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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Luckily for the both of them, Annie's long-ago training has her reflexes kicking in and propelling her backwards before she's consciously aware of moving. She ends up landing on her suitcase with a heavy thump, staring wide-eyed at the boy who spoke. ]

Nobody knows? Somebody has to know. How did we get here?

[ Sorry, new person, you've been officially nominated to answer Annie's questions. The way he pinks up when he looks at her confuses Annie momentarily. Decency is the last thing on her mind -- the sheet's still wrapped around her, it'll do, there are so much more important things to be concerned with. ]

Whoa, are you okay?

[ Because he's not sure how she moved so quickly, but one moment she's there and the next she's unceremoniously propped herself on a suitcase. Out of habit, he offers her a hand up. ]

I haven't met anyone yet who... who knows, though. I just -- I fell down and... I was here.

[ Which is only partially true. He was only midway through being blasted to the floor by a death eater, but it's all the same. ]

I'm fine, yeah. It's nothing.

[ What's a little fall compared to everything she endured in the Capitol, right? Annie reaches up for the offered hand and hauls herself to her feet in one smooth motion, but she can't quite stifle the pained hiss when she's on her feet. She can, however, refuse to acknowledge it and that's just what she does, curling her arms in front of herself and listening to his explanation with a guardedly curious expression.

...Well, she's less curious about his explanation than she is about how he sounds. ] Where were you, before you were here? What district are you from?

[ He's surprised by the hiss she makes, but it's too clear she is not about to have any sort of concern coming from him. He does wonder sometimes why women are so terribly stubborn. As long as he didn't get chased down the hall, hit, or screamed at, they'd get on just fine.

But wait -- district? Well. I mean, I used to live in Chesham, but... I mean, I was in London mostly? Why?

[ Sorry, he's going to look at you like you have six heads, Annie. ]

[ It's good, that he doesn't show concern or anything of the sort. It means she's fooled him, or so she thinks. He doesn't seem like much of a threat, but she can't be too sure of that yet. Better to put on a brave face now, despite everything, and establish herself as someone to be taken seriously. No more "poor mad girl," not here.

For as oddly as he looks at her when she asks about his district, Annie looks just as baffled by his answer. ]

I've never heard of either of those places. [ Granted, geography was never her strongest subject and maps of the country were few and far between, but still. ] We are in Panem, right?

... I haven't heard of Panem.

[ But that's not to say it doesn't exist. Maybe it's some strange Muggle world place, or in a different country. Africa, somewhere on the continent? Europe would have a destination with a weird name like that. ]

Where is Panem? I mean, what country is it in? I've never really been outside of the UK, so... so maybe that's why I don't know it.

[ Although Peter seems at ease, this whole place has his heart rate rising, a bubble of anxiety building in his chest. ]

[ ...What? He's never heard of Panem? That's baffling, and more frightening than she even wants to admit to herself. ]

Panem is a country. It's... it was founded after the Dark Days, I don't know what the land used to be called. What's the UK? Where is it?

[ Maybe she hit her head when she fell in that room, because this all seems like a hallucination. People who haven't heard of Panem, and claim to be from other place? A hotel with no exits and no staff? There's no way any of this can be real. ]

I've... never heard of it, then. And I'm not that terrible at geography. I mean, I paid attention in muggle studies.

[ The Dark Days? Is she talking about the war? The fact that she might know anything about him or what he could be doing is a terrifying prospect, and already he feels a bit of nerves seep in. ]

It's... a country, er -- a bunch of countries. Near Europe?

[ Maybe they're all just having a really, really bad dream. ]

Muggle studies? [There's a look of completely blank confusion on her face as she repeats the strange words, and the look stays firmly in place when he explains what and where the UK is. Countries? Other places that survived the floods and environmental devastation before the Dark Days?

When she stops being quite so overwhelmed by everything, she's going to be impossibly curious about that. ]

So... maybe we're in your country, if this isn't Panem. Do you recognize anything?

I mean... my country kind of looks -- I mean, it's foggy, it's always cold, and we have houses like this but... but I don't know. We could be anywhere.

[ Because he's not sure how he got here, and if she's from some strange place, maybe this wasn't some trick of the death eaters. ]

I just... woke up here, that's all I know.

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

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