Young Writers Society

The hotel was separate from the rest of the world.

It was set very, very far back in a forest on the edge of a small town; if you drove for an hour upon arriving in that quaint little town, you would arrive in a somewhat large city. Only a single road led from the hotel to the town and along the road ran a single electrical line.

The hotel itself was not gigantic but was also not small. It was only two floors high with a small swimming pool across the hall from the entry desk. The hotel almost looked as if it had come out of another, older time period, so the guests usually weren't surprised to hear that it was supposedly haunted. Some of the guests even came because of that.

Then, on one stormy Friday night, a tree falls. The only road leaving the hotel is blocked off, and the power has gone out. Without a working generator, the guests and employees are stranded in the hotel until help can arrive.

But with the town not expecting any of the hotel's current occupants until Monday morning, they have no way to leave. To make matters worse, it seems as if the storm has awaken some of the more troublesome ghosts...

The storm had been bombarding the hotel from all sides since it began late that afternoon; now, only moments after the moon had risen up into the sky, he found himself suddenly staring into darkness. He was slightly shocked by the change in light levels, but he also wasn't that surprised. With the ferocity of the storm, it only made sense that a tree would fall on the power line.

He heard people rushing down the hallway outside his second floor room, as well as frantic discussions taking place in the nearby rooms. People were undoubtedly worried about what they would do now. But he was prepared for a similar scenario.

Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he went to his suitcase and removed his flashlight. He started to head towards the door, only for his eyes to return to the suitcase moments later. He didn't know what he was about to be walking out into. He threw a few odd belongings – a small first aid kit, a snack bar and spare batteries – into a small, dark brown rucksack and finally left the room.

He was busy doing his math homework when the lights flickered off. They had been doing so for the past hour or so, which he had the idea of just lighting a lantern. He groaned, setting the pencil down and leaning back in his chair. He was lucky enough to have a room to himself and far from people. It was on the top level of the hotel in the farthest corner. He liked peace and quiet because that's how he worked. All of his words were inside of his head and the quietness of any room had provided him some chance to actually think. Instead, since there was a raging storm outside, he had no hope of actually finishing his math homework.

Getting up from his seat, he walked to the window. The wind had thrashed the tree branches against his windows and thunder was lightly crashing somewhere in the distance. Shivering, Rutherford closed the curtains. He didn't enjoy thunderstorms because they were unpredictable. As a child, he would usually hide under the covers of his bed and wait for the storm to pass out. His mother didn't approve of this and would usually just yell at him to man up.
He ignored the storm by doing his homework still, leaning against the wall with a book propped open while Rutherford held his piece of paper tightly. His pencil was gripped between his forefinger and pinky. He was almost done with the final equation on the paper when he heard a shrill scream coming from the hallway. Instead of put x = ? , he placed a giant hole in the paper.

Grumbling, Rutherford placed his torn paper on the bed and went to go look into the hall to figure out what was going on. Faintly, he could hear the running in the hallways before it disappeared. Opening his door, he saw nothing. Again, grumbling, he shut the door and went into his room. He didn't know that tonight was going to be a long night, involving something more powerful than a bunch of lessons.

Pulling up his jacket, Cornyx exited his car and walked rather quickly into the shelter of the hotel. Shaking his head to get some of the water off his hair, he trots up the stairs to his room on the second floor and was just walking towards it as the lights went out.

Most would be uncomfortable in such darkness, but Cornyx, being the epitome of shadows, he didn't mind. He gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light even though he didn't really need to - he was born and raised in a land with no sun, and little light from the moons during the day. At night there was no light whatsoever, so he had navigated entirely off sound and a sense of those around him.

As he started moving again, Cornyx nearly collided with a man in a black leather jacket and dark hair. Immediately he could see that the other man wasn't human.

"Excuse me, sir," Cornyx purred. "I did not see you."

"Calm down Cynthia! I'm sure the old log stove will suffice for the time being."

Henry held up his hand as the head chef Cynthia Watts prepared another protest against the problem the hotel found itself in.

"Cynthia, please, I have worked at this hotel for nigh forty years, and we've been without power many times since that first shift as a valet."

"But have you ever been without power, in a storm, and with no access to the town whatsoever?!" Cynthia exclaimed while frantically chopping an onion.

Henry was not expecting the question. He recalled to memory one night thirty-four years ago when these exact circumstances had occurred, but preferred to keep that memory locked up and hidden from Cynthia.

"No," Henry said, putting his hand on Cynthia's arm as she nearly cut off her own fingers. "But I am quite certain the staff can handle the circumstances perfectly. They're all trained to be professionals."

At that moment, a junior staff member came into the kitchen, turning to speak to Henry.

"Mister O'Connell," the staff member said, "there are several guests asking to speak to you."

"No problem David. I'll be there in a moment. Cynthia, gather all the staff not busy with anything important and wait for me in the dining hall. I shall come speak to them after I deal with the guests."

With that, Henry made his way out of the kitchen and into the candlelit hallway.

“It's alright,” he quietly replied.

He shined his flashlight on the man, making sure to keep the beam out of the man's eyes as he did so. The man appeared to be completely drenched; he was soaked thoroughly from head to toe. There was something about his appearance and the way that he spoke that didn't seem quite right.

A quick glimpse at his soul proved his theory. He wasn't looking at the soul of a human, though the man certainly appeared to be one. He was looking at the soul of something else. Whatever that something else happened to be was a mystery.

