Floor Five

In a world where living things cannot sustain their existence without taking in nutrients from something else, consumption is a necessity. Even plants must absorb water, oxygen, and sunlight to survive. Without the necessary substance, all living things cease to be… therefore, all living things are dependent beings.

 Humans, as the most dominant species on Earth, consume just about everything else on Earth in some way, shape, or form. They build and destroy seemingly at their own pleasure; capable of wiping out entire species for the sake of satisfying their cravings. They are the largest consumers on the planet, undoubtedly.

 So then, what happens when the greatest consumer is threatened with being consumed? The creature at the top of the food chain is faced with a fate it has delivered to its prey for so very long that it can't comprehend being put in the opposite role. Truly, it is a humbling experience… that is, to put it lightly.

Sweat dripped off my face as I gasped for air. It was difficult to breathe in this musty hotel, despite the ventilation shafts running through the ceiling on each floor. The tingling sensation in my hands and feet as I fought back another combat de puer didn't help either.

 We successfully made it past the fourth floor without any major injuries, but only narrowly. I didn't even want to think about what would've happened if that skeletal pumpkin dog thing had managed to catch us. I could still hear the undead canine wailing and scratching on the door down the stairs.

 "There goes the torch…" My father quipped, holding onto his shoulder with a pained look on his face. That torch proved more useful than I had thought it would. I hoped that the pumpkins had found a way to extinguish the flames before this place burned down with the two of us still wandering through it.

 "Father, is your shoulder broken?" My concern for him seemed to beat out the incessant worries of the dog breaking through the doors. His shoulder looked to be shifted out of its usual placement on his torso. I couldn't tell how bad it was, but I knew it must've hurt.

 "I must have dislocated it when I barged into the door. I should have just kicked it open like I have in the other buildings I've revived, but I was too panicked to think about that." His voice was shaky.

 I had no clue what to do about his shoulder. I'd read in books about adventurers that would end up with dislocated shoulders, but the verbal descriptions of how to relocate said shoulders were either unrealistic or ill-explained. I simply prayed that it would not cause him too much pain until we could get out of there.

It wasn't long before the faint light from underneath the door appeared once again. This time, however, it was visible from around the corner at the end of the hall. "Let this serve as a warning." Its voice echoed in my mind. "That injury is one of many you will suffer if you persist to climb heights forbidden."

 Knowing that my father couldn't hear it, I stood up and faced the direction where I could see the faint light, slowly walking toward it. I was going to confront whatever this voice was trying to speak to me, whether it be a man with a candle or the spirit of the founder of this hotel. "We couldn't leave if we wanted to! Not with your gourd-hound from Hell blocking the exit!" I shouted in response to his warning. He didn't seem to like my attitude, but that didn't matter to me because I didn't like his attitude either.

 As I reached the corner, the light disappeared without any trace of it ever being there. "What a coward. Here I was almost losing myself to fear, but now this man won't even show himself." I said silently to myself, clenching my fists in frustration. I don't know why, but I felt so satisfied to judge this haunting voice that conversed with me in my mind.

 "Lyra, where are you going and to whom are you raising your voice?" My father asked, still leaning on the wall behind me. I gestured for him to remain silent for a moment. Something about that light intensified my curiosity. I now wanted to press forward through this hotel for no other reason than to discover the source of its voice.

 "Who am I to control the beasts you've awakened within this den of horrors? If you fear these monstrosities, you should never have stepped foot within my abode." The light reappeared underneath the door to the staircase. "You will leave my hotel alive and never return, or you will unite with your demise within its walls. No other choice is within your realm of possibility. Wisdom has evaded you up until this point, and I urge you to grasp it while you yet have it within reach."

 I remained silent for a moment, considering his words.

 "Did you just call me stupid?" I questioned him. The light disappeared again soon after and I heard no response. "I guess that's a yes."

 My father looked completely baffled. "Lyra, please inform me of what is happening." He sighed.

 "This imbécile just called me stupid." I muttered to my father, mildly outraged by this man's indignity toward me. "He has the nerve to talk only to moi, as though I am the more understandable between the two of us, then proceeds to throw dirt at my face! C'est inacceptable!"

 "Lyra, please calm yourself and explain to me. I am in the dark here, both literally and metaphorically!" My father requested rather demandingly.

 "Let me release my troubles for a moment! I am in distress!" I was very much aware of his pained shoulder, but decided to tease him, nonetheless. I needed to relieve the stress somehow.

 "YOU are in distress? Oh-ho-ho, madame! Is your shoulder disconnected from your skeletal structure? I think NOT!" He retorted loudly, trying to sound playful, though his attempts to hide his infuriation were… sub-par. Clearly, this was no time to be picking on my injured father.

 "I am only teasing, dear Papa. The light I saw under the door the day before we made it to the second floor has returned. The voice of a man speaks to me every time it reappears. I believe it must be the founder!" I hoped my explanation was simple enough for him to understand and calm enough to soothe his stressed mind.

 Taking a deep breath, my father looked up at me from the wall he sat against. I continued to explain to him everything that the voice had been telling me, most especially about the voice's explicit threat to kill him in particular.

