission, to raise up the likelihood of finding the kids at a faster rate. Luther would go with Allison, Diego with Klaus and Vanya by herself.

---------Luther and Allison's POV:

*HUFF, HUFF, HUFF*

That was the collective sound of Luther's and Allison's laboured breathing as they climbed the last flight of steps up towards the third level. Man were they tired as hell. [Especially considering that they had just been frantically running about and searching the past three levels for the kids' whereabouts]. They had made sure to search each and every one of the hotel rooms located on the lobby to the second level of the hotel, every nook and cranny, careful not to miss any potential hiding spots, but to absolute no success. It seemed the kids were just simply not there. Hence their further pursuit of the third floor itself. There were in total about 28 floors while there were three groups of them[The Umbrellas-Grp1:Luther and Allison, Grp2: Diego and Klaus, Grp3: Vanya]and the plan was for each group to cover a couple of floors each. But to make all of their searches even more painstakingly long and energy-draining was that all the elevators seemed to be long broken, all far beyond use. [Now where were the stupid elevators when you needed them right?]