Chương 215: Act 3, Chapter 64: Penrose is dead

Day in the story:??? I have no idea, what time is it, or a day. Fuck. Alexandra May Those motherfucking corridors had no end to them. We walked through them like some forsaken caravan without any sense of direction or purpose anymore. Well, shit—they walked, and I was pushed in a wheelchair by the big guy. My legs were not working anymore, my arms had stopped some time ago as well.

My fingers were still somewhat functional, while my body was getting into that difficult territory where every breath was becoming a challenge too. I was in a constant state of distress that eased only slightly, because at the very least we were moving somewhere. If only there was a goal to it then maybe, just reality-fucking maybe—I would not be considering releasing an Authority within myself and ending my miserable experience.

"Why are we here?" Ramirez asked as we came into a room where guests were doing yoga on mats. Big glass windows showed the beautiful beach, golden sands and turquoise ocean outside. White waves broke against small jagged rocks. I'd do anything to feel those grains between my toes as I moved toward that water.

"We were looking for something," Thomas answered, and they both leaned against the back wall, observing an elderly couple doing a cow-and-cat exercise. Penrose looked at some banknote in his hand that shone with silver shadowlight that later crawled up his arm and settled into his eyes.

"Listen," he turned to them. I was left by the door.

"We are in some kind of loop. This place is wearing us down. We need to figure out why we're losing track of time and space."

"What? I thought we were on vacation," Ramirez replied. I thought so too, briefly, but now I wasn't so sure anymore.

"No. I keep reminders on the money, and I've just been fucking reminded properly. We've gone through this seven times already. This is not a vacation. We came here to find Rei and other people I sent here, and get this place under control."

"How are we doing on that front?" I asked, forcing him to look at me. There was surprise in his eyes when he noticed my condition.

"We tried killing everyone twice—that didn't work. We mapped the place, also twice—but each time the layout changed. We called a manager once, but he assured us everything is fine. We followed a few people that seemed out of place, but that led nowhere. And apparently you, of all people, are getting worse with every day that passes." I just smiled in response.

"And a few additional notes I left for myself: do not split up, mercenaries were all useless and I killed them all, drunk guy is suspicious, deadline is coming. And also, strangely enough, a bolded message that speaks about a missing concept: says to ask Alexandra about it."

"Me?" I asked, surprised.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"I am supposed to remind you about doors and connection soul mark. And that is it. No more information from my more knowledgeable former self."

"You suck at making notes. Why would you speak to yourself in riddles?" I asked back.

"There is no reason—unless the concept we are missing cannot be written down," Ramirez said from the side. Then he patted his pockets, pushed himself off the wall, and scanned us from head to toe. He even checked under my seat, as if looking for something.

"Care to explain what you're doing?" Thomas asked, while both Phillip and I just watched.

"We have no weapons. We had weapons when we came here, right? We had to, if we were with mercenaries and were supposed to take over the hotel."

"We must have used all the bullets and tossed them away," I said, trying to remember if I brought something with me. I couldn't quite place it.

"That is probable," Penrose replied. I focused on my Connection soul mark, trying to grasp something—anything—and glanced down at my arms resting on the chair. My fingers tapped slowly against the armrests.

"Are you gentlemen here to join us in the exercises?" the instructor at the front asked, but Penrose shot her a glance that shut her up. That's when I realized—my skin was clean.

"Guys," I said.

"How do I look?"

"Not good. You're not moving much," Thomas answered.

"That's not what I meant. Am I wearing makeup?"

"Yes. Gertrude's."

"Fuck…" I mumbled under my breath, remembering—I wasn't really Alexandra. Why would I forget that, but not the fact that I could release the Authority that made me… me? Alexandra May / Gertrude Monkey"What did you realize?" Penrose asked.

"Nothing important. You mentioned connection and what before?"

"Doors," he replied.

"Yeah… that could only mean my ability to teleport…" I said, but the sentence wouldn't finish. There was a word missing—something obvious, something I should have had instantly—and I just couldn't reach it. It drove me insane. I also felt colder with every passing second.

"Can we get somewhere else? I feel wrong staying in here."

"Same," Ramirez said.

"Get her and let's move out," Penrose ordered, and Thomas stepped closer to push me.

"Out!" I shouted.

"That's the word I was looking for."

"What?"

"Teleport out. Get out. Move out—of the hotel. Why didn't we try to leave the building?" I continued, and suddenly it felt like something was stretching me thin. My very soul flattening, like paper.

"We can't get out," Penrose said suddenly, looking back at the note that had relayed him a message before.

"I can see the rest of the information I left for myself. It was hidden before. There is no way out of this place. It was taken from us." He went pale—paler than I'd ever seen him.

"It also says to never acknowledge it aloud." If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"What?" Ramirez asked.

"Run!" Penrose said.

"I told you that you suck at making notes. Why didn't you write first to keep all of what we figure out quiet?" I said, as Thomas grabbed the wheelchair and carried me in front of him while he ran. The walls kept on changing with a strange rhythm. They undulated in quick, arrhythmic convulsions. Bricks and tiles bulged outward one by one, distending like diseased flesh beneath a thin skin, then sinking back with a wet, reluctant recoil. From the seams between them, wild pink mass pressed to emerge.

It intruded out, looking like slick, pink cords forcing their way through impossible gaps, unfolding into the air with a nauseating elasticity. They writhed searching for us, as we tried to outrun this strange wave. Wet irises spiraled open along the length of those grasping limbs and every movement we made was tracked by those churning pupils.

"I made it the first… information. But I could not decipher it until… this happened," Penrose replied, jumping over a vine that rose from the floor next to him. Then he fell, as another caught him. He hit the ground with a heavy thump that sent a wave of force through the floor, cracking the tiles where he landed. We all stopped and turned to look. The vines went for him and him alone.

Then the cracks with him laying still on top widened into a yawning seam, exposing a vast, glistening mass that pulsed below, its surface swollen and uneven, threaded with veins that throbbed in time with the walls' terrible breathing. The tendrils were not separate things, instead they were extensions, nerves or fingers of something far too large to fit within the space it inhabited. And they closed over Phillip within a second. Thomas set me on the ground.

"Keep an eye on her!" he shouted at Ramirez, who grabbed me and moved back, while Torque rushed toward Phillip. The creature in the walls noticed him immediately, sending its tendrils after him. They wrapped around his legs, but he reached down and tore through them with brute strength alone, ripping them apart. That's when I remembered that he still had that armor painted onto his body. It gave him strength, resilience and mobility. Unfortunately for him, the vines were relentless.

They kept coming, pushing up from beneath the floor without pause. Penrose was completely covered by them now, as the ground itself tried to swallow him by slowly pulling Phillip's body inside itself.

"I don't know what to do," Ramirez whispered, and paralyzed as I was, I couldn't help either. Thomas, however, was in pure beast mode and didn't care one bit about what anyone would call overwhelming odds. A tendril launched at him from the side, and he caught it with one hand, then yanked it down in one clean motion, severing it with a wet crunch as tendons and muscle tore apart. Then, with a heavy stomp, he crushed the cocoon that had been weaving itself around Penrose.

A wild puff of air burst from the mass as it split open. The unbroken tendrils recoiled, while the ones that snapped hissed, leaking some kind of clear gas. Thomas dropped to one knee in the mess, reached for Penrose, who was only partially uncovered, and pulled him free. The moment he did, everything fell eerily silent. The mass retreated back into the holes it had crawled out from. As quickly as it had appeared, it vanished.

"Thank you," Phillip whispered, sitting against the wall that had been a monster just moments ago.

"It was truly… interesting."

"What was?" Thomas asked.

"I… don't know." Penrose looked confused for a moment.

"We were supposed to be going somewhere," Ramirez said, and a wave of déjà vu hit me. The same thing had happened before. We figured out we couldn't get out because there were no doors, and the hotel, or whatever lurked in the walls, attacked us. The others lost their memories first. I didn't, for some reason. Probably because I'm not really a person on my own. Something about me resists it at the Authority level, as I keep fighting off the memory loss, until I too give up eventually.

That's why I must've asked Penrose to take notes last time, and probably the time before that as well.