 "What did I do?" Papa exclaimed.

 "Apparently, invade this man's hotel."

 "Well, this man is mistaken. I don't care if he is the founder, he's long since deceased and I am doing him a favor by bringing his ingenious design for a hotel back to life!"

 My father's passion for this project was more undying than the dog on the third floor. That being said, he himself was a mere mortal with no such capabilities of coming back to life that I was aware of. That was, unless that hotel had that sort of effect on people. Either way, my father was my only true family, and I wasn't willing to find out.

 "Papa… perhaps we should heed the warning and just stop here. That dog will eventually give up and we could likely run back across that floor in no time." I suggested it as gently as I could. His life was not worth losing over this disgusting building.

 My father, being my father, looked straight up into my eyes with a blazing fire almost literally visible within them. "I am Matis Gibeau! I do not quit! I have restored houses in much worse condition than this hotel, and I am not going to let some supernatural imbécile stand in the way of my project." His voice toward the end of the sentence lowered dramatically as he raised his fist into the air.

 "Papa now is no time for antics. This may be the end of Matis Gibeau if we do not turn around now." I urged him, though I knew it was no use.

 "If we turn around and abandon this hotel as it already has been once, we are abandoning the souls trapped here to eternally dwell trapped within this place. Never to reach the heavens where they belong." He expounded. "Don't you see, dear Lyra? This concerns more than my own name or my own honor. We need to find out everything we can about the people that once ran this hotel, so that we may honor their memories and restore their efforts! This is salvation for them… and for me." His tone became somber. He must have been thinking about my mother.

 "But Papa…" I began to oppose, but to no avail. The emotion in the air was almost palpable as we sat there in the halls of a dark and dreary hotel.

 "Lyra… your mother. She was the most wonderful thing that happened to me. When she left us, she was going on a mission to spend the rest of her life making the world a better place. The least I can do is make this hotel a better place in honor of her." Tears had begun streaming down his face. My father was the only man of high public acclaim that I knew that would allow himself to cry in front of his daughter.

 Without another word, I nodded my head and sat down next to him. I could not stop him, nor did I want to, anymore. I hadn't known then the reason why my mother left, save that "things weren't going to work out". Whatever she was doing must have been world changing for a proud but loving man such as Matis Gibeau to willingly let her go. Although I was curious as to what she was doing, that would have to wait until we were in a safer place.

 Unfortunately, the moment of somberness that distracted us from the fearful place we were in didn't last nearly long enough…

 "I hunger…" A deep, growly voice echoed from the halls beyond. There were enough windows and open doors that we could see better than the previous floor, though still not very well. We heard no footsteps… but that large, perturbing voice carried through the halls without any doubt of its reality.

 Papa looked at me and gestured an urgent order to stay silent. We needed to move then and there. We knew not what was making that voice, but that was by no means the voice of any man nor woman. It reverberated off the walls like no other voice I had ever heard and boomed like distant thunder.

 "I know you are here, my prey." The voice sounded like it was coming from every direction as we moved as noiselessly as we could through the halls. To our dismay, the walls were very oddly placed. Instead of being a simple grid pattern like the other floors, this one seemed to be a maze with multiple turns and dead ends… just what we needed.

 At the first split in the halls, we had three options: left, right, or straight forward. The hall that went straight forward turned off to the left at its end. The hall to the right had a door at the end of it, and the wall to the left was too long for us to be able to determine what to make of it. There were many other doors to what we assumed were bedrooms strewn across each hall as well.

 "Where are you, little mice?" The voice echoed again. This time it sounded like it might be coming from the left hall. With that option eliminated, I followed my father forward. Not so surprisingly, there was a dead end with an open janitorial closet.

 "I smell something delicious…" The voice sounded far too close for comfort. We couldn't waste any time!

 Papa grabbed me with the arm still within its proper frame and pulled me into the janitorial closet with him. We did not shut the door out of fear that it might creak when we did, so I silently prayed that this monster would pass us without finding us. I had never prayed so much since I was old enough to comprehend religion!

 "Hmm." The voice sounded like it had passed our hall and continued down the path to the right. We would have to carefully sneak into the left hall and hide in a room if it decided to turn around. It took every bit of self-control I had to stop myself from letting the fear take over. If that happened, I would surely try to run and end up getting eaten by this mysterious, ghastly predator within these halls.

 I silently thanked God for making the floors carpet. Otherwise, our shoes would have inevitably made too much sound. With that advantage, we slowly crept out of the janitorial closet and back to the split. My father looked both ways to see if he could spot the monster before we moved on, giving the "good-to-go" signal when he discovered nothing.

 My heart was racing as we turned that corner. I couldn't see very far, and I could only imagine what this massive creature would look like. Of course, my imagination was far too exuberant to explain. Suffice it to say that no one should ever know how I imagined that monster to appear.

 "Don't be shy…" the voice boomed again. It was behind us and not far! It must have taken the hall to the entrance where we had originally come from! I couldn't handle the thought that it may have spotted us and was just toying with us for its own twisted entertainment.

