“Hello?” Shadowmind asked as he wandered the halls of the hotel. Walls painted shades of white and shade of eggshell passed him as he tried to figure out where in the blazes he was. One moment he was dropping off a delivery order at a hotel, then exiting the elevator, and the entire layout of the building changed. The branding of a mid-tier hotel company vanished. All the signs of people vanished.
“At least the walls aren’t yellow wallpaper. If I had to shank an entity using a shiv made of folded wallpaper, I’d scream.” Shadowmind walked past the wooden doors and to the staircase. The hotel had a sense of bizarre emptiness.
Once he got down the stairs, he walked past an unmanned lobby. A completely different style than the one he saw when entering the hotel, but not an unusual style for a hotel. Wood paneling, a blank computer screen. Across the lobby was something very much not normal for a hotel. A large black sign, with currently unlit digital, read out. It stretched from one side of the wall to the other.
“Well, that isn’t supposed to be there. Hopefully, that isn’t my problem.” Shadowmind looked out the glass door to the entrance. The number 404 backward was written in white paint on the glass above the room. From the other side of the glass was a typical entryway, lined with fake plants, then to a parking lot. That, too, was devoid of signs of life, not a car or person to be seen. The thick fog blocked the visibility for more than a few hundred feet.
“Well, no zombies, at least.” Shadowmind cracked off the glass room and waited to see if he heard a sound. An eerie silence, then he took a step through the door. “Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy,” he said as he appeared on the other side of the lobby, back in the hotel. He checked the other exits, not expecting any difference as one simply warped him back to the other side of the hotel.
Taking a frustrated breath, Shadowmind checked the lobby desk for clues. A keycard with Author: The Shadowmind was lying on the other side of the desk. “Okay. Using my writer tag. Related to something I’ve written or will write. Teleporting doorways means I’m not throwing out time-travel tenses just yet.”
Shadowmind picked up the keycard and kept exploring the hotel. Another oddity was the vending machines. Rows of vending machines more fitting Japan, selling everything, but all having absurd prices, that would make airport stores say, “Teach me your ways, Satan.” 40$ for a bag of chips was on the low end of the things offered. “What is Stripulacrum ink anyway?” Shadowmind looked at the strange display in front of him.
Down the hall was what might have been a cross between a conference room and the start of a strip club. A stripper pole sat at the center, built into a mirrored table. Several chairs were placed around the pole. The strangest sight was the roof or the lack of it. Above was the vastness of space, a glowing purple nebula drifted above. The slow and constant movement of the cosmos. Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”
On the entrance of the strip club cum conference room was a sign that simply read open on one side and closed on the other. Further exploration revealed a backroom attached to the strip club with a strange machine. A shiny grey cylinder with a control panel on the side. It was larger than a person, but only just so. A simple door was on the front/ A booklet sat on a table with earmarked pages, a brief guide on how to use the machine. On the control panel was a flashing warning. “Low-Ink”.
“Oh, so that is what it is for.”