PREVIOUS - THE NIGHTBUS
We were able to spend the night in the closest hotel, a dinky little inn that had a very disinterested hostess. She just gave us a key and waved us upstairs. Doesn’t money mean anything to them? All of us were too tired to argue, though, so we crawled into bed and fell asleep.
I woke up with the sun shining in my face. I sighed with relief. Okay, maybe it was all a bad dream? Did I have a weird trip from something some asshole put in my drink? When I pulled out my phone, I noticed with a lurch it was 11:59, but I calmed myself down. Noon, then. I hadn’t put my phone on 24-hour time but 12-hour. It was right before noon. I fished my charger out of my handbag (never leave without it!) and looked out the window.
Our room overlooked the town square. It had a memorial, a statue of some explorer - complete with coonskin cap - that stared out into the distance. The clock tower was across from us, still stuck at 11:59, but at least it seems the chiming had been given a rest. I couldn’t see the bus terminal, as it was behind the clock tower, but I could see the edge of town from here - we were in a small valley with steep hills all around us, coated in pine trees.
I sighed and scrolled on my phone. I still couldn’t see why I had wifi while the others didn’t. The network was called TERMINUS - the same name as on the sign on the bus terminal - and it was free to connect to. I could scroll through news sites and wikipedia, but when I tried to message other friends, the messages didn’t go through. I could only assume they couldn’t send me anything either.
Caroline and the others slowly stirred awake. “Ugh, meggs, what’s goin on…”
I turned around. “We’re in… Terminus, I guess.” I tried looking it up on google maps, but didn’t get any results.
“So far from home… What do they have for breakfast?”
I shrugged, smiling. “We’ll have to see. You up for getting up?/”
“No… my head…”
I nodded and waited for the boys to wake up as well. All three had a hangover, but Collin’s and Caroline’s were truly massive. Charlie was fit enough to get out of bed and get ready to explore the inn, at least. I kept the key of the door with me and told both of them to stay inside - not that they were going anywhere.
The hallways of the inn were bland. It wasn’t big - one hallway on each floor with about five or six doors and a staircase on one end. The wallpaper was probably supposed to be a calming vanilla with a daisy motif, but it just ended up looking old and yellowed. The doors were exactly the same cream color save for the silver number on the door. Ours was 25 - second floor, fifth room. I noticed it also had a chip near the lock.
Charlie and I made our way to the staircase. The uncomfortable silence was only broken by our creaking footsteps over the carpeted floor.
“So…”
“So.”
I chuckled awkwardly. “Last night was… something, huh?”
“Hah, yeah…”
Creaky steps. “How are you holding up? I know you didn’t sign up for this… I mean, none of us did.”
“What are you talking about? We just took the wrong bus and ended up in the wrong town. I’m sure we can catch a different bus at the bus terminal and go home.”
I nodded. “Y-yeah…” My smile felt a little forced, even for me. “Yeah! You’re right.”
It was quiet the rest of the way down. I didn’t mean to sound so insincere.
“There sure are a lot of stairs.” Charlie joked. “We were only on the second floor, right?”
“Yeah, we should be-“
We landed on the ground floor. Before us were two doors - both the same bland vanilla as the room’s doors.
“Which way to the reception?”
“Er…” I hadn’t actually paid attention when we got up, as I was herding three tired drunk people up to a room. Not that I’m naturally good at directions, either. “Let’s try the right door.”
Behind the door on the right was another hallway with three more doors. Charlie blinked. “This makes no sense. This door-“ he pointed to the door on his immediate left “-would just lead us to the hallway to the left door.” He opened the door, but when he stepped through, he was in an empty room, lit by a single lightbulb. The same inoffensive vanilla wallpaper lined this room.
He quietly closed the door. “Where the fuck are we.”
I didn’t answer. I know I must have looked ridiculous, my mouth just open and closing like a fish. I mean, come on, this is physically impossible! “Maybe it’s an optical illusion or something? The room looks bigger than it really is because… it’s empty, or the light, or…”
“Right.” Charlie didn’t seem convinced. “Let’s keep going straight, then. This building can’t go on forever.” He walked down the hallway to the last door. I meekly followed him through the door. This time the room had another two doors, and to the left, a staircase leading up.
I blinked. “Are we… back to where we started?”
Charlie yelled in frustration and barreled down the rightmost door. After a little bit, I heard running footsteps coming up behind me, and with a slam, he opened that door. “What the FUCK! I WENT in a STRAIGHT LINE!” He started kicking the walls while swearing, damaging the daisies on the wallpaper.
I chuckled quietly in disbelief. “Ha. This makes me think of Portal. Or Stanley’s Parable.”
Charlie stopped kicking. “What?”
“Y-yeah! In Stanley’s Parable, you’re a character in a story narrated by The Narrator. You can - you can choose to go along with him or go against him, but he can also go against you. It’s - it’s about the illusion of choice.”
Charlie still didn’t understand. “I don’t - I’m not a game nerd. You make no sense.”
“We don’t… have a choice. Not really. This place will not give us one. So we have to let this place pick for us.”
I fished through my pockets. I came across a coin - it wasn’t there in my pocket before, but I didn’t question it. “Heads for left, tails for right.”
It landed on tails. I reached out for the rightmost door, and we both went through.
We stood in the restaurant-part of the inn. Breakfast was still laid out, but no-one else was there. No-one else was eating. I went towards the lady behind the counter. “Hey, uh, we’d… we’d like to pay for our rooms. And breakfast.”
The lady stared at us as if we were crazy. “What are ya talkin’ about? You already paid.”