 I held on tightly to my father's hand as we rushed as quietly as we could to the nearest room. I reached my hand out to the door when my father spoke out loud, looking back at the split in the hall: "Make haste!"

 I took a quick glance back before we started dashing madly toward the end of this hall, praying it wasn't a dead end. The monstrosity had spotted us and was coming our way quickly!

 "Run! RUN! Run away, my prey!" It shouted with delight. We could see nothing of its details, nor could we hear any footsteps. It appeared to be an enormous shadow with wide open eyes glowing white, featuring miniscule pupils. Its mouth contained glowing white, almost square teeth with red stains in a mouth that stretched from one side of the hall to the other. This thing's face was barely small enough to fit in the hallway!

 We ran until we reached the end of the hallway which also resulted in a split. We could take a left turn or a right turn, and my father chose to turn left. I had no time to disagree, nor could I think straight enough to guess if this was a good direction.

 With a loud "THUNK" we ran into the wall at the end of the hall, causing the monster behind us to laugh loudly. "I don't think this thing can fit through the doorways! In here!" I told my father in panic as I opened the nearest door and dragged him in.

 The room that we had entered was a fairly large one with a king-size bed and a walk-in closet, those being the only details I could make out because of the lack of a window or lamp.

 "Good thinking, Lyra." My father said breathlessly, his chest heaving. A sense of security washed over us as we heard the creature sigh in frustration, its teeth grinding unsettlingly as it stopped at the doorway.

 Just as we thought we might have outsmarted the creature, we saw something I would not soon forget… the giant face folded in on itself and passed through the doorway with relative ease, slowly unfolding as it entered with a crazed look. If it had a physical face, its eyes would be bulging out, its veins red and its pupils pitch black. It was clear, though, that the only physical thing about this face was its eyes and silver-sheened, bloodstained teeth. The rest was nothing but darkness.

 I screeched as it opened its mouth wide and charged forward at us, clearly intending to kill. I became paralyzed with fear as those giant white teeth shaped like the head of a hatchet grew nearer, threatening to sink into my flesh and split my skull. A vivid image of my cleaved brain slipping out of open skull passed sickeningly through my mind. If my father hadn't pulled me out the way and dashed around the massive face so quickly, I would have been devoured on the spot.

 "We mustn't freeze! Keep moving!" He ordered me, awakening me to my senses as we ran out the door and across to the other path. "If we hesitate for one moment, it will eat us up with just one bite! We need to get out of this maze!"

 Heeding his words, I ran as fast as I could though I could tell I was slowing him down. His legs were longer, and he was far more athletic than I was, nevertheless, the adrenaline pushed me past my limits.

 "Run away, little mice! You'd better beat me in this race!" The now maniacally angry-sounding voice wasn't far behind us. I dared not look back, because I could feel its hot breath on my back as we suddenly turned another corner… then another… then one last one before we ended up right back at the split where we just were. This hall was a big loop!

 The thought of those giant teeth crunching into me continued to haunt my mind, forcing tears out of my eyes. I wouldn't be able to take this much longer! I wanted nothing more than to be free from this dread of becoming a minced meal!

 Acting quickly, we darted back toward the one way we hadn't tried yet: the right hall with the door at the end of it. This one would have to be the one, or else my fears were going to become a gruesome reality.

 "I can't wait… I can already taste you!" The crazed voice was now much farther behind than before, but still not far enough for comfort. That distance was slowly becoming less and less as we rushed toward that door as fast as we could. My legs pulsated with adrenaline and burned as though my veins were set aflame!

 "Hold on!" My father shouted as I opened the door. Once again, my father had saved me from certain death. This door brought us outside of the hotel to what was once a metal staircase leading up and down between each floor but had since collapsed. A storm brewed outside, making it dim despite the time most likely being midday.

 "What do we do!?" I frantically begged my father, seeing the giant shadow face nearing us by the second. My heart felt as though it would leap through my throat, out of my mouth, and down those four stories onto the ground where it would burst into a bloody pool. I had never felt so anxious and nauseous simultaneously. All of this was truly sickening.

 Without any further speech or speculation, my father used his one functioning arm to throw me upward onto part of the staircase that did remain. Without any hesitation, I steadied myself and helped him up onto the same piece of staircase just barely hanging on to the wall. It creaked and wobbled but remained steady enough as we climbed our way out of this predator's reach.

 "Graagh!" The monster roared as my father reached down and slammed the door in its face, or rather… its body?

 Without giving it any more time to figure out if it was going to fly up after us or something else crazy, we made haste to climb up the remnant of those stairs to the nearest door. That staircase was shaky, and screws were falling out of the wall with each movement. I opened the door and entered first since I was already ahead. I watched with my throat clenched all the way down to my lungs as my father jumped in just before the rest of the staircase detached itself from the wall: crashing down to the ground in complete shambles.

 "Papa!" I cried, clinging to his uninjured side. "That was too close!" Tears were streaming down my face, and I could not stop my heart from racing. I had never feared a single face so much in my entire life!

 My father was hyperventilating but seemed to calm down easier when I was close. Eventually, we both managed to catch our breath… though we dared not let our guard down. After all, this was… L'Hôtel Hanté.