Chapter 27
The first thing Jason and Caroline sensed after they were swallowed by the black smoke, was a painful screech coming from some.
The next thing they felt, was that as if they were being thrown in all kinds of directions, yet they were somehow not hitting anything.
Slowly they regained their vision and their ability to move, and the giant spider legs for some reason let go of them and they just fell on the hallway floor.
Sounds of cracks and pops, the smell of smoke and the feeling of heat surrounded them - the hotel hallway was burning. There were two very conspicuous holes in the floor, and around these two holes were a couple of burning piles of tar-like matter.
The giant human-formed spider struggled in the burning hallway and tried to back away from where Jason and Caroline were. It appeared to be extremely fearful of the silver and orange flames that were burning all around the hallway and it appeared to be missing a few of its legs.
“Pop!” a piece of the carpet beneath one of the spider’s leg burst out burning in silver and orange flame. The spider jumped and tried to move the leg away, yet a large chunk of this leg was already burned by the flame. Some of the human bodies that formed it seemed to be melted off and dropped on the ground, and started burning like drops of tar-like matter around the holes in the floor.
“Carry them away!” Caroline gave Jason a push and knocked him out of his shock and confusion, then pointed at Branston, Brian and Adam: “We must carry them away!”
“Right! Now!” Jason came to himself and rushed to the side of the three unconscious young men with Caroline, and started dragging them away from the fires.
The spider was finally able to back away and into the shadows. But its body was already badly damaged when it did. There were some parts of its body that caught fire, it just shed the burning human body parts like chunks of dead skin, exposing the internals of its body in the process.
And even through the fires and almost a whole hallway away, Jason and Caroline were still able to make out a part of the human-formed spider’s “core” : it was a woman, in a golden-colored gown cradled in a fetal position. Unlike all other parts of the limbo, this woman and her gown had color on them and were not grey.
After letting out a loud and threatening screech, the spider disappeared into the shadows at the far end of the hallway.
When Jason and Caroline came to, they found that they were still standing in the hallway, and to their relief the hallway was not on fire at all.
But something definitely was on fire, since they smelled smoke.
“Caroline? Your backpack!”
“And yours!”
Looked like while they were in the limbo, something ignited all the incense in both their backpacks, the insides of their backpack were burned and badly damaged. But luckily, nothing else caught fire.
The folded paper sigils were also burnt down into barely recognizable pieces, and each of their metal mirrors were in incredibly high temperature and Caroline almost got her hand burnt while she was cleaning out her backpack.
Branston, Brian and Adam did not wake up as fast as Jason and Caroline, and they seemed to be very confused when they did.
“Stream’s disconnected. What happened? Did we stream at all?” Branston asked Brian and Adam, yet neither was able to give him an answer.
“Hey, Caroline, Jason.” Brian ran up to the two who were staring at two bunches of incense in their hands: “Looks like we got confused there for a bit, did we do the stream? Do you guys remember?”
“... No?” Caroline thought for a minute and decided she wanted to play dumb: “I don’t remember much from before. What do you remember?”
“Honestly? Almost nothing.” Brian turned back and took a look at Branston who was trying his hardest to adjust his camera and get the stream online, and Adam on the side helping him, while his expression clearly showed that he was trying really hard to remember what happened.
“It’s probably for the best.” Caroline smiled, “I felt like we went through something terrifying, it’s a blessing in disguise if we cannot remember anything.”
“Caroline? Look at the smoke.” Jason interrupted the brief conversation between Brian and Caroline.
Some of the incense in their backpacks was still burning, and a lot of the smoke that was trapped in there was also released when they tried to get things out. Yet the smoke did not dissipate like normal smoke would, nor did it rise up to the ceiling or out the window. Instead, all of the smoke drifted through the air across the hallway and gathered around a decorative pillar half embedded in the wall at the far end of the hallway.
The smoke from the incense was light, not cough-inducing and even had a calming smell, yet somehow it started to char that piece of the decorative pillar.
Jason and Caroline’s eyes met, the same realization just came over them.
“Fuck yeah! I just got it working!” Branston cheered as he finally got his camera to start shooting and his livestream back online, “Woah, the chats we got, it’s insane!”
“Let me see. What are they saying? ” Brian and Adam hastily took out their phones to check the status of the live stream.
A loud bang startled Branston, Brian and Adam. As they looked over to where the sound came from, they saw Jason and Caroline violently tearing up a decorative pillar in a wall at the end of the hallway.
“Woah woah woah! Guys! We are not supposed to do this!” Brian quickly rushed to Jason and Caroline’s side and exclaimed: “You can’t cause damage to the hotel! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Hey! What are you guys doing there!? What’s with the smoke!?” two doors opened and several guests came out of their rooms: “Stop it! We’re calling the hotel staff!”
Jason and Caroline did not even slow down, they already broke the surface of the decorative pillar, and they started breaking and pulling out what was inside: dusty fillings, old wooden boards and panels.
“Stop it! Stop it!” a female guest sounded like she was about to cry: “This is a historic hotel! You can’t do this!”
“Historic, made sense...” Jason muttered as he reached his hand down to the hole they made and pulled out a piece of wood panel that for some reason seemed corrupted and blackened.
“Stop what you’re doing, now!” two security guards from the hotel made it to the scene and tried to drag both Jason and Caroline away, but big and tall as they were, they were pushed to the side.
“Branston! Your camera! Come here!” Caroline yelled at the three young men who just seemed to get every streaming device online, “Turn on your flashlight and take a look down here!”
“There’s a body inside!” noticing that Branston was hesitant because of the presence of the bodyguards, Caroline spelled out loudly what she and Jason found.