Hotel Selten

Caught the Clue

Thilda holds her index finger to them, shushing them both. They checked again if it’s just some random noise. Minutes later, another rustling of the bush can be heard again. She looked at the other two, mouthing quietly, “Stay here…” She slowly approached the source of the noise. Ophelia and Peony on the other hand prepared to defend and back up on Thilda once something bad happens. 

Thilda was squinting her eyes since it’s dark and the light from the fire slowly dims as she goes far away. She saw a vague silhouette of a head just lurking in the bushes. In her back, she signals the other two to go around the area she is in. Both of them nods as they silently went around. The silhouette stood still, it probably knows it’s being cornered. 

“Show yourself. Don’t play with us anymore.” Thilda calls out the unknown person just lurking. “Come on. You don’t want us to be hard on you.” She slowly slides back the end of her sweater as it reveals her right hand with a blade. She approached near the silhouette, closer and closer. In a coward, the person suddenly rises and runs. Peony caught him on his feet with her vines. He stumbled on the ground and almost ate its dirt. 

The vines slowly surround the lower half of his body as Peony pulls him closer. Ophelia lights up his face with her temporary torch, “I am not familiar with him.” Thilda scoots closer, “Me neither.” Peony suddenly pushes him against the tree. She tied him up, as he struggles. “Let me go!” He pleads it was not effective for the three. Ophelia lights up and scrutinizes his whole body. “Yep, he was one of those armies.”

“Huh.” Thilda smirks as she looks at him, “Tell me, who is the mastermind of this?” The man keeps struggling as he pants, Peony squeezed his gut a bit as he made some noises of pain. “I don’t know! I am just a mere recruit for money!” Thilda squinted her eyes. “Believe me! I swear!” The vines slowly crawl towards his chest. “Even some officials?” He looks at the vines in fear as he looks at them, “We know our General and nothing else! His name is General Trepagnier!” 

“Where did you came from?” The man gulps, “I am an American who just moved to France. Since I still don’t have any job, a new French friend I met recruited me. I thought it was a chef job but when I knew it was kind of a private army, I just joined, because I need money to live in France! And also, when you join them, you can’t go back to the surface until you are deployed. Life was tough back there.” He was shivering as he watches the vine slowly crawls to his neck. 

“How many times have you done this?” She starts to scratch the tree with her blade as the man shivers once more, “Twice! One in that mansion and I think this is my last.” Thilda smirks, “Do you have a base?” She asked again, showing him her bladed hand. The man’s eyes widen, “In R-Rennes! Rennes, France! I forgot the street and all such, but I know it’s in Rennes! Please let me go, I am just a victim of a scam!” Thilda nods as she thinks, she lowered her blade hand as the man calms a bit. She moved her index finger as she walks away. Peony finishes him by choking him on vines as Ophelia turns around and avoids watching it. 

They returned to the camp, Ophelia yawns as she blows the fire out of the wooden stick. She approached her tree as she sits under it. She hugged her bag as she slowly dozes off, finally resting herself from a tiring day. The other two stayed awake, guarding their little camp once more.

The morning comes to say hello once more as the rays of the sun reached Ophelia’s face, waking her up. All of the events that happened yesterday were true, not a dream. She wished it was, but she’s awake and all she can see are tired residents. She stretched her limbs as she stands. ‘Oh right… We still need breakfast…’

Her thoughts trailed off as Hugo passed by, there were other two girls following him, it must be the captured humans. “Where are you going?” He turns to her. “Going to the shop, we can’t just eat mushrooms this morning again.” She looks at him, confused. “We can.” He sighs, “If we have something that can provide us more than mushrooms, then choose that.” Ophelia looks around, “But the enemies!” 

“Don’t worry about me, I can handle myself.” He continues to walk away as Ophelia just watch him, she sighed as she decided not to stop him anymore. She looked at the fire which seems dying out, she blows it off to take it off fully. “I just hope no one is temperature allergic here.” She looked around as everyone is still dozed off, she decided to take a bath in the nearby river, just a quick bath. She grabbed some of her clothes as she went to the small water stream she discovered. 

She went in without removing her clothes, except her jacket, then, she bathes herself. After that, she changed her clothes behind a nearby pack of trees. She came back to the camp and hangs her wet clothes to let them dry. She remembered that she is the only one who is accidentally prepared for this, but she shrugged it off since they might come back to the hotel. She sat and just looks around in boredom.

Someone sat beside her when she looks it was Blaise. “Hey, morning.” He rubs his eyes as he yawns. “Good morning.” She greeted back, Blaise stretches his arm as he looks around the place. “This is drastic, we need Miss Eve to wake up sooner or later.” She looks at him, “Do you have the little device thing to recover miss quickly? I can do it again for her.” He shook his head, “I am sad I didn’t. I only brought the medical devices since I am curing some of the wounded in the hotel until you said to run.” He showed some of the devices he brought, he has some painkillers, bandages, a tweezer, and some small bottles of Povidone-iodine. 

