sit yourself down, and meet the best inn keeper in town ( O P E N )

[checkingin]

Who: Everyone!
Where: The initial arrival rooms, the main lobby, all over the place.
When: February 3rd
What: Welcome, newbies.

ARRIVAL.

you wake up when you hit the floor in a dark room, and the air is knocked out of your lungs. the carpet is threadbare, worn with use, kind of dusty. and you're not the first person to endure this crash landing. nor will you be the last.

once your vision rights itself, you can see the well-lit hallway through the doorjam straight ahead of you. not to say there’s monsters in the shadows, but something propels you towards that door and out into the bright hallway beyond.

and once outside your room, you can hear it: the steady thrum of rain outside.

MAIN LOBBY.

there's a staircase at the end of the lengthy hallway you tumble out of. grab your suitcase and follow the dull green exit signs on the ceiling until you reach the disappointingly bland stairs that lead you down to the ornate old fashion hotel lobby.

to your left is a warmly crackling fireplace, to your right is a lobby desk. straight ahead are three large sets of doors, though only one of them is open to the public. and outside the few (curtained, permanently dark) windows is the continually steady hiss of rain.

welcome to the hotel.

FRONT DESK.

though there is a bell and a plaque designating the desk to be the main desk, the customer service desk, there are currently no staff members behind it. none shall answer your calls, either.

terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

SCREENING ROOM.

on a tall pull-down screen, a silent version of nosferatu will be playing on loop. at the back of the room, between the neat rows of fold out chairs, mounted on a wobbly table is the old timey projector, and mounted on the walls are some rather old speakers that warble out "terrifying" old timey music.

along the curtained windows is another long table, with a large bowl that looked like it once would have held popcorn. but is now unfortunately empty. same for the large hot drink dispensers labeled "hot chocolate" and "coffee".

OTHER.

the ballroom and breakfast hall are currently closed, grand doors locked.

there is no main door leading to the outside, good luck trying to find one.

the door to the courtyard is locked.

ROOMS.

you've a room key with your assigned room number on it. all the new guest residences will be located on floors one & two. while there is an open elevator in the main lobby, and the buttons light up inside, the doors will not close. all in all, you'd be better off taking the stairs.

while they're the same stairs you undoubtedly came down to get to the lobby, the door to the endless hall everyone woke up in will not reappear between the main floor and the subsequent residential halls.

there are twenty rooms per floor. feel free to get to know your surroundings; or your neighbors as they trickle in around you.

Comments

[arms]

Oh, this? [ Minho tongues at the split in his lip, bringing a hand up to touch below an eye. He's healed a bit - it's been a week since he's seen any of his friends, seen Thomas, but only a couple days since the beating - but he does know that he looks like he's been through a ringer with a griever. ] Yeah, wish I could say "you should see the other guy."

[ His hand drops to Thomas' shoulder - the good one - before his other comes around to cup his upper arm gently, careful not to disturb his gunshot wound. He's not sure what WICKED did, how healed he is. It doesn't stop him from rubbing his thumb up and down, though, just barely. The relief he feels is obvious enough in that small gesture. ] What about you? It looks like they threw you back into the Scorch.

[ Minho it's Thomas, you're not going to be able to distract him on this one. ]

[greenies]

Who did it? Was it Jorge? [ god, it better not have been jorge. thomas thought that maybe he and minho had reached some sort of weird, unsteady peace--thomas got why minho didn't like him, but come on. they only have so many allies, min. reaching up, he grabs his chin and moves his face so he can see the extent of the damage, and thomas's heart wrenches, with a mix of something of worry for his best, closest friend and rage at WICKED and everything they've done.

some of his intensity wears off when he mentions the scorch, though. thomas blinks and takes a step back. ]

What? No, they just picked me up out of the Scorch. On the berg--I thought I was never gonna see you guys again.

[arms]

Jorge? Man, first off - [ Minho winces a little, but let Thomas inspect him. ] If it were Jorge, you know I'd be able to say "you should see the other guy." Second, that makes no sense.

[ It doesn't, and he looks at Thomas, still not fully answering and instead assessing, because - what? Thomas had been shot what feels like a millennia ago, now, and they'd been with WICKED again for a week, give or take however time was passing in that shucking dorm room. ]

They patched you up and dumped you back into the Scorch with us. We made it through their stupid trial, no thanks to that pack of lunatic girls, and have been with them for, like, a week.

Sentiment is still the same, though. After what they tried to make me pick... [ He trails off. ]

[greenies]

[ the jorge thing makes him chuff a soft laugh, because, yeah. he has a point. jorge probably would've gotten the crap beaten out of him--thomas shouldn't feel proud of that, but he totally does.

however. none of that makes any sense. thomas stares at minho for a minute like he's gone off the deep end himself, brows furrowed, trying to ask and trying to understand literally all at once. ] Lunatic girls? What are you talking about? The last girl I saw was Brenda.

[ almost instantly, thomas feels...odd. off. violated, like someone reached in and snatched his memories again. what did WICKED do to him when he was on that berg? it was obviously something more than just fix up his shoulder. here comes thomas the question man, minho, your favorite. ] Minho, what? Did they wipe my memories? Why're you--we made it? We made it, that's great! Are Newt and Brenda okay? Teresa, did we find her again?

[arms]

I don't know what they did. If they did, I'm gonna murder them - I told them to leave you, all of you alone, shucking - yeah. Okay. [ Minho stops, because his head hurts as much as the rest of him now, and he breathes out a noisy sigh that becomes a soft hiss. Right, hurt. He needs to keep that in mind.

But he also apparently has to catch Thomas up. What? What the hell did they do to him? Is it another trial? Is this place another trial? They'd basically told him it was over. But here they are, so it has to be a trick. Especially with what happened, what Tommy is missing. ]

We made it. Not all of us, but they dropped you back off in the Scorch again and we headed out. That's when we ran into the other group, Aris' girls. Except Teresa was in charge of 'em, and that whole "betrayer" thing back at the school wasn't some trick from WICKED. It was real.

[ Minho tries not to get angry, but he obviously fails, clenching and unclenching his fists, jaw tight, eyes unhappy. ]

[greenies]

[ thomas makes a series of facial expressions as minho tells him about the scorch and everything after it that he's apparently...forgotten. he feels sort of displaced, disgusted, and the fact that they've been brought to a new trial and had their memories wiped again? it screams WICKED. thomas can't even imagine a possibility of something else if he tried.

his heart lifts as he mentions teresa, but, just like that, it drops again, like a stone into his chest. the betrayer, he remembered, but he'd believed--he'd thought she'd never.

thomas takes a deep breath, looks at his clenched fists. ] Minho, what happened? Tell me.

[ minho could be biased, he thinks, maybe, he never liked teresa ]

[arms]

[ Bringing a hand up to scrub through his hair, Minho thinks about how to do this. Because he doesn't know what Thomas is missing, doesn't get how this could happen. (The concept of time displacement has not yet occurred to him, but speaking to more people in the hotel will, eventually, bring it to mind. And it'll make sense, eventually, because not much else does in the first place.) He takes a deep, slow breath, obviously trying to calm himself, and he pieces everything together. ]

All right. Far as I know, we didn't lose anybody, right? And then the girls come along, and they're seriously packing. And at first, it was a good thing, because safety in numbers. For as much as me 'n Teresa sniped at each other, it was... better, after we all worked on the puzzle.

[ He moves, then, angling himself to be directly in front of Thomas. Setting his hands on his shoulders, he cocks his head a little, meeting his eyes and holding his gaze. ] But they took you, Thomas. They put you in a shucking sack and beat you. And no matter what we said, they threatened to do worse if we tried to go after them, tried to help you.