Look Alive, Sunshine

“i want to discover myself.
i want to destroy myself.
i want to be a secret that nobody but i can ruin.”
―Salma Deera, Letters From Medea

Saturday, July 1st.
Fourteen days after.

Oakland has a decidedly different air than San Francisco.

It seemed obvious, when you thought about it. It was especially evident now. Oakland was still alive and bustling even in the dead of night, two hours past midnight. People still teeming about the streets, cars zooming this way and that, too many of them honking. People hanging over balconies, people crawling out of bars they wouldn't remember entering in the morning.

San Francisco was busier, larger, more in your face in every other respect, but Oakland seemed more complicated in ways that were in-explainable.

Not that Soran had anything against Oakland, really. There was just a reason he had crossed the bridge and settled elsewhere.

At least with the busyness of Oakland, all of them ignoring the shield and impending doom hovering somewhere to their left, no one feels the innate urge to look at them the way everyone back home did. It's another hike to the bus depot, just over an hour, but they're on the receiving end of no odd looks. No one knows them here, and no one has any reason to.

It's been well suspected that Oakland has more accepting communities for the supernatural. Soran apparently just doesn't like making things easy for himself.

None of them do. They don't know the easy things. He can rattle all of them off, and every single one of them has done almost the exact opposite. He should have kept his head down, ignored all of this. Left them all in the dust. In fact, outside of Ria, that's what they all should have done. Icarus should have realized the danger he was in associating with them all and gone looking for a normal life. Tarquin should have gone back into hiding, forming a new name and a new life somewhere in the dark.

He can't even begin to explain Emmi outside of the fact that she shouldn't be here, point blank. All she's done is quietly seethe, eyes scanning the perimeter every thirty seconds or so.

An exhausting task, he knows. He's doing it too. Their eyes keep meeting somewhere in the middle, no comments necessary shared between the two of them.

Outside, at least, Tarquin was doing it too, but the second they settle in the bus depot everyone seems to deflate. He heads off to buy five tickets, a truly unnecessary number, and everyone else scatters. Emmi's in one row, eyes fixated on the main door, and Tarquin is in the seat directly behind her, looking but not really seeing the row of buses coming and going from the back lot. Ria is staring into the nearest vending machine like it's a black hole. Considering she hasn't asked for money and doesn't need to even eat in the first place, he's certainly not about to offer.

They've got about forty minutes to wait for the next bus; sitting for an hour and then another nine, easy, after that, steers him clear away from taking a seat now.

"You might want to go check on him," Emmi says casually as he shuffles past, trying to move as slow as possible. The depot isn't very big, and he's got forty minutes to kill. "I think he might have drowned in the sink."

"Don't think he would appreciate a drowning joke."

"Sounds like a him sort of problem to me." She shrugs, slumping deeper into the seat to stretch a leg out, nearly tripping him. "Go buy me a snack."

"Go buy yourself a snack," he fires back. "I just bought your bus ticket." He flicks it at her and she misses swiping it out of the air by a mile, instead watching it flutter down to the floor, eyes full of disdain.

"Ah, yes," she says unimpressed. "Five ten dollar bus tickets. How ever will you survive?"

Tarquin smiles, or at least it looks like he does, which is a vast improvement on how sour his face has looked since they left. You'd think Ria dragged him by his ankles by the look of him.

He keeps the rest of the tickets shoved in his wallet, makes sure Emmi at least scoops hers back up, and continues on his merry way. Moving this slow is not something that sits well with him, but it makes the most sense. There's no way someone could have followed them out of the shield, but anyone suspicious on either side wouldn't have spent an hour following them on foot. A bus trip is just the last step to make sure that they're in the clear.

He makes his way to the pamphlet counter at the end of the row they've claimed. All sorts of wild colors and fonts spread out in front of him, advertising places with the most fun, the most excitement.

If only they were going to be getting any of that. Soran isn't so optimistic.

There's only one pamphlet about Death Valley, at the very bottom. Just general facts, really, and a map that opens up in the back. He only opens up the first few flaps before he closes it, unwilling to risk it never closing again.

