Hotel Pulse : the intruder

Meeth Maharana
Sep 2, 2018 · 6 min read

“I am sorry. I can’t find the key” said the Keeper in a steel cold voice.

“And anyone can come in?!!” enquired the hotel manager even though he knew what it meant.

“How long before you find the key?”. There was disappointment in the managers voice now. In the entire time the Manager had been at the hotel, he had never raised his voice - except for once and that was long time ago.

“Anytime now!” said the keeper perplexed.

“Found it! Sir”

The keeper got lucky in time.

“What are you waiting for? Close it! fast!” screamed the manager. This was definitely not a great day for the Keeper.

‘Yes Sir! Its closed sir!’ exclaimed the Keeper. Manager was also surprised having caught a faint whiff of frustration in keeper’s tone.

‘Phew! this could have spiralled into an unmanageable chaos’ thought the manager.

“Keeper can you check the hotel for any unwelcome guests?”

“Already on it sir”

There was silence brewing in the lobby now. Minutes passed with no presence of Keeper felt. The manager was getting anxious.

“Keeper?”

No response.

“Keeper? Are you there?”

No response. Only the feeble sound of gears interlocking and spinning beneath the lobby floor.

He knew something ghastly wrong had happened and this slight perturbation would change everything. Forever!


“Oh you are so dead Rumi!! This is really serious. This is it you know!!” shouted Pekka, Rumi’s flat mate, over the loud music booming from his room.

If you‘re thinking Pekka is a made up name, you are partially right. ‘Pekka’ is a character from a popular game that he likes. He liked the name so much that he named himself after Pekka ; and that is one of Pekka’s eccentricities— sticking with things he likes. Pekka is peculiar in a way that you would never know that such a person existed until you discover them. And when you do then you would just stick with them and thats what Rumi did. His entire world was so different from everyone else because he knew Pekka.

“Yeah?!! Its just the second date Pekka. Just pray that she is interested too and who knows someday you get to move out”.

“Right! But I think she likes me more”. At this point Pekka was over drawn socially and was finding hard to keep up the conversation while still managing to play — both of them were talking over the loud music. “And perhaps it is you who should start looking for a new place ”

“Yea?!” exclaimed Rumi. Pekka got startled when he heard him right behind. He turned around in his revolving chair and put aside his VR goggles on the cabinet.

Pekka had ritualised Saturday nights for gaming. He immersed himself in the world of controllers, specialised keyboards, and stylised wizards for the entire night. He had a home theatre to kill for and in many a dreams Rumi was indeed guilty of that crime.

Source : Gametape

“Aren’t you over dressed for the second date?” asked Pekka as he got up. He zoomed in and zoomed out into Rumi to understand the scale of the disaster.

“How would you know? Have you finally managed to talk to a girl?” retorted Rumi.

Pekka dismissed the question with his right brow.

“Well I am, but I think more than the date night I really just wanted to wear this tonight. If it weren’t for the date, I would still suit up and sit on the couch and be okay just staring at the wall”.

Pekka knew Rumi was in fact serious. Rumi thrived in the weird chaotic universe that Pekka belonged to. He let himself loose in that zone.

“All right! Off you go!. I need to go cast time spells said Pekka and sat back in the chair. “

“Thanks for nothing”

“Yea and do call if you have plans for you know what” winked Pekka before he put back the goggles. “I don’t like to get disturbed”

Rumi checked the time. It was 8:30 PM and he knew he was getting late. He locked up the apartment and rushed to the door to get the elevator in time.

‘Damn it. Why is the lift always so far down. Come on! Faster!’ breathed Rumi as he frantically pressed the button in hopes of sending electrons faster. And alas it came.

He got inside the lift.

Source : beno

He accidentally pressