[BROWTOBER] The HOTEL

“Next, please.”
A … voice? I hear it - but I can’t see… anything.
“Ah yes, good evening,  ████ .”
Static…
What an awful sound… Why?
“Of course sir, Your room is ready for you… Down the hall past the stairwell - please refer to your key for your number-”
Room? What room - I don’t …
“Wasn’t I just in mine?”

Cain’s eyes snapped open as the words crossed his lips. The sudden assault of colour and light however, made the hiros turn his head away instinctively. As he did so, he drew a sharp breath that brought a surreal buzzing into his mouth and nose. 

He must’ve been sleeping…

“Wait wait, room? What room - where …. Am I?”
A face, stern in expression even after interrupted rest, bent further in confusion and unease as Cain furrowed his brow and glanced around the strange room he now found himself in. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes as quickly as he could, Cain pressed a hand heavily against his own face as he turned about. There was much to take in; none of which was remotely familiar to the browbird.

“Oh sir, silly me, I do apologise.”

Cain turned around again to meet the eyes of a strange browbird standing across from him, separated by a short desk. There was little else across the space - a weathered ledger opened midway exposing miniscule lists Cain could not make out from his current position of disbelief. He felt his eyes scrunch closed as he shook his head - as if the action might bring some new found logic to the situation he could not accept that he found himself in.

The browbird on the other side of the desk smiled at Cain, their hands clasped neatly on their coat. Or was it a vest perhaps? Cain couldn’t tell. But the smile - the smile of this stranger was making the hiros’s jaw and neck prickle with unease.

“You are ████.”

The static again.

Cain felt as if the sound was coming from all around him.
Particularly, he found, from behind or perhaps from the bird before him directly. It wasn’t helping that every time he tried to focus on this upsetting stranger, he found that he could not - something made his vision swim in sickening colours every time he tried. Something lingered there just beyond his perception, and if it weren’t for the nausea or the shock he still apparently found himself in, he very well could’ve found himself doubled over on the floor.

He began to feel progressively more and more unwell with his current state of affairs, and Cain tensed as he watched the unsettling bird step out from behind the pedestal.

It had something.
A key. His key? It must have been.
The key that the other bird held out was an old one - ornate and made of thick and sturdy metal. A ribbon was tied smartly to the bow of the thing. Something about it held sway over the hiros and all he could do was watch as the other bird tipped the key into his outstretched hand. When did he - had he reached for the key? No. No, he hadn’t… 

Cain’s face twisted again as he fought with the spaces between memory and thought, and brought himself to look away from the odd item now clutched tightly in his hand.

“Very good! Now, come with me then, and let us get you off to your room.”

“This way please! Let’s not dally now-”
The stranger smiled as he turned quickly on his heel and set off. He pushed an arm through a set of heavy velvet curtains and gestured for Cain to enter. He didn’t really have a choice in the matter it seemed, and he soon found himself shuffling down a softly lit corridor. There were a few doors a bit farther down that he could see, and lanterns - or perhaps electric lights? - held by simple brass sconces to the walls. Cain did his best to take note of the bird before him as the two of them made their way along.

This bird… He was a thin fellow, dressed in pinstripe. A smart set - certainly not something he himself would wear, but it seemed to be popular among some circles he had traveled before. The pattern of it seemed to meld with the wallpaper - or at other times the carpeting - as he moved. He was of modest height, a blazing rose of innumerable petals was unfolding itself between the man’s horns. A strange crest; a difficult one, Cain found, to look at for too long. Something there was upsetting to witness but he couldn’t really put a finger on it. From the back, Cain seemed to find it easier to consider the man before him, and he noted that both tail and horns of this man were quite interesting as well - thorns, it seemed, like that of a rose or bramble jutted out and seemed to glow. There was little light that was cast from them though, even as his tail brushed the carpet in front of Cain. How odd. Like bramble… The thought dug into Cain’s mind.Such a wild look to someone so smartly dressed. Seemed a bit off, did it not?

Upsetting.
Even as the man stopped before a doorway and turned to face Cain.
It was upsetting.

The eyes were what betrayed the stranger in that moment though, and the sickly yellow stare of this bird seemed to be all Cain needed to ground himself. Reality found Cain instantly in that moment, and the hiros became unhappily aware of his body and its place among this strange building.

A hotel.

That was right - Cain was in a hotel.

And the thing before him was very much not a browbird. 

“Morian.”

The cheerful but unsettling expression on the strange browbird’s face fell away immediately as Cain muttered out his name. And shock fell to indifference which in turn fell to something dark. Cain gripped the odd key tightly in his hand, memories flooding back to him as he backpedaled. The distance between him and Morian was a necessity, he recalled.

He was lucky he did so, too, as Morian had made a grab for the key - only missing Cain’s hand by a mere moment. At that, Morian’s face twisted, and the man was now quite visibly upset.

“Give me the key, Cain. If you won’t play like all the other guests here, you don’t GET that KEY-” Morian roared as he made another swipe for the key, but the hiros pulled it tight to his chest.

He couldn’t go back the way they had come, Cain knew this - he had tried before. Many times, it would seem by his flooded memories. No, there would be no going back - only way to go was forward, and hope that the damn key in his hand might open the right doors this time. Cain threw his elbow hard into Morian as the bird lunged, and while he had no time to look back, the grunt and soft thud and shuff of the carpet he caught was the sound of a hopeful head start.