An arm winds around his waist. "We should go to Vegas," Icarus mumbles into the back of his shoulder, reaching for one of the pamphlets at the very top of the stand.

"'Cause that's totally where it is."

"It could be," he suggests, shaking his hand vigorously to open it. "Maybe it's at the top of the Luxor. You never know."

"Sure don't," he mutters. Oh, how he wishes he did. All of this would be so much easier if he did. Anyone, for that matter. Get in, get out, come back and fix whatever fucking mess there is by the time they return. At least if they knew things might not be so disastrous when they do.

"I don't... think I've ever been," Icarus says. He looks more tired than perplexed. It's more energy to figure it out than it's worth.

"We'll go, one day."

"Really?"

"Why not?"

He's been. More times than he'd like to, really. Vegas isn't all it's chalked up to be.

They need something to do after all of this, though. So long as they have an after.

Icarus seems entirely content with where he is. Soran takes the pamphlet from his limp hand and shoves it back into the stand, cramming his own deep down into his pocket. There's no one around or maybe he'd care; it's only the lady behind the desk, who looks bored to fucking tears, and she couldn't care less, certainly, about Icarus clinging to his back like an over-tired koala.

It's weird, though. He doesn't really want to move. Has to, eventually.

Icarus is so warm most of the time that he never wants to.

Emmi looks up, finally. She snorts, but there's no mirth behind it. "You two are disgusting."

Icarus gives her the finger, and then wraps that arm around him too when he's done. They're never getting on the bus at this rate; the two of them fitted together like this won't even manage their way through the door.

He lets him though, for now. He's been letting him a lot lately, trying to get used to it, trying to allow himself something that he never thought he deserved, Maybe that's still the truth, in some universe or other, but he's trying.

It's good, too. He knows this because of the way Emmi keeps checking her phone, never typing out the start to a conversation, or even a response. She just lost something, a specific something that Soran currently has, and it's eating away at her insides. She’s not just seething - she’s mourning, too.

He’s forgotten what that expression looks like on his own face, but it’s easily recognizable on just about anyone else's.

Mourning is hard. He doesn’t miss it, doesn't have any desire to feel it.

If that’s all he can manage to stay away from, at the end of the day, then he can live with that.

―

Icarus is half-asleep when the bus rolls up.

Soran left him in the cold, unforgiving plastic of the chairs bolted to the walls, and he’s been watching him non-discreetly shove snacks into his bag from the vending machine for the better part of two or three minutes by now.

If the chair wasn’t so uncomfortable, he’d be out. Would have been out within seconds of sitting down.

He's tired. More tired than he is usually. He's had more than his fair share of sleepless nights, tossing and turning until the sun came up. Maybe the walk has something to do with it - two hours on his feet getting dragged through two different cities is not exactly his definition of a fun night out.

Still, though, nobody else looks quite so tired as him.

His theory is quickly disproven by the new arrivals - a totally normal looking young couple, but the girl has circles under his eyes even darker than his. Icarus is sure he's not so much as showing the visible signs as he's just feeling him. She looks like she's been through hell and back.

They purchase tickets. Sit not so far away. The girl almost immediately goes to sleep on the guy's shoulder. He spends most of his time trying to lean over just far enough to see the tickets poking out of the man's wallet. He's not positive, but he thinks they say San Jose, too.

So they won't be alone. At this hour he almost expected to be.

He's so tired it's hard to focus on them for long, but Emmi, it seems, is having difficulty looking away. Even Tarquin keeps peering over his shoulder at them, less frequently, but enough to openly showcase his displeasure at the thought of anyone being so close to them.

Maybe it's bad that he's not more worried. He nudges the bag Soran left at his feet directly between them, half-under the row of chairs. Both the gun and sword are in there; probably not the thing he should be leaving around with strangers in close proximity.

Totally normal strangers, he may add. They're not going to do anything.

Everyone's just acting like they are.

Soran sits down next to him with a thud that rattles the entire row of seats. Everyone looks at him, including the man, but there's nothing behind his gaze that rouses any suspicion in Icarus.

