Day 3 - Room 32
🎲 Event: 3, Scene of the Crime
My first assignment of the day takes me to the room neighboring where I found the remains of the Ash followers' rituals. The smell of gladiolus is nowhere to be found -- the motel has cleaned it away overnight, like all damage -- but a different stench hits my nose like a sour note in a symphony. One I've learned to identify immediately. I open the door.
The interior is splattered with blood. It drips down the walls and soaks into the carpet. Chairs are tipped over. Books and papers are strewn across the floor. The bed is torn through dozens of times over.
🌫️ I did not sleep well last night.
🌫️ I am far from innocent. This scene is familiar to me.
🎲 Result: 7 (7+0)
Feeling cold, even while my skin prickles and burns, I dig through a pile of crumpled clothes to find several severed body parts. An arm, a foot, part of a torso. Far from a whole corpse, but I will still need to clean it all up. I am about to leave the room with the parts bundled in my arms when I notice a letter underneath.
My gloved fingers add fresh blood stains to the parchment. Cold stabs my heart when I see the letter is addressed to me. It is written in a shaky hand that resembles that of the Ash follower from yesterday, but the tone is entirely different. The words taunt me, mocking me for my other side, claiming the author knows all about the crimes I've committed and the similar scenes I've left in the edges of the world.
I toss the letter into the fireplace and burn it to ashes.
Day 3 - Room 15
🎲 Event: 4, Still Occupied
Though the guests of this room were meant to check out and leave hours ago, angry voices float through the door as I approach. I try to open the door, but the chain lock stops it before I can enter. Through the gap it affords, I catch a glimpse of the people inside: two middle-aged men, one with a graying beard and the other with a worn brown cap. "Come back later," the bearded man huffs before blocking my view with his body. "We aren't done here yet."
➕ The man with the cap seems familiar to me. The smell of smoke hangs in my nose, or at least the memory of it.
🌫️ I am feeling less inclined to risk my safety for my work recently.
🎲 Result: 4 (3+1)
No matter how much I push, the two men insist that they don't have to leave yet. We argue back and forth through the crack in the door. The bearded man is especially standoffish, insisting that I must be mistaken about the required checkout time, that they have several hours yet. The man in the cap makes eye contact with me over his friend's shoulder, and I'm again struck by the sense that I've met him before. Or maybe someone related to him?
Before I can ask any questions, the bearded man turns to throwing pencils, empty tea bags, and other trash from the room at me. I close the door in annoyance and leave the pair to the next housekeeper, though one of the pieces of refuse makes its way into my pockets.
⚙️ Broken pencil added to inventory
💤 Marked 1 Tire
Day 3 - Room 26
🎲 Event: 8, Deja Vu
The room seems peaceful from the outside, but when I open the door, everything is ablaze.
Flames billow against the walls and lick the ceiling. The furniture has all been reduced to hunks of charred wood. This isn't the first time I've found a room to be alight, but unlike the others, this one has no smoke to sting my lungs, no heat to burn my skin. Only pillars of fire.
I blink, and realize there is someone lying dead in the flames. Most of the body is charred beyond recognition, but I know she is a young girl. Blonde, wearing a brand new summer dress. I pull the glove from my red-scaled hand and hold it up to the flames; they part at my command, making way for me to kneel down at the girl's side. I sit there for a time, watching her burn. I've seen this before. I was the one who killed her, years ago.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I didn't control myself well enough. I should have fought harder."
I decide to leave my sachet of lavender with her. Maybe its calming scent will reach her wherever she is now. When I leave the room and close the door behind me, I can no longer hear the crackle of the flames.
⚙️ Sachet of lavender removed from inventory
Some time later, in a moment of peace after I finish cleaning another room, I feel a weight in my pocket. Inside is a large cut ruby, the size of my palm. Its many facets catch the light beautifully. It smells of lavender.
I pocket the gemstone and continue with my work, questions spinning in my mind.
⚙️ Large ruby added to inventory
Day 3 - Room 65
🎲 Event: 5, Surprisingly Stark
Just like the last time I set foot on the sixth floor, I find nothing in the room but another wax-sealed envelope.