But since the man didn't seem to be causing trouble and seemed to be attempting to appear as human, he decided not to press the matter.

With a shy smile, he said, “I'm Adrian Dixon. Were you just outside?”

"I was indeed," Cornyx answered. He eyes Hades for a moment and looks around, making sure they are the only ones in the hallway. "You aren't human, are you?" Those dark eyes leave no clue as to what his intentions are, but he doesn't seem aggressive.

“I'm human,” he lied, making sure to keep his voice quiet and calm. He didn't want to inform the man that his guess had been correct. After a tense moment of silence, he added, “And commenting that I'm not is a very strange thing to say.”

He glanced around the hallway, moving his flashlight about as he did so. It felt on no ghosts. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel relieved or not by that revelation. While part of him was hoping that he would discover one, he didn't want to give the man more of a reason to believe that he was anything other than normal.

“What is your name, by the way? You never said.”

"Cornyx," he said, still not buying the whole 'human' thing. As he wondered why the man tried to deceive him and whether or not his guess had truly been correct - which he was pretty sure about, but not positive - a thought crossed his mind. Where was Raven? Hadn't she said she'd meet him here?

"You haven't seen a woman, have you? Dark hair, black dress, pale skin. Tall, lithe. She's probably got a raven with her. She has one black eye, one scarlet eye."

As the lights went out in the hallway, James gave a half-lidded look of disappointment and annoyance. With one hand holding a vacuum, he reached for a flashlight that was strapped to the hip of the belt of his gray janitor uniform and flipped it around to face forward. As he flipped the switch up, the bulb flickered for a moment, causing a momentary drop in his stomach before the bulb became steady. He'd been working here for years, cleaning up numerous messes and taking care of various mechanical issues here and there. Some of the things he'd witnessed he didn't care to dwell on, but needless to say, flickering lights was not unusual to him - but it did stop his heart for a moment.

With a small sigh, he shone the light down the hallway, hearing a few concerned mumblings behind the closed doors. He continued vacuuming the hall until he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Flipping the vacuum off, he checked to see a message from Cynthia saying that O'Connell was calling for an all staff meeting.

James's eyebrows furrowed and he involuntarily swallowed nervously. He was one of the few staff members who'd stuck around since they were last in a situation similar to this one and ... James blinked a few times and shook his head. This was not the past. He quickly busied himself with finishing up the hallway before he hustled over to the dining hall.

After storing away the vacuum he passed through the hallways quickly, stopping briefly to give a double take at two men standing in the hall - one, soaking wet. Well, the water he was dripping everywhere would be a pleasure to clean up. It wasn't like everyone was already dragging in water and mud from their shoes. Why not just takes buckets outside, fill them, and dump them on the carpet while he was at it?

James, however, only gave the two a brief and a pleasant smile as he walked by. He felt obligated to say something like "sorry for the power outage," or something to that degree, but he was neither responsible for the weather, nor was he part of the hospitality department. So he kept walking, and eventually bumped into Cynthia standing in the doorway to the dining hall. She looked worried.

“You're one of the only people I've seen since the power went out,” he said, making sure to keep his voice polite and calm. “When I saw other guests here, it was when I arrived before the storm started. She wasn't among them.”

He glanced around the hallway. The storm was certainly a plausible reason for the power to go out, but the other reason would be far more difficult to deal with it if he didn't figure out where the ghosts were.

Which meant that it was best if he left Cornyx, whose name was rather odd, and continued searching for them.

He couldn't miss this opportunity. The darkness would provide a cover he hadn't thought of before; he could search every inch of the hotel without resorting to using his cloak or the story that his great grandparents had been friends with the original owner of the family-owned hotel.

“I'm sorry, but I really should be looking for some of the staff here.” His tone was regretful, though he was actually quite grateful for a reason to leave behind the strange man.

Henry never understood guests. At the slightest change in their comfort, they were up in arms and threatening to leave and never return. Not that it bothered him in the slightest; he didn't have the patience to deal with every needy guest.

Thus, after checking on all the guests (not a lot, but still a decent amount for this time of the year) Henry sighed relieved that he could go back to doing what he did best. Managing.

He was on his way to the dining hall to speak to the staff when he noticed two gentlemen speaking in the dark foyer, and decided to shine his flashlight at them.

"Is there anything you gentlemen require?" Henry asked as he walked up to the gentlemen who seemed just about finished with their conversation.

"You wouldn't happen to have seen a woman wearing a black dress? Dark hair, light skin, one black eye and one red one?" Cornyx asks Henry. The 'human' was leaving; very well. He wasn't very useful anyways, despite his supernatural heritage. Cornyx, however, had no doubt that they'd run into one another again.

He withheld the urge to groan. With the arrival of one of the hotel's employees, his excuse for leaving was useless. Why would he need to continue to search for one of them if an employee was standing right in front of him? He didn't even know what he wanted to say. At least Cornyx had asked a question. That gave him more time to figure out what he should ask the employee.

Maybe bringing up the supernatural side of things was a good approach? It would be a good way to gather more information, and wouldn't seem suspicious with the current circumstances. With the storm raging outside and the lights out in the old hotel, it made sense for someone's mind to wander to darker thoughts.

He nervously glanced around, his eyes taking in the entire hallway before returning to the employee near him. For good measure, his trembling fingers fiddled with the bottom of his leather jacket. “I-I've heard that this place is haunted,” he said. He made it sound like he just come to this realization, rather than having arrived on the concept that the ghosts were responsible much earlier. “Did they turn the lights out?”