It's Nothing Personal

Chapter 1

My room is faced so that every morning, at around 5:30 am, the sun shines through the blinds. It traces lines against the walls. He loves drawing on them, marking the movement of the sun before he starts the day. And then Toilet says 'Good morning!' to me, and runs off to wake up everyone else. Well, he doesn't "run" exactly, but he does rush. Most people have gotten used to it, but today was different. The sun still rose, and Toilet still woke up. But someone was awake before him. I heard them, in the hall. They sounded small, as if they didn't want to wake anyone else. They also sounded sloppy. They must've been sleepwalking. I didn't want to leave my room to investigate further, if Toilet woke up without me he'd be scared. Later I found out who it was.

"Good morning MePaaad!!!" my screen blinked on. I took a minute to look out at the sunrise. I had missed it. That's weird.

"Good morning Toilet. How are you?" Toilet was excited like he always was. At least that was normal.

"I'm fantastic!!" I knew he was lying. Partially. He had been having nightmares recently, as had I. I don't know why, but I wanted to help so I stayed up in case he woke up in the middle of the night. He was tired. Before I could bring it up he bounced away. I decided I'd bring it up later and got up. I help OJ at the front desk, so that's where I spend most of my day. I was walking down, just as I always did, when I heard someone walking behind me. It was Baseball. He looked worried....

"Have you seen Nickel?" He asked.

"Not today, no. Would like my assistance in finding him?"

"Yes please!!"

I liked Baseball. He tried to be polite which was nice. "Where would he have gone?"

Baseball looked down the stairs. "There was a place he always liked to visit. He'd probably be there!" By now the others had started waking up and wanted to get by us. Salt kept grumbling under her breath about being woken so early. Baseball led me down the stairs nervously, quickly, almost like he was being pulled by some imaginary force. I lost track of Toilet's whereabouts in the sea of objects filling down to the lobby after us. I heard two objects arguing behind me. It was a very one-sided argument, one of the participants just giggling as if she were listening to the funniest thing she'd ever heard. They were pushing their way through the crowd and brushed past Baseball, accidentally shoving past him a bit too roughly. He spun around sharply and shouted at the two, Paintbrush and Lightbulb. Lightbulb seemed extremely worried. Or as worried as she can be.

"Woah basey boy," she started, "Y'all good?" Baseball took a deep breath and relaxed.

"Yeah- well NO but- Hey, have you seen Nickel?"

"He's missing? Did he leave a note or anything?" Lightbulb seemed to have the situation under control. I decided to leave and start checking what needed to be done around the hotel as Baseball explained that he found no note of any kind. The tasks were as follows, cleaning, cleaning, more cleaning, fixing the TV, even more cleaning. The list went on. It seemed normal, which was a relief.

After a while of waiting, everyone seemed to have calmly dispersed into their daily routines. Toilet had rushed off again, probably to help Soap with cleaning, and I was waiting behind the front desk as I always had. Lightbulb hadn't left Baseball, but seemed to have calmed him significantly. They were whispering about something, and Lightbulb kept flailing her arms in some sort of emphasis. She suddenly stood up and called out loudly to everyone.

"MEETING IN THE LOBBY RIGHT NOW! COME DOWN OR ELSE I'LL BURGLE YOUR STUFF!!"

People slowly started to come down, although it was more out of curiosity than fear of being robbed. Soap pulled Trophy down the stairs. It was slightly amusing. Lightbulb took a head count, not realising that Salt and Pepper had snuck off.

"Ok! We've got a serious problem on our hands people! Our beloved friend Nickel-" I heard Trophy scoff. Paintbrush glared at him. "- has gone missing! SO! We're gonna make teams to search for him so our Basey Boy doesn't need to worry about it!" Baseball's face flushed a little when Lightbulb called out his nickname. "We have 24 people here so we're gonna split up into 6 teams of 4!"

She had counted Toilet and I. It was much too dangerous for Toilet, we should stay back. In case Nickel returns, of course. Yin spoke up.

"Tissues is too weak to go! And you forgot to count Cherries and we as two people."

Lightbulb seemed to think this over. "Fine! I guess the blue dude can stay back. But we'll need others to stay with him."

YinYang offered to stay. That makes three on their team.

"Lightbulb, I hate to interrupt, but Toilet and I still have work to do. We can't leave at the moment." I could hear OJ's quiet 'Yea, me too' from behind me. That makes it seven. I'm sure Box will stay too, so that makes eight!

"Ffffine," Lightbulb whined. "We can just make 4 teams, I guess."

TestTube stepped forward and whispered something to Lightbulb. "That's a great idea! Where are they?" TestTube ran off to grab something. "Ok! Each team is going to get a walkie talkie, which will be connected to a main one that someone staying back at the hotel can run! If we find him, we'll call here and get everyone to return. It shouldn't take too long." By then TestTube had run back with the walkie talkies and put one down on the front desk. Everyone began splitting into teams.

Team One consisted of Suitcase, Balloon, and Baseball.

Team Two was Lightbulb, Paintbrush, Fan, and TestTube.

Team Three included Knife, Pickle, and Microphone.

Team Four was made up of Cheesy, The Cherries, Soap, and Trophy.

Everyone left behind was team five. They checked that their communication devices worked, packed some snacks if they wanted, and left. It became awfully quiet.

"Soooo," Toilet started, but was quickly cut off.

"WE AREN'T GONNA SIT HERE WAITING ALL DAY," Yang was surprisingly calm. Still very rude, but calm, "IF YOU WANT TO STAY HERE WAITING GO AHEAD. I'M LEAVING." He seemed to fight with himself before turning away and leaving. I heard Yin mutter and apology to Toilet. It was awkwardly silent, everyone else had left. Toilet leaned on me and it was peaceful. The device sitting in front of us played static for what seemed like hours. In fact, they were hours.

"... They should've been back by now," Toilet said.

"I'm sure they're ok," I responded calmly.

"Yea... Should we check?"

"If that would make you less worried, then yes."

"I'm not worried ... Let's check anyways."

I pressed a small button on the machine, it was hard to reach with my foot.

"This is the hotel, checking in. Toilet's getting worried-"

"Naw I'm not!!!"

"- and it's been awhile. You all ok? Over." Static. That's the only answer I had for a while. Then I could hear a chorus of "We're all good" and "Still looking". Toilet seemed to relax. I was relieved.

The teams wouldn't return for days.