Hotel Midnight // Shawn Mendes (✔️)

Twenty-Five

I watch Cora raise an eyebrow and reaches for another painting, which also, just like the one with the horses, has nothing behind it.

"You sure it's under a painting?" I ask, and she nods her head, as if there wasn't a possible doubt she could be wrong. Then again, she has been under here chained up for a while.

"One hundred percent sure. You go ahead and check that side of the room, I'll check this side. Just holler if you find anything, and try not to trip over the books." She says, and I nod.

So that's what grazed my legs. Pointing my flashlight to the ground, there were a bunch of books scattered along the floor, some creating small piles.

I begin to go ahead and walk to the other side of the room, staring at the statues as I do. I was obviously being paranoid, but they freaked everything out of me, and I might be more scared of them than I ever was of Mr.Rush.

As I search, I make sure to keep one eye on all the knights in the room, and the other eye on the paintings. Luckily all the paintings were leveled enough so Coraline and I could reach all of them, which meant there wasn't going to have to be a quest on where to find the nearest ladder.

After lifting over half the paintings on my side of the room, I notice that the next painting I was going to have to check under was right next to one of the knights, which I was not okay with.

I think about getting Coraline to check it for me, but I could already hear the jokes about me being a total wimp in the back of my head, so I suck it up and reach for the painting. As I do, my body hits the arm of the knight, and I feel it hit back twice as hard. But before I can pass out thought, I remember a little thing called Newton's laws of motion and internally slap myself.

If I hit something, it's obviously going to swing back and hit me. Me being my scared self, I probably just imagined it being twice as hard.

Either way, I was not about to check that painting again.

Before I can move on to the next one, Coraline calls me over, and I come instantly to see her standing in front of a small hole that was being covered by a painting. This one too, also was of horses.

"Jackpot!" I whisper as she pulls out the book we had need searching for, and as she opens it to see the key, I turn and point my flashlight at the knights again, to see that one of them had moved.

Okay, I know I was being totally spooked over nothing, and the armor probably didn't take a step. It's just my imagination. Right?

Still, as Cora hands me the book with the key in it, I can't help but tell her what I thought I saw.

"Oh, let me guess, it's The Hunters." She says sarcastically, putting her hands up in surrender.

That's when she freezes.

"What? What is it?" I ask, my calmness now out the window.

"Mr.Rush is chained." She whispers, and I raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

"And?"

"When you're chained, your presence is invisible unless you're close by."

We were insanely far away from Mr.Rush right now.

"So that means-" I whisper, and Cora finished my sentence.

"It's The Hunters."

Before I can pause to think, Cora's hand is in mine and I'm yanking her out of there, my sudden running skills coming to action.

If I ran this fast all the time, there would be no doubt that I would be a high school track star.

As we're running, I can hear their footsteps behind us, which makes me run even faster. Coraline is telling me directions and I'm following them without hesitation.

"They're wearing armor, so it's not their real skin! If they touch us, we won't die!" Coraline yells at me, but that doesn't slow me down one bit.

"But if they catch us, we do!"

We continue to run, even passing Mr.Rush, which I'm sure bought us time since they would have to have disappeared.

We take this as an opportunity to catch our breath. Of course Mr.Rush wasn't pleased to see us, but we were standing at a distance that was as close as we could be to him without a chance of him touching us.

"You should do track." Cora says between breaths, and I don't reply, too busy trying to bring oxygen back into my lungs.

As I'm catching my breath, Coraline grabs my hand that doesn't have the book in it, placing some sort of string inside it.

That's when I notice it was her necklace.

"Give it to her yourself." I say, trying to give it back to her, and she shakes her head.

"I will, don't worry, but just in case." She says, and I nod my head, putting the necklace on. Realizing I wasn't going to be able to climb the ladder and hold the book at the same time, I take the key out of it and shove it deep into my pocket.

"Ready?" I ask Cora, ignoring Mr.Rush's protests.

"Absolutely."

And then we start running again. I'm not sure if They got near us, but all I know is that when I saw the ladder that would get us out of here, I couldn't have felt more happy.

"C'mon!" I yell to Coraline, and the moment my hand touches the ladder I climb. I skip a few steps while climbing, not wanting to delay Cora and get her caught by Them.

The moment I'm on the last step I launch myself off of the ladder, and onto the floor of the room that I was led to. Cora is right behind me, and the moment she's close enough I reach for her hand and pull her out.

"Oh my God." She whispers, completely out of breath. Both of us are silent for a while before she breaks into a smile. I don't think I've ever seen someone happier in my life.

She stands up and gives me a hug, before giving me a high five and commenting on how we would totally be the Power Puff girls if there were only two of them.

I smile but don't reply, still staring at the ladder we had just been climbing.

The rest seemed to happen in slow motion.

I notice how close Cora's feet were to the hole we had escaped, and the moment I tell her, it happens.

An armored glove grabs hold of her leg, and before I can do anything, it's too late.

Coraline was pulled under.

yikes I'm sorry

WATTPAD BOOKS-

okay so I'm seriously super thirsty for new wattpad books so if you can think of any that you liked please tell me!!! (little to none smut please im trying to heal my eyes and mind from a Shawn imagine that I didn't know had smut until it came full blast)