Maybe he's just the token delusional one. Everyone is looking at the guy like he's going to jump up and slit someone's throat any minute now. The paranoia is spreading like a disease, and it looks like he's the only one who doesn't currently have it.

The girl had the right idea, honestly. She found a pillow, closed her eyes, and ignored the world around her. Icarus would do the same if Soran wasn't moving around like a madman, trying and halfway failing to shove everything he collected from the vending machine into his backpack without squashing it all.

"Give me some of those," he demands. Soran hands him an entire armful of God only knows what - he locates a bag of chips that he at least recognizes, finally, and tears them open. The crinkles spread throughout the room as if amplified by a loudspeaker.

There's not a soul that doesn't look at him. He hurriedly shoves a chip in his mouth to get out of apologizing.

"Those weren't for now,” Soran hisses, and tries to snatch the bag back. Icarus nearly tips out of the chair altogether to keep possession of the bag, all for Emmi to snatch it out of his hand when he leans halfway out into the aisle in his frantic quest. When she reaches back to return the bag to him, there's hardly anything left aside from what she's tipped into her hand.

Soran drags the rest of the bags back into his lap. Icarus smiles, offers a chip out to him, and then shoves it into his own mouth the second it looks as if he's about to take it.

"You're the worst," Soran informs him. More crinkling, then, as he demolishes almost the entirety of the bags whilst he puts them away.

So much for their snacks.

Icarus works his way methodically through the rest of the chips while he watches the bus pull into place outside the sliding doors. The couple to his left is the first to move, ambling slowly to wait in a non-existent line. He finishes the chips, allows Soran to steal the last one even though he was saving it, and only then does he haul himself to his feet to follow.

They're certainly a group. Rag-tag, made of little sense, but it's what they've got. He can't help but marvel at how strange it all looks as they file on one by one. Soran adamantly refuses to hand over the bag containing all of their weapons to be stored underneath, and Tarquin holds onto his own bag even tighter, clutching it awkwardly against his chest. It doesn't look like the bus driver is in the mood to deal with it at this time of night; it slides with little fanfare save for a slightly perturbed look.

The couple has claimed a row halfway back, but Emmi makes a straight-away for the very back row, left side, and throws herself into it. Soran drops his bag into the one across from it, where clearly no one else will be able to get to it, and then holds out an arm when Icarus goes to sit.

"If you think you're getting the window, you're insane."

"Why not?"

"Because I know for a fact you're going to try and sleep on me. You don't get me and the window. Pick."

Behind them, Emmi snickers. Oh, he's serious. Ria and Tarquin both sit down without argument in front of her, leaving them the other side. He could just take a whole row to himself before them all, but...

He knows what the option is, and waits not so patiently while Soran settles next to the window. He doesn't even look triumphant about his success. It's another little thing they're growing around, like normal couples do. Nowhere close to the one they're sharing a bus with, that's for sure, but an effort is better than nothing.

Much to Icarus' credit, he tries. He makes it as far as the bus pulling out of the lot, and then the rumble underneath him begins to make his eyelids droop once again. He leans back into the seat and tries to stay there, but his back is already protesting it.

His back often protests his actions.

Soran holds an arm out, finally, having watching him shift and squirm around for several minutes as they finally hit the road. He leans into his side, lays his head on Soran's shoulder. It's cold too with the air conditioner blasting above them. The window was almost never an option.

"You knew what I was going to pick," he mumbles. It's just making it too easy. If Icarus lasts two more minutes, he'll be shocked.

"Sure did," Soran replies. "Stage five clinger."

"Rude."

He doesn't even know if Soran will sleep. Won't be awake to find out, either. It's clearly hit him harder than everyone else. He feels off, somewhere. Weirder than he usually does. His stomach is always faintly rolling these days, an uneasy pit in the center of his gut that just doesn't go away.

There's a lot going on - he's not the only one that feels that way.

"Wake me up when we get there," he murmurs. 

He has an hour, desperately needs all of it, and is asleep before they hit the next block.

