Status: pants on fire

well, guess what everyone? i'm a goddamn liar. i told you guys that i would post here whenever i went to the hotel, and i went to the hotel back in december and never posted about it. in my defense it was a bad trip and i didn't really want to dwell on it long enough to write about it, but the problem is that i actually can't stop dwelling on it. i can't get it out of my head. maybe if i purge it here for you all to gawk at, it'll finally go away.

ugh.

let me tell you a secret about myself. right now i'm sitting in my bed typing this out on my dinged up old laptop. there are clothes all over my floor and a mug of tea on my nightstand that i brewed like 2 hours ago and haven't bothered to drink yet, so it's probably as cold as Lilith. i have my blinds shut tight and the lights off, but i'm a loser, so i have some lava lamps in the corner that are bubbling around in glowing pulses of blue and red and green. i can hear my roommate banging around in the kitchen, humming to himself. i barely talk to him. i barely talk to anyone. i don't have friends. i don't go out. i don't have any interesting hobbies. i don't chat up random strangers. i work at the local pharmacy as a cashier, and it's a miracle if i can even use a non-monotone voice with customers, let alone plaster on a fake smile.

i'm the kind of trainwreck of a person that no one thinks about much. see, i'm not unstable enough to be running around in the streets naked. i'm not unstable enough to be a physical danger to myself or others. i'm not unstable enough for a doctor to actually look me in the eye and tell me what's wrong with me. because as far as most people are concerned nothing is particularly wrong with me. i'm just quiet, they think. just shy or stand-off-ish. maybe they can sense that something is a little off, but not enough to really cause concern.

because no one else sees me when i'm curled into a ball in my bed, chest aching so much it's hard to breathe, so sad and lonely and detached from myself that i can't even cry. they don't see the way my hands shake, the way i pace. they don't feel the thunder and sick, shaky lightning that rolls through my stomach and out into my limbs, clogging up my throat, whenever i even have to think about going outside and facing the sun and talking to other people.

being alive is hard.

it's easier, sometimes, to pretend to be someone or somewhere else. to hide in the corridors of dreams. maybe that's why i keep going back to the hotel. because to be honest, even with Rabbithead, being there makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than being here.

and now someone's trying to ruin it.

let's go back to december (hi taylor). i was wandering around, taking turns at random, twirling my bat through the air but careful not to whack anyone i passed. i was pretty deep down. like i've said before (i think), the higher hallways are more vacant, with incomplete rooms, and they also look a little newer. there aren't weird ruddy smears on the walls, the flat pastel paint on the doors is more uniform, and the carpet, although still a headache-inducing swirl of putrid rainbows, is smooth and clean (not like you could ever see a stain on that stuff, though, god).

the lower you go, the more... shall we say "lived in" the hotel becomes. there are massive rips in the carpet where you can see bare concrete. the walls have the aforementioned suspicious stains, and they're also dented or cracked. the little golden numbers that are stuck to the doors become more tarnished or off-kilter. some of the doors are even jammed, like room 329. there's the perpetual sound of a man sobbing inside. or room 9382, where it sounds like someone's throwing their entire body weight against the door, which quivers but never buckles, with the steady rhythm of a wave. (by the way, the numbers aren't actually in any kind of numerical order. the rooms on either side of mine are numbered 818 and 20014. i've even seen some negative numbers. i have no idea how high the numbers go, or how they're assigned, but they're not a reliable way to orient yourself.)

forty floors down from mine, there's a section of hallway where the walls are entirely missing. it looks like a demolition crew tore through. a few doors stand shakily in the middle of absolutely nothing. slabs of wall sprawl in toppled piles and little crumbs of debris litter what's left of the ground. a light panel dangles from a single sparking cord in the middle of a nonexistent ceiling. where solid matter used to be is nothing but musty, stone-damp darkness. everything that's left standing just sort of abruptly ends, disappearing into the void. all sound is swallowed. you're walking down what seems like a normal (for the hotel with no name) hall, and then you take a turn, and it's just... whatever this is. it's one of my favorite parts of the hotel.

that's where i went, this last time. i found the broken hallway and slumped down against a still-remaining piece of wall, bat resting across my legs, and just stared into the dark. your eyes never adjust to it. it's almost solid. i stuck my hand into it once, and it completely disappeared. the shadows pressed against my skin like water, cool and a little bit tingly. i'd also felt around with my foot, and sure enough, there was still floor, but i was too chicken to actually step into it. i had a feeling that if i did, the rest of the hotel would disappear, and i didn't really want to get lost in a void.

i like to look at it, though. it's calming there. quiet. no one else strays down that way, and the remaining few rooms on that side of the hall are all empty, doors left slightly cracked so they can't lock. the light's a little less garish yellow, the carpet a little less nauseating beneath the layer of dust. i can see little indents in the grit where i've walked here before. sometimes i like to wear shoes in here (yes i am aware how completely fucking deranged it is to wear shoes to sleep, but we've established already that most of what i do fits that bill), but that night i was barefoot, and i used my big toe to draw lines through the dust, humming tunelessly to myself. i couldn't stay for long, but even Rabbithead seemed reluctant to come this way, so i had a good amount of time before i had to move.

that was honestly how i planned to spend my night. very exciting, i know, i'm sure you're all absolutely thrilled out of your minds and that you're getting a big boost of adrenaline from reading this harrowing tale. lucky for you, my peaceful little plan to stare into the fucking abyss got interrupted by a ding.

a cheerful, electronic, mid-tone little ding. not a very loud one, but it doesn't take much to penetrate complete silence. it was a tone i'd heard before, but never in the hotel with no name. because it was the sound of an elevator announcing its readiness to either slide open or closed, and as previously established, the elevators don't work here. they're trapped behind caution tape on every single floor, the silver doors squeezed shut indefinitely. on the lobby floor, one set of doors is stuck half-open and you can actually squeeze into the car, but there's no point because it has no power. it's just a creepy little box with mirrored walls, dangling in the middle of space. no thank you.

once the sound registered, i immediately jolted up and damn near jogged my way back in the direction i'd come. as soon as i rounded into the little lobby where the twin elevators waited, i stopped dead, heart in my ears and stomach gone watery. the nearer elevator was as condemned as it had always been, but the caution tape on the one further away had been removed. the up arrow was glowing a cheery white.

i tried to think back to when i'd emerged from the stairwell on this floor. had the tape been gone then? i couldn't remember. i never give much thought to the elevators, except for when my leg aches, but even then it's not like i go inspect them. i always know what i'll find, which is nothing. or it's supposed to be.

the up arrow dimmed. i licked my lips and pressed the round silver button on the wall panel. after a second, there came another clean ding and the down arrow lit up. "holy shit," i said, and yes, i did feel like a complete moron being this excited about a benign piece of technology. my ears perked at the familiar shuttle-whirring as the car trundled its way back down to me, and then the doors were sliding open, revealing a brightly lit and absolutely normal elevator.

at the same moment, i heard the stairwell door creak open, and then heavy, stumbling footsteps. "holy shit," i said again, scrambling into the car. i went to jam my thumb against a button, any button, but froze once i actually looked at my options. instead of floor numbers, or even the standard "hold open/close" or alarm options, there were instead buttons marked for "lobby," "pool," "lounge," "church," "restaurant," "conference rooms," and "woods."

the button for "pool" was already glowing, so i stabbed it again a few more times, willing the doors to slide shut as Rabbithead slumped into view. its left foot always dragged a little behind, causing it to lurch and sway, arms dangling limp at its hips. i backed up until the railing dug into my spine, bat raised high. it tilted its head, ears flopping, red eyes barren. i could hear it sniffling. it reached out a mangled hand, and i braced to swing the bat down as hard as i could, a scream lodged in my lungs, when the doors slammed shut with far more finality than i liked.

the car launched upward so fast that i fell, stomach abandoned a dozen floors down. metal groaned and screeched, the whole cart shaking, and i was about to pinch myself awake when it skidded to a halt just as fast as it had started. shakily, i scaled onto my hands and knees and considered hurling. the doors slid open. i staggered out, and then tripped and fell head over heels as i walked directly into a line of caution tape. this shit was not the standard flimsy plastic; it barely even bent out of shape as i whumped face-first onto the linoleum floor, bat rolling away. i barely got my feet clear before the doors closed again, this time without a ding.

once i'd regained my breath and could stand past the humiliation, i left the lobby, and sure enough, to my right was the set of clear double doors that led into the pool. there was a piece of paper taped to them, covered in elegant, near-cursive handwriting.

i shouldn't remember what it said, but i do. i can't stop remembering it, actually. it replays in my head in the shower and before i fall asleep and when i'm wandering around the house and when i'm sitting still doing nothing. and every single time i think about it, i can't breathe. i don't know why.

it said:

Once there was a dragon who slept as a mountain. It slept beneath space and time, and in its dreams, it wove vast webs that took the shape of reality. It dreamt of many things. It dreamt of ants hollowing out the earth, and it dreamt of arrogant men tearing apart worlds that did not belong to them.

Its favorite dream of a little girl who wrapped herself in eyelet lace and rain clouds. She danced across the night until her feet were bloody, and the cosmos was littered with rusty footprints. She was laughing the whole time but soon she'd be crying, if she still felt anything at all. Every month the moon killed itself and was reborn. And with each of its cycles she grew further from the rosebud innocence of youth. The stars were slicing open her soles now, her soul. Her blood dripped to the earth like crimson tears, and wherever it soaked into the dirt, brilliant roses bloomed. They were made of ash, their grey petals delicate as a cloud.

The dragon had this dream every night, every hour, for twenty-one years.

Each time the roses bloomed, the dragon would whisper, this is her fault. No one heard it.

i looked up from the paper, tongue dry and heavy. through the glass doors, i could just see the corner of the pool. Rabbithead was standing on its far side, staring at me. my fingers curled, and i realized i'd left my bat on the floor outside the elevator.

a voice cut through the hall behind me. "Naomi?" it sounded like the pirate woman from the lounge, but before i could look or respond, i woke up.

something's changing. and whatever it is, i think i should be scared.

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The note Naomi found and transcribed is another excerpt from the book in entry fifteen.

This seems to be the first indication of Rabbithead expressing an ability to teleport.