“Maybe we can go back?” Ophelia suggested. “Maybe, but we need the decision of Miss Eve or Hugo or even Thilda.” She sighed, “Miss Eve is knocked out, Thilda is still sleeping and Hugo is out to buy us food… Or even steal. I don’t know if he has money, but he was determined to get us better food than mushrooms.” Blaise chuckles, “That man, he never changed, he is still picky at his foods.” 

The residents start to wake up, the others walk around, the others just stayed at their places. “Some of them are traumatized since this is the first time it gets really brutal. Especially poor Marceau, another memory stuck in her head and will hunt her for a lifetime. What’s even sadder for her is her best friend, Maria, got abducted.” Blaise sighs, “Everyone is grieving until this morning, I assume. Since we lost almost half of our residents. Even half of the fighters we have. They will be always remembered.” 

It was really a sad day for them, even in the next few days. They lost a bunch of people. Miss Eve is currently still unconscious, which made the others sadder since they are used to being comforted by the lady. It is the very first time under Miss Eve’s ruling that they lost a lot of people. Mostly, they only lost one to five people, since they always win against the enemies who kept trying to capture them for years. But this year, they definitely lose. 

Blaise sighs once more, “I guess I need to go back myself to the hotel. I might bring some clothes for others here.” Ophelia looks at him, “Maybe they are still lurking in the forest.” He pats her shoulder, “I can handle myself.” She received the same response to Blaise as he went away from the camp, leaving Ophelia behind. 

In exchange for Blaise leaving her alone, Thilda wakes up with her tired eyes looks at her. “Hey, morning. Seems the others woke up already.” She sat in front of her. “Yeah, they are just doing their business while we wait for food from Hugo. You supposed to sleep more, you are awake last night just to guard us.” She snickers, “Nah, just some plenty of minutes after you slept, Adam and Ross volunteered to shift us to guard the camp. I still need to talk about the things we knew about last night.” Ophelia blinks, “Oh, right.”

Minutes later, Hugo came bag with a fabric bag of ready-to-eat canned goods. “Since we cannot cook, I just bought some canned goods for us. And Ophelia?” She looked at him, “Yeah?” “Please put another fire, the others might want to heat their food, even it’s really not a good idea.” Ophelia nods as she grabs some twigs and starts to make kindling. Hugo starts to distribute some canned goods and also some sporks. The fire starts once again as they open their food’s lid and start to eat. 

Miss Eve’s eyes slowly open, she groans as her eyes move to look around. Ophelia turns to her and gasps, “Miss Eve! You’re awake!” Her statement made the others stop what they are doing as they all turn to the lady. The brunette teenager sets aside her food and goes to her. “How are you, miss?” The lady’s red lips curve a little into a smile. “I am fine… What happened?” She looks around again, “What happened to the hotel!?” 

She suddenly rises as she falls back, she’s still weak. “Please tell me the hotel was okay, please.” She holds Ophelia’s hand, begging to hear the hotel was still standing. Ophelia was hesitating to say what happened as it might do no good to the lady. “Yes… Miss… It’s fine, we just got to retreat here for everybody’s safety.” Miss Eve sighs in relief, “I am glad to hear that.” She rested her head on the tree, “Tell me what happened, please.” 

Ophelia looked at Hugo, he nods as she looks back at the lady. “Well, we lost some residents, some died and some got abducted. Because of that, we decided to retreat before we got wiped out. Since they are really prepared, they have a lot of men and such. They also have this device which blows your barrier, which made you really weak.” The lady sighs, “I guess there’s really a downside of that barrier.” Thilda approached her, “But, I have good news, Miss Eve.” The lady looked at her, waiting for her to tell about it. 

“Last night, me, Peony, and Ophelia caught one of their men.” The lady’s face lightens up, “Really?” Thilda nods, “We asked him about the one he is working for, he only knows that their base was in Rennes, France and he was recruited in the private army he belongs to right now. Their leader was General Trepagnier… I think.” The lady thinks, “Let us rest for today and let us plan tomorrow, I am still weak…” 

“I understand, Miss Eve.” Thilda stands and went back to her seat again. Ophelia looks at the lady, “Can I go back to the hotel, miss?” The lady looks at her, “Are you sure?” Ophelia nods, “Let me just check on Blaise and help him, he is getting long enough.” The lady sighs, “Okay, I count on you to stay alive.” Ophelia smiles as she nods, she finished her food up and went to her way.

She went into the hotel, she sensed no one was watching her, so she enters and searches for Blaise. The corpses are still there. “There will be a massive cleaning up here. She said as she avoids stepping on it. Her gut is trembling at what she is seeing right now. She jogs her way to the main building as she froze in her place as she heard a voice

“This would be the last, I promise.”