―

Emmi is longing for too many things.

Her bed, for one. Her bed, and Winnie asleep next to her, and the background bustle of someone always inevitably awake in the apartment around them. Hell, she's even starting to miss Nic and his weird, dead eyes.

And then, of course, she starts to feel bad. She said she was going to help fix him... whatever that entails. At least help stitch him up.

Maybe Mal will do it, maybe he won't. Will anyone, if she's not there?

She's also longing deeply for sleep, currently, and wants to punch Icarus more and more by the second. He's asleep the entire ride to San Jose, meaning she's wanted to punch him just shy of four thousand times by the time the lights of the city start to twinkle over them once again.

Sleep would just be better because it would involve a complete and total lack of anything. No thinking, no worrying, no deep, unsettling regret. Just blissful darkness.

Normally Emmi despises being in the dark. It's what's gotten her into most of the trouble she's encountered in her life. Right now, it's all she wishes for.

She supposes all of this Death Valley shit is close enough. They have no clue what they're looking for. No clue what they're even doing, really. She can see it already - the five of them are going to do repeated circles around a National Park that just so happens to also be a blisteringly hot desert - in July, no less. Her predictions are as follows: they never find whatever Ria is looking for, one of them, at least, drops dead from heat-stroke and Emmi takes off running immediately after rather than face the prospect of returning home and trying to explain that to Myra, or anyone for that matter.

She's not going home anyway, is she? She told Arwen as much.

Emmi misses her more than she thought she was capable of missing anyone. The human body shouldn't be able to long for something else this deeply. How can one person stand so much pain like this, especially if it's not physical?

Physically, Emmi can deal with just about anything.

She never wanted this, however.

Part of the reason sleep consistently evades her is her phone, charging in the port between Tarquin and Ria's seats in front of her. The notification light flashes constantly, every different color it could possibly be. A text message. A missed call. A voicemail. Every single way that Arwen could be trying to contact her, and every single one of them failing. She has no idea that Emmi has been gone only a few short hours. She has no idea about any of this.

That's the biggest problem with longing. It makes you do things you don't want to, things against the very definition of your existence.

It's best for them, and for Winnie most of all, if she stays away. Maybe they do find this thing they're looking for - she'll make sure they get back into the city, and then what?

Does she leave for good?

She might just have to cross that bridge when she gets to it.

She shoves her phone deep into her pocket when they finally step off the bus at some god-awful time in the morning. The car rental building just outside of the depot isn't even open, keys and receipts left with the clerk behind the main ticket desk. They're collected easy enough.

Emmi could leave right now if she wanted to. Get a car herself and just drive. She could walk to the airport, even.

Letting go of that is just too hard. Not yet, she thinks. Just not yet.

She can't see the bridge yet, anyway.

There's no telling who's in charge of them, if anyone is, but there's a consensus to wander and stretch their legs while Soran goes to retrieve the car.

Her phone buzzes again in her third time wandering past the bathroom. Emmi has no restraint. The notification color for a text is flashing when she pulls it out, and the screen illuminates on a single message.

winnie: you know I love you, right?

Right back to the longing, again.

"What's with the arm?"

Emmi jolts and nearly pitches her phone halfway across the depot. Ria walks out of the bathroom adjacent and stares. There's a man just behind her, in that odd stage where she can't tell if he's older or younger. Maybe even more sleep-deprived than her, though. That's always a good sign.

She has no real ability to tell, but he seems human. She hopes he is.

"Excuse me?" she asks.

"The arm," he repeats. "What is that, a birth defect or something?"

"None of your business," she tries, but that doesn't seem to deter him in the slightest. For a random man in the middle of the night, he sure is persistent. She's alone. Looks tired.

There's a reason so many men died at her hand before.

Ria, behind them, looks as if she wants to creep closer, and finally settles on fleeing for the parking lot. For the best, really. The man is twice the size of her - Emmi, at least, could give him a solid decking and then some, but there's no way Ria would be able to do anything.

