Hotel Nigh

Chapter 10

The First Death

The bar was actually a rather nice place in comparison to most of the other regions of Hotel Nigh.

It had a friendly atmosphere. But I ruled this down to it just being Melina and I in here and occasionally Danny when he had to check the bar regularly just to make sure there were no new punters requiring service. He said he had to assist Rose in the kitchen with washing up duty.

Melina had had a few drinks so far and abruptly they were all coursing through her bloodstream concurrently, because she was beginning to get a little sloppy. The fear of her spilling our recent rendezvous and ulterior motive for knocking on every room of the hotel had not quite come to me yet. I was sure it would soon.

"We're bound together now," she stated, glancing at her full glass of water (her first non-alcoholic beverage but definitely not her last), "because of all of this." She rapidly moved her hand between us as we sat on the bar stools, leaning our arms on the bar so we faced one another.

It had bypassed nine o'clock already, and despite there being a hum of music playing from the outdated jukebox in the corner, the rain was still distinguishably audible from outside as it hammered against the outside structure of the hotel. None of that seemed to matter right now, though.

"Do you'll think we'll be able to do it?" I asked. "Solve all of this. I have absolutely no idea where to even start." I'd kept my alcohol consumption to a minimum and was on my second glass of Coke, despite the ridicule I'd received from Danny for not ordering more alcoholic beverages and to have "an awesome time" as he deemed it.

Melina scoffed. "I've been solving mysteries since I was little. I was exceptionally good at figuring out who ate my chocolate."

Amused, I asked, "Really?"

"Yep." She seemed proud, picking up her glass of water. "But the only suspects were my parents and my sister, and my parents were never big on chocolate. My sister was always the one who ate her Christmas chocolate before anyone else did. Mum and Dad took months to eat all of theirs."

Before I could even laugh at her childhood anecdote, there was a faint blood-curdling scream from at least the floor above us. It could have even been the second floor, but from wherever it was, Melina slammed her glass down so hard on the bar that a crack appeared in the bottom of it. I shot off my stool and led the way sprinting through the lobby and up the stairs, Melina in hot pursuit. She'd sobered up quickly.

It took just one single glance at the first-floor for me to get the impression that the scream emanated somewhere on this floor, so I decided to march down it. Doors were opening from this floor and above and the occupiers were poking their heads out or ambling up or down the stairs, their curiosity too piqued and needing satisfying rather than trying to help someone if they were in pain... which by the sound of the scream suggested that they were in pain. And a lot of it.

Someone was darting up the stairs behind us as we prowled the corridor, glancing at every door to eliminate that room as a possibility of where the scream originated from. We got to NIGHT which was halfway down the corridor when Mr. Perry was catching up to us. The footsteps on the stairs were from a man undeniably.

"What's happened?" he asked us, panting as his cheeks began to redden.

Even Gerald the writer had emerged out of his pit which was his room. Looking back down the corridor, I omitted the first three rooms of SUN, STAR and MOON as Elliot and Rose would still be working, and Danny was somewhere behind me. Then my room was at the end of the corridor completely empty. Thus, leaving only one room, and we were stood outside.