"Let's get going," Penrose said finally.

"It's getting very cold in here." It indeed was getting chilly. It always did whenever we stopped, for any reason. It was as if the place forced us to move. It thrived on impermanence, on the fleeting nature of memory, on constant movement from one place to another. It must have hated stillness, but at the same time, it had to keep us here, so it made us forget that leaving was even an option. But I must've figured that out before too, which meant my earlier attempts to get us out had failed somehow.

"Are you there?" Thomas waved a hand in front of my face.

"Yes. I can't move, really. Not even lift a finger," which must have happened right now, as I fought off the Authority of this place.

"But I'm here, and I think we need to get to the reception. Can we get there?"

"Reception? Why there?" Ramirez asked, while Phillip just watched.

"I just remembered I left something there, and I need it back." There were those statues there, the ones I'd considered art before. Even that act had infused them with some of my Authority, and I'd need every bit of it for what I was about to propose.

"We can go," Penrose said.

"It's not like we have anywhere else to be right now. Let's enjoy the stay."

"Sir," Thomas turned to him suddenly, as Ramirez pushed my wheelchair forward.

"Is it… true?"

"What is true?"

"You said we have time, but I can't shake the feeling you mentioned a deadline. Something like that."

"Deadline?" he mused, staring up at the ceiling as he walked. For a moment, he looked old. Worn down. Stripped of that sharp edge that made him who he was.

"Yes, I can recall something like that too," Ramirez added.

"Should we hurry?"

"I don't really know," he said. And that indecisiveness wouldn't do. Not from him. If he was an imbecile and me immobile, we were as good as finished.

"Reach for the banknote in your breast pocket, Phillip," I said.

"There's a message on it. But whatever you get from it, don't say it out loud." He followed the instruction. After a moment, and a faint shadowlight show, he began to come back to himself.

"Why exactly do you want to go to the reception?" He stepped ahead and turned toward me.

"We've tried this before few times already."

"Can't say it outright. The walls here have ears. But I think it'll help us finally make some progress."

"Good, good. We need that. Time is running out."

"Don't worry about me," I said.

"I can still squeeze something out of this body. Once we get there, I should start feeling better. Might be enough. If it's not, I'll tell you what to do."

"That's not exactly what I meant," Phillip said.

"It's the deadline guys were speaking of. It comes with a heavy heart what I have to tell you." He continued, but I could not see any real change in either the posture or the tone of his speech.

"I am unsure how long we've been here already, but I have a dead man's switch. If I don't confirm I'm alive to Lincoln within two weeks of my last contact, he'll order the killing of people connected to those who might've wanted me dead." He looked straight at me as he said it.

"Oh no, you didn't," I hissed with a sudden tightness in my chest.

"Unfortunately. A man like me has to be prepared."

"Say it clearly. Who's on the list? Am I on it?" I asked. The others stopped to watch this confrontation between us unfold. The cold crept back in around us.

"Yes, Alexandra… unfortunately, you are."

"Fuck you," I said through clenched teeth.

"Who are the targets?" I pressed, but he stayed silent, just watching me, weighing something.

"I'll ask once more. Who did you order to be killed in retaliation?"

"Peter Stark and Sophie DeLonge," he said flatly. You're a dead man, Phillip. I'll kill you myself! The words screamed inside my head while my face twisted with anger. I turned away slightly, tilted my head, closed my eyes, jaw locked tight. It took effort, but I forced myself to speak.

"Then we better hurry." Sophie. Peter. Danger. I repeated it in my head, over and over, pushing it through whatever link still tied me to Alexandra. If anything could get through, it had to be that. Sophie. Peter. Danger. Three words. Enough for her to understand. Enough for me to understand. Sophie. Peter. Danger. I kept repeating it, forcing the thought forward, while burying the urge to kill him where it belonged. It would happen, when my strength returns, when the time is right.

Fuck all the Nexuses and promises of power—of motherfucking common goals. Screw the history we share. To bloody hell with the skills he taught me. It's bullshit that despite all the crap he gave me, he still feels like a father to me—one that disappointed me fucking again! Fuck, all of that! Penrose is a dead man. The universe just doesn't know it yet.