There's no reason for it, anyway. He's just a regular old, invasive creep. Same as most of them.

He shrugs, hands stuffed in his pockets. "Just wondering. You know, you're a really pretty girl, but―"

"I know," she interrupts. "Fuck you."

He looks flabbergasted. Maybe he's drunk and thought this would turn out better than he expected. Maybe he just fits the bill. Either way, he's going to die if he doesn't get away from her sooner rather than later. Maybe it's the reminder that she could kill him that makes her nauseous. Maybe it's him prying about her missing forearm as if he has any right. People she's known for months haven't even yet gained that privilege.

"Emmi!"

The man turns on his feet. Soran is at the door, the only one, but the only one really necessary. It’s enough to sake the man out of his intentions, and her out of the fog.

There’s her break.

Emmi barely resists the urge to sprint through the entire depot at him, and nearly collides with the automatic doors when they don’t let her out quick enough. The man is gone, when she turns around. Just another one of the not so good ones.

“Want me to kill him?” Soran asks.

“Wouldn’t be mad,” she responds. He nods, thoughtfully. Probably thinking up some gruesome manner or other. She skirts around him to the car, making her way to the open trunk. It’s just her they’re waiting on. Ria ran for them for a reason. She couldn’t have done anything, but someone else did the second Ria thought to get them.

At least someone has her back. They all do, really. Someone still does back home, too, despite her initial showing of anger. Emmi drops her bags in the trunk and slams the hatch shut, but stares down at the text again before she joins the others in the SUV.

You know I love you, right?

Emmi doesn’t hesitate. She can’t allow herself to. She types it out faster than anything else before in her life, those four words. I love you too.

She hits send. Turns her phone off immediately after. Clambers into the car after the rest of them.

And then she leaves it all behind.

―

The sun is climbing steadily into the sky when Ria opens her eyes.

It was still dark when Tarquin had offered to take the middle, for a while, so that she could try and get some rest. She remembers the switch, troublesome and complicated.

She doesn’t remember much after that.

She keeps herself still for some time, allowing everything inside the car and out it alike to swim back into focus. Better not to bring too much attention to herself just yet. She's not awake enough for the questions. She is wildly uncomfortable, though, and there's a crick in the side of her neck that doesn't go away even when she tries to stretch it out. At least this feeling is familiar. You never could sleep comfortably up there.

"We just got to the park a few minutes ago," Tarquin murmurs. "An hour, maybe. Or at least that's what I've been told."

His voice is quiet, unobtrusive. The whole car is in much the same state. He's still in the middle seat, no complaints to be heard. It's him she can feel pressed into her right hip.

"This desert enough for you?" he continues. It doesn't even sound like anyone else has paid any mind to her being awake.

Ria stares out the window, nodding. It's huge, vast, all shades of brown and golden-orange contained in one place. The sky's the bluest she's ever seen it, not a cloud in the sky. In the distance ragged mountains rise up into it, uneven all the way through. There's no water in sight, hardly any vegetation on the ground except for sparse, dried-up bushes.

The window is hot to the touch. She can't imagine what it feels like outside just by the look of it alone.

"Are we there yet?" Emmi asks. She throws a leg over Tarquin and nearly into Ria, the only reason she even sees it, to drive her foot into the back of Soran's seat, sending it rocking about wildly. 

Someone's realized she's awake, clearly, and there goes the silence. Soran mutters something under his breath. Icarus reaches back to swat at her.

It feels like she's not the youngest one trapped in this car.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Tarquin asks. Ria finally turns her head to the rest of the car, trying to ignore what's lying outside of it. It's overwhelming to look at.

How are they supposed to find it in this?

Like she said, it's best not to think about it. She's not required to look right this second, and she's certainly not finding anything from the car. Best to wait until they're stopped and settled to think of a game-plan.

If they can even think of one.

"Don't ask," Icarus answers. "I regretted it immediately."

"Reassuring," Emmi says, enthused. "Tell me."

"I said―"

"I know what you said!"