🌫️ This time I'm certain -- there is someone else in the room with me. I feel their presence.
➕ This room had to be occupied before.
🎲 Result: 9 (8+1)
Unlike the previous letters, the seal on this one proves somewhat difficult to break, but I manage it. Inside is a letter written in my own hand.
The impassioned words address the families of countless victims, begging for reconciliation. Specific names are mentioned, ones I can't match to faces but that tickle at the back of my mind. It's even signed "Annabella." I have no memory of writing any of it.
Disgust and loneliness curl my lip and curdle my stomach. I will make things right, but not by prostrating myself in such a pathetic, impersonal manner. I burn this letter in the fireplace as well.
Day 3 - Room 51
🎲 Event: 6, Cause For Alarm
Smoke pours from the edges of the door as I approach. This is a scene that is unfortunately growing familiar to me. I test the doorknob, and it's hot to the touch; the flames inside aren't like the ones from earlier today. These ones might hurt me.
I glance at the room number again and realize that I've seen this exact room on fire before. It was yesterday, though, so the hotel should have repaired the damage overnight. Perhaps I was right about there being an arsonist? I open the door.
Inside, among the searing hot flames, the coiling serpent of ash still stains the carpet.
🌫️ This particular fire makes my nerves skyrocket. I fear letting it burn me will have dire consequences.
➕ I have seen this before.
🎲 Result: 6 (5+1)
Regardless of how I feel, I have a job to do. I enter the room, preparing to force the flames to bow as I have twice already, and perhaps countless times before that I cannot remember. But this time, my mind isn't steeled. I see the serpent on the floor, and the claws on my hand, and I panic.
The fire catches on my uniform. In my furious attempts to extinguish it, I feel myself losing control. What other option do I have? I must stop the madness, both for my own sake and that of the hotel. Somehow, part of this room has remained damaged. Who knows what else could happen if I let this fire rage on?
My spine contorts, and my bones pop and grind together as they are reshaped. My skin cracks and burns, and ruby red scales cover every inch in a sweep of sensation. Crooked fangs burst from my bleeding gums. I flex a long, serpentine body. A roar leaps from my mighty jaws. The fire cowers before me. I am lost.
💤 Marked 1 Tire
Day 3 - Room 15
⚠️ Same room number rolled twice in one day; rules say to go directly to Overnight, but...
I storm down the hall on all fours, leaving a trail of cinder and ash in my wake. A familiar smell hits my sensitive nose. Instinct takes hold, and I march down to the first floor. The floor cracks and splinters under my claws.
Snarling. Sniffing. Craving blood. I reach the door and tear it aside like it were made of paper. There are two men inside. One has a graying beard. I remember how he threw trash at me, and clamp my teeth around his rib cage. Flesh gives way as easily as the door. Warm blood coats my face and slithers down my throat. The man's screams fall on deaf ears.
The other man has a worn brown cap. Pale blond hair pokes out from the edges. His smell makes me think of a brand new summer dress. He's shouting something at me, but the words mean nothing. I spit out the shredded body of his companion and turn on him next. He struggles more than his friend, but in the end, all fall by my hand.
When I finally come to, I am laying in bed, surrounded by blood and gore. Though I am once again human, there is no energy in my limbs to clean the mess I left.
Day 3 - Overnight
Sleep takes me impossibly fast. The events that took place in this room play over and over again in my mind. I rarely retain memories from the destruction my other side wreaks, but this time is different. I feel the limbs tearing from their bodies, taste the blood in my mouth, smell their fear filling the room. And I hear the voices, their screams, the gurgling last words they force out. I hear the man with the cap use the last of his strength to cry out, but the name he shouts is indistinct, blurred in my memories.
I dream of the specter. The Ash. I don't see its face, but I smell the sickeningly sweet scent of the gladiolus it carries. Its form then morphs into the beasts I encountered in the motel. The aging one snarls and says the same words as before: "The Liberty Motel takes all in the end."
The beast pounces. I raise my hands to shield myself, but they are covered in scales. Fire erupts before me. I hear a scream. A face forms in the smoke: that of my sister, Anastasia. As I watch, she melts away to nothing.
I awake with a painful start.
Back to work.
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