“I’ll do this as many damn times as I have to, Morian-” Cain bellowed as he took off down the corridor, knowing full well that he had been heard. 

“You bet your ass I’ll get out of this hellscape one way or another.”

Door. Locked.
Door. Locked.
Door. Locked again-

The hiros stopped periodically to throw a shoulder into or try the key he held on the endless doorways that seemed to fold in and out of the hallway. Most of them wouldn’t work.

Some did though.

At first the rooms were recognisable. A private guest room. A lounge. A bathroom. All would return him to the hallway though usually. Other times he’d pass through spaces that would have made him stop to marvel had he not been in such a dire hurry.

A library of clocks.
A room filled with broken mirrors.
A little beach complete with sand and the sting of ocean water to the nose.

Other times it was the hallway that dipped into absurdity. Some of these changes were familiar to Cain - a sign of a pathway that could be repeated.


The wooden trim would often undulate and roll in upon itself like serpents. Other times, the sconces would twist and climb towards the ceiling like ivy and leave the lanterns hung above the way like bright little fruits.

He even passed a room that was covered in billiard tables.

But it wasn’t what he was looking for.

The door he needed he had seen once before - he had gotten so close, so close to the edge of the labyrinthine hellscape Morian called home.

But he had needed a key then.
And only guests could hold keys in this place.

Cain felt his chest heaving as he ran, his wings tucked tight against his back and shoulders as best as he could manage, but he knew those wings on his tail would be battered and the feathers snapped for certain. He almost laughed at that thought though - worrying about his damn feathers at a time like this. The laugh had caught in his throat. He had to ignore the pain of it as he rounded a bend in the hotel corridor, and nearly slid as his claws struggled to catch on the fine rug runner.

So far he had managed to keep Morian well behind him, but at this point - it began to worry him. There was a fear that had begun to root itself in the hiros’s gut … There was no way Morrian had given up. He didn’t like strangers in his domain. Cain was sure he had his magic wrapped deep into the life of this place - it would be stupid of him to think that Morrian didn’t know where he was…

Was he going the wrong way?

Maybe he-

The hiros was jolted from his thoughts so suddenly in that instant, he hadn’t even been able to gasp.

Cain hit the ground hard; his jaw bouncing off the floor in the process, causing a familiar and unpleasant taste to fill his mouth. Metal and the bitter flow of magic bathed his tongue as he scrambled to right himself. He found that he could not, however, as there was a bramble vine wrapped tightly around his ankle.

He made an attempt to pull the strangling vine off his leg - the effort was met with the painful sting of a multitude of cuts to his palms, but it was successful, and Cain was able to return to his feet. He clenched and opened his hands, the sting and stick of blood had him gritting his teeth, but it was cast away when he realised that he no longer held the key. He scrambled back towards where he had fallen and recoiled as the floor and walls there had begun to sprout wild groves of bramble vines now thick with thorns.

There was a shimmer though, that the bird could just see beneath the inky plants. But he dared not reach for it. For just beyond it, a mass had formed among the writhing dark.

“Oh come now you, don’t be a problem for me now…”

A garbled and twisted voice rose up from the bramble that still writhed on the floor, and Cain watched as Morian himself began to crawl from the shadows of its coils. The bird stepped forward from the mass and held up a hand - Cain watched as a vine twisted up from the floor with the key he had tried to take tangled in its tendrils.

“You got pretty close this time, thief.” Morian spoke with a flat expression, his eyes fixated on Cain as he did so. “I wish you’d be a better plaything though - dreamers are always the hard ones to keep in place…” The bird sighed, his eyes flickering over to the key that was now dropped in his hand.

“Dreamers never play fair… But I suppose that’s always the case hm…”

Morian sighed heavily, almost theatrically even as he tucked the key back into his pocket and let his posture fall some. Cain, of course, said nothing. And only watched as Morrian cleared the space between the two of them in the blink of an eye.

“Do you wanna see how close you were?”
The way Morrian whispered those words sent a shiver down Cain’s spine. He did his best not to let it show though, but he doubted it was any good. Morrian grinned and  suddenly gripped Cain roughly by the shoulders - walking him backwards by three deliberate and slow steps; one, two, three…

“Go ahead, don’t be shy, look around-” He hummed as he watched Cain grimace.

All around the two of them - or more accurately - all around Cain, there was nothing. It was black and it seemed to want to press inwards all around him; Morrian meanwhile seemed to be standing in a doorway, framed by the light of the hotel hallway, still gripping Cain by the shoulders, holding him out into the inky blackness of some great abyss.

“The edge of the mind, the edge of the world.” He hummed for a moment before the smug look on Morrian’s face was traded for something akin to blank disgust as he leaned in to level his gaze with Cain’s.

“No one ever comes here.”

“...I wonder what’s beyond it. Do let me know what you see down there.”

Cain felt his chest heave as Morrian let go of his shoulders.

The sensation of falling.
A gasp for air as he felt his back collide with cold stone ground. The tangle of his blankets kept him bound long enough for him to find calm among the night. At least he had awoken back within the familiar darkness of the monastery’s walls … But he hadn’t gotten the key. Cain winced as the glowing brand at the palm of his hand flickered to light in the dim night, casting odd shadows briefly upon his bedroom wall. 

He failed - again…

He would have to go back.