"Listen," Soran says slowly. "It's not my fault. It's the dead of fucking Summer, and impromptu on top of that. In a shocking twist no one wants to be camping in this hell-fire weather. It's a miracle I found anywhere with open reservations, let alone for an undetermined amount of time."

"Reassuring," Emmi repeats.

"We're all going to die, aren't we?" Tarquin asks. He doesn't sound the least bit disturbed. The way they're talking, it sounds like that might be a realistic possibility.

"In a shocking twist, Soran manages to find the only hotel in a thousand mile radius run by an axe murderer," Emmi says, looking quite pleased with herself. It's him this time that reaches back in an attempt to hit her, and the car swerves across both lanes three times over before he turns back to the wheel again.

She's evidently the only one concerned.

"It's not run by an axe murderer," he says, clearly irritated. "It's just... a little bit haunted."

"Yeah." Icarus snorts. "A little bit."

"Shut up."

"Alright, pop quiz everyone," Emmi says. "What do you do if you see a ghost?"

"Run," Icarus suggests. "Fast."

"Punch it," Soran says. Ria hears Emmi sigh all the way across the back row.

"Just wait until it goes away?" Tarquin asks, as if that seems to be the most obvious answer. Not the best one she's heard, if she's being honest with herself. She's not sure she could stand still with something's malevolent presence hanging in the air around her.

"Cry," Ria finally says, under her breath. Tarquin smiles.

With all of these options, Ria wouldn't be surprised to see them all happen, even all at once. With this group, it's difficult to tell. It's no wonder Emmi looks so exasperated. She probably misses the normalcy of home compared to all of them.

The thunk of Emmi's head hitting the window is the loudest thing she's heard in the past hour. "You can't just punch a ghost," she insists. "At least I don't think you can."

"Watch me," Soran fires back. Ria has had to see a lot of unpleasant things recently, and had to imagine even more, but somehow that image is one of the least disturbing of them all. Soran will certainly try. She wouldn't be surprised to see him succeed either. At this point in her rather short life, she's witnessed odder things.

It's the only word she's said this far, but it feels like enough. Wherever Soran has them ending up, they have no choice in it now. It's that or camping, like he said. Ria doesn't think that would go over well.

She never thought she would say this, but maybe haunted is better.

Whatever that even entails.

Right now, it's best for her to stay quiet. Over the next two minutes there are at least a dozen more complaints about hauntings, or ghosts, or dying in general. Soran finally succeeds in hitting Emmi, though she doesn't see where. Tarquin, to his credit, is clearly taking the most abuse being stuck in the middle. She'll have to thank him for that later.

It all culminates in Emmi detaching her seat-belt so she can climb halfway into the front seat, by the looks of it. A fight ensues as three different sets of hands go for the volume dial and the buttons to change the station.

"Listen, if you're going to get me killed, you need to let me have my 70's jam session before then!" Emmi insists.

"I need to do no such thing."

"Please?" she begs. "Not even Highway to Hell? So fitting, though."

"Definitely not that."

"Bohemian Rhapsody? Dancing Queen? Tiny Dancer?"

"None of the above."

"... Killing Me Softly?" Emmi suggests, finally.

"I'm going to kill you softly in a second."

Icarus snorts. Even Tarquin starts laughing, trying to keep the noise contained under his breath when Emmi whirls on him. Ria finds herself smiling at the absurdity of it all, in the middle of an even worse situation. If this is how it goes, even if things don't work out the way they plan, things could always be worse.

At least Ria thinks they could be.

She’ll find out eventually, one way or another. They always do.

―

“Oh,” Emmi says, face practically flattened to the window. “We really are all going to die.”

“I wasn’t joking when I said it,” Tarquin points out. Emmi makes a truly horrified face out the window, as if this is the worst thing she’s ever laid eyes on.

Tarquin knows for a fact that it isn’t.

The hotel, though… well, it’s certainly up there, to say the very least. Ten seconds down the road, you couldn't tell there was anything there at all. They had passed a wasteland of abandoned buildings and a few broken down trailers laid out haphazardly in the grass, rusted all the way through, and around the next bend there it was.

