Hotel Midnight // Shawn Mendes (✔️)

Twenty-Four

When I was in middle school, I was a track star.

Just kidding. The only running I did was to the fridge. That's probably why Cora had sprinted way faster than me despite the fact she had been chained up for about two years, and Mr.Rush had almost grabbed my leg before being stopped by his chains.

When I got out of here, I was definitely hitting the gym.

"You'd think with those long legs you would run faster than me." Cora jokes, and I glare at her.

"My tolerance with you has got to be higher than Snoop Dogg right now." I retort, rolling my eyes at her. We were still running, despite the fact that Mr.Rush was far away from us. But as long as I could still here him yelling his threats, I was still running.

"Comedic. You know, if we had met anywhere else that wasn't the wonderful Hotel Midnight, I'm pretty sure we would be friends."

"Friends? That's a little too much for me, sorry." I tell her.

By now we were walking at a normal pace, Mr.Rush's yells a little too distant for me to hear what he was saying.

"Oh come on, are you telling me you wouldn't meet up with me at a coffee shop and talk about who was best dressed at prom?" She jokes, and I flip my hair dramatically.

"Sorry, I don't do charity work."

"Whatever, you would totally be worst dressed anyways." She replies, and I laugh.

For a moment I completely forgot where I was, or why I was here. Coraline was a pretty chill person. Kylie throwing her out for that boy was a pretty dumb choice.

But then I remember that I was in floor Zero, and I was searching for a key. Well, I was actually searching for a book, which had the key inside of it.

"So, do you have any clue which way would be the way to get to wherever The Secret Garden is? Not that I'm not enjoying our conversation or anything, but I would prefer to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Yeah. This library has a whole medieval section, with maps and knight's armor and all that fun stuff. I'm positive that the book is hiding behind one of the paintings." Cora says, and I nod my head.

"You know which painting?" I ask.

"Yup." She replies, and we both pass a strange statue of two twin children on a rock. Creepy? Definitely. However Coraline doesn't seem to find it as spooky as I do.

"Y'know, I have a sister. We're identical twins. The Hotel decided to tell me all of this stuff, of course, since we've bonded so much over the time I spent in here. But anyways, her name's Margo. This might sound unbelievable, but we were running from a killer before we got here. He was after me, not Margo. But she drove, and we forgot our phones at home. We were going to run away, both of us, to our Grandma's house. He wasn't following us when we got here, I'm sure of it."

"But yeah, I ran into this place in search for a phone. To call 911, of course. That's when I bumped into Mr.Rush. He said he already spoke with my sister, and she was up in her room. He told me to go ahead to my new room and clean up, that it was all free. I thought he was a good guy, helping people out like that. Was I wrong or what?" Coraline told me all of this, her eyes wild.

I couldn't help but widen my eyes during her story. She went from escaping a killer to entering a place where you wouldn't even think to run away from a man with a gun.

"I'm not telling you this so you can cry yourself to sleep tonight. But all I'm saying is that if you ever see a look a like of me, get her out of here before it's too late. Oh, and I also have to give her this necklace back, it's kind of a good luck charm for her." She tells me, pointing to the necklace she was wearing, which had a sapphire shaped as a rain drop.

We're quiet the rest of the walk, and I can't help but wonder what Shawn could be doing at this moment. I shake the thought of him hanging out with some other girl away, knowing it wasn't like him to do something like that.

"Can I get a drum roll please?" My thoughts are interrupted by Cora's voice, and obeying her command, I begin to produce a drum roll by using the wall next to me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the one and only medieval section!" She says, a smile on her face as she pushed the huge red drapes aside enough to show a dark room.

"Dude, it's completely dark in there. I've already peed myself enough times today." I joke, and she rolls her eyes before walking in, the curtains closing behind her.

I mutter a curse word before pulling the red show drapes away enough for me to go inside, and just as I expected, the whole room is pitch black.

That is, until Coraline turns on a flashlight that shines under her face and gives me a heart attack.

"Not funny!" I shriek, which causes her to laugh harder at me.

"You're right, funny would be an understatement." She says between laughter, and I roll my eyes as my heart pace begins to steady.

Cora hands me another flashlight, one of those heavy duty ones that covers a lot of one area with light, and I turn it on instantly, seeing numerous knights all circling the room. Of course they were just armor on a stand, but I couldn't help but be a little more than a little freaked out by it.

"Over here." Coraline whispers, and I follow her to the small painting of horses. As I'm walking I feel something graze my leg, and gasp in fear. However when I point my flashlight to where I felt it, there was nothing.

Deciding to ignore that whole thing since I was pretty sure it was just my imagination acting up, I watch as Cora stares at the painting for a moment before finally taking it off.

I expected a safe, or something else I would see out of a spy movie.

But all we saw when she took the painting off was a hole.

And it was empty.