Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Elise pulled down on the lever, hearing the loud thunk indicating that the gate upstairs had opened and the next door was accessible. They breathed a sigh of relief, then whirled around as they heard a “Psst” from behind them.

Screech, true to its name, screeched as loudly as it could as they stared it down. It vanished, and Elise shook their head and moved on. They followed the bright blue glow in the distance, knowing it was marking the location of the door.

They murmured a soft “Thanks,” as they passed through. The glow almost seemed to brighten as they did so.

They climbed up the stairs again, passing through the now-open gate and the next door. They checked the number as they passed. Door 60.

They entered the same room they usually saw around this place, the one filled with closets and what Elise suspected might be rotting flesh. They felt a wave of revulsion hit them as they looked at one such pile, and quickly averted their eyes.

The effort was futile, since they had to rapidly turn around, hearing Screech somewhere behind them. Screech screamed again before disappearing, and Elise wondered if it was worth just grabbing it the next time it popped up and throwing it into the wall. They dismissed the idea as soon as it came, knowing it was a bad idea and that the other entities would be upset. Besides, Screech was practically a kid. It just wanted to mess around.

Elise sighed, starting to turn around to continue on her way. She halted mid-turn, however, as something caught her eyes. Behind one of the closets was a hole in the wall. She frowned. She didn’t remember seeing that before.

Slowly, she approached the wall, peering into the hole. A gray maze appeared before her.

She hesitated before stepping in and walking forward, keeping her hand carefully on the left wall. After a few long minutes, she finally reached the end. On the other side of the maze was a room with a few chairs arranged back-to-back and a painting of what looked like a star against a night background. However, when they examined it for a title, it didn’t seem to have one. Elise frowned, now growing curious. Every painting in the hotel had a title of some form, except this one.

However, with no further clues in this room, they turned to the gate on the other side of it. It looked like the ones in rooms with basements, though much smaller. Gripping their flashlight, they stepped through. They turned, and their eyes were met with a strange sight. A door with a skeleton mark on it, covered by two chains with locks.

They stepped forward, as if hypnotized. They hadn’t seen any other skeleton doors in the Hotel, save for the one that lead to the Herb of Viridis. Slowly, they pulled the two lockpicks they had obtained earlier out of their bag. The chains fell away as they picked the locks. Then, they pulled out the skeleton key, put it in the lock, and turned.

There was a whoosh, and they felt as if they were being sucked into some tremendous vacuum. Then, they were roughly shoved forward, and stumbled into what looked like an office lobby.

Elise whirled around, confused, head spinning. They tried to back towards the door they had come from, only to realize that it was gone. They were stuck here, wherever that way. Slowly, as their head cleared, they began to truly examine the room. It looked like a stereotypical boring office lobby, save for the machine on the left which displayed a green flashlight. Elise stopped in front of the machine. They had a flashlight already, but… they were curious. The machine displayed a 10 coin label above a slot. Elise carefully put 10 coins into the slot. The machine dispensed the green flashlight.

They clicked it on. It lit up brightly for a moment, then shut off. They frowned. Well, this was useless, then. They shook the flashlight, letting out an annoyed huff. It lit up again.

Elise paused. They shook the light. The glow turned brighter. Realization dawned on them.

They turned to the door ahead of them. If they couldn’t go back, they’d just have to march forward. The label on the door read A-000.

Elise pushed it open and started walking forward.

It was eerily quiet. They walked ahead, through five doors. Ten. Twenty. The only sound was their own footsteps on the floor. Every room looked like an average office room, save for the fact that everything was completely empty. No people, no signs of life except Elise themself. They felt a prickling sensation like they were being watched.

Whatever this place was, it definitely wasn’t the Hotel. While hard to notice, you could tell there was something there if you listened for the quiet knocking on the walls or the splashing of something running through the rain. In this place, there was nothing. It was as if everyone in this place had simply vanished, leaving only coins and batteries behind.

Twenty-five rooms. Thirty. Thirty-five. Forty. Nothing. No signs of life. Elise’s skin prickled. Back in the Hotel, they’d have had several entities come at them by now. The emptiness of these rooms felt wrong to them.

Forty rooms. Forty-five. Fifty. Fifty-five. Sixty.

In room A-060, they decided to poke around more. They’d been seeing gold coins and batteries scattered everywhere, and they’d noticed the lights getting progressively dimmer as they went, but nothing else particularly interesting. Experimentally, they pulled on the door of one of the lockers. It swung open easily.

A staticky, crackling sound filled their ears. Elise listened for a moment, realizing that it was getting louder and louder. Half-instinctively, recalling their experience with Rush, they jumped in the locker and shut the door. A moment later, a red creature zoomed through the room, screaming. Elise stayed frozen in the locker for a long, long moment, staring.

Eventually, she cautiously pushed the door open and continued on her way. They passed through another twenty rooms before the strange red thing attacked again. The rooms kept getting darker, and Elise started holding their flashlight out in case they needed to click it on. They leaped into the locker, trying to get a good look at the red entity as it passed. It moved too fast for them to get a good look.

She walked through another ten rooms before seeing anything else. Yellow flashed in their vision, and something screamed “STOP!” In their ears. When they stumbled forward, startled, something heavy slammed into them. Their vision flashed, and everything went black.

Something filled their vision, and a soft hum filled their mind. It was similar to Guiding Light’s, but slightly different. It definitely wasn’t Guiding; the color of the glow that surrounded them wasn’t blue but gold.

A voice filled their mind, drowning out any thought they could have formed.

Wait, a person? There’s someone here after so long?

Ah… Hello. I’m surprised you found this place. It’s pretty tedious to get here, last I checked. Anyways, who’d you die to?

..Oh, that one… I hope it isn’t too confusing. All I can really say is that it starts attacking after room A-90.

I guess you could call it A-90.

Anyways, I hope you don’t mind trying this again. It would be helpful.

…And nice, to see a new person.

Everything went black again.

Elise woke up again in the elevator, back in the Hotel, with a strange headache and several questions.

Chapter Text

Elise speed-ran their way through this run of the Hotel. Normally they’d take the time to search for coins, rifle through drawers, look overhead for items to collect.

Not this time. This time, they sprinted through the doors, leaping in and out of closets in seconds, fast enough that Hide didn’t even have time to get irritated with them. Jumping out directly on Rush’s tail was probably a bad idea, but really, they didn’t care.

Seek’s chase felt like it took half the time it would ordinarily, even though it was probably only a bit faster, Elise ducking and dodging obstacles without losing momentum.

They practically flew through the doors leading up to the library, though the library itself was much slower simply due to needing to keep quiet. Even then, she sprinted as best she could between books, filling out the combination on the lock with just a guess. She knew four numbers, good enough.

She ran in and out of Jeff’s shop in a hurry, simply grabbing the crucifix and tossing the bag with all their coins at him. They had plenty.

“Hi, guys! Bye, guys!”

Goblino didn’t have a chance to respond before Elise was gone.

Twelve doors later, Halt accosted them. Silently thanking their past self for thinking to snatch Jeff’s crucifix, they tossed it at it without any hesitation.

“Sorry, no time!” They called as they sprinted past, ignoring the feeling of Halt staring at them.

Another ten doors, in and out, in and out. Refusing to be delayed or deterred.

They whizzed through the infirmary without much thought, ignoring the door which hid the green herb for now.

Finally, finally, they made it to the courtyard. They kicked open the door, leaped the railing instead of taking the stairs, and darted over to the massive overlooking statue.

“Hey, Guiding, what the FUCK.”

The statue did not respond. Elise was undeterred.

“How long has there been a hole in the wall? And why is it there? And also, what the hell was that?”

Only silence greeted them.

“Why was there a… yellow… you. And where did I go? Why was there an office building— where did that even fit?”

Only now did Elise consider how ridiculous they sounded. Whatever, this was necessary.

“Who was that? And what was that?”

Finally accepting no answers would come from the statue, they groaned and continued on, slower now. Tired. Honestly, they should have seen getting slammed by Rush coming. Hungry thing, they were too distracted to hear its telltale scream.

Guiding Light’s soft hum filled their mind.

You died to Rush again. I suspect you already know how to handle it.

I see you found the secret door.

I’m afraid I can’t tell you much. I’m sure they were happy to see a new face.

You’ll learn more in due time, young one.

When Elise awoke in the elevator again, they felt almost as if something was ruffling their hair before fading away.

Well, that answered absolutely nothing.