It's very long, white as bone, lying almost perfectly in the shadow of the mountain beyond it. The main part of the hotel, it appears, branches off at both ends to form a rough, square-shaped horseshoe. Most of the pavement is cracked and sprouting weeds. Even the trees look like they're fighting against life itself, as if death would be better than existing out here.

Soran pulls the car towards the middle of the main building, by-passing the first end. It's the tallest portion of the building, but not by much, and has 'AMARGOSA OPERA HOUSE' in thick, black and white letters over the main double doors.

Tarquin does even want to know what that's about, frankly.

"Stay here," Soran instructs. Tarquin catches a brief glimpse as he heads into what is presumably the lobby - garishly green carpet, a set of ancient couches, odd murals on the walls.

"Fuck me," Emmi says under her breath, and then gets out.

So much for that.

He does as well, if only because Icarus is already moving, too, and he can't take blame for it with two people ahead of him. His legs are beyond cramped for sitting so long. They stopped not long ago, to refill the gas and stretch, but it wasn't nearly enough. Frankly, he never wants to get back in that car ever again unless it’s to get the hell out of here, whenever that may be. Never, probably.

It's not going to happen. The plan is a loose, jumbled mess in his head, but he gets the gist of it. Unless the thing they're looking for is magically here, their next however many days are going to be filled with day trips to every possible location they can access looking for it.

It's no nine hour drive, but Tarquin doesn't imagine it's going to be any more fun.

Soran returns quickly, two identical sets of actual keys dangling from his fingers instead of the cards they've become used to seeing. He should have expected as much from the sight of it.

Both rooms are all the way at the opposite end from where they pulled it, right at the horseshoe's second juncture. He's the only one paying any sort of attention when Soran tosses him a set of keys, and he has to drop his bag in the dirt to avoid losing him.

"It's two beds," he says. "If any of you have a problem sharing, get another room or go home."

Emmi sticks her tongue out at him. Tarquin doesn't think there's any room to complain, when just about thirty-six hours ago apparently only three of them were supposed to be here. The second room likely wasn't even part of the plan until now, and it's only Soran's unwillingness to cram all five of them into a room that's getting them anywhere at all.

Emmi tugs the keys out of his hand, leaving him the last unfortunate soul in the blistering parking lot. Even the wind is insufferable, stirring up dust and grime into his face. He holds up a hand and it slows, some, but he can't tell if the weak breeze makes it better or worse.

It's slightly better inside, at least. Air conditioned, even if the units are attached to all of the windows and chugging away like they're about to explode.

The good ends there.

The halls are claustrophobic, walls just as white as the outside and pressing in on all sides like they're about to collapse inward. There are portraits, illuminated by the odd, hanging yellow lights - they're not frames, though, but painted onto the walls as if it was someone's best attempt at livening the place up. He looks down. The carpet is red, like blood, all the way in either direction.

There's no getting out of it - it feels wrong. And haunted was a vast underestimation.

He can hear them all chattering down the hall outside their rooms, and more voices the opposite way despite not being able to see anyone, but there are other things. Creaks all along the floor when he takes a step forward, the rustle of wind that appears to be coming from nowhere at all. It feels stronger again, even though he slowed it some.

Human or not, no one should be in here.

"It feels bad in here," Ria says quietly, and he flinches. He hadn't even noticed her creep back up to him, arms wrapped tight around herself. She shivers despite the heat.

He's not the only one whose hair is standing up on the back of their neck. And if even she can tell...

"Sure does," he agrees. They're not going anywhere until tomorrow, and Tarquin doesn't even want to be here that long. It's no wonder this was the only place available.

He's seen a lot of things. Actual war-zones, villages razed down to the ground, the woods around the home he grew up in burning long into the night. Corpses piled on top of the other, the flies already starting on their eyes. Corpses he helped put there. His mother, his father, everyone he ever knew and the people he wished he hadn't.

This is just a hotel. Simple, but upon deeper inspection...

It's still just a hotel, his brain thinks. But that doesn't mean it's right.

And this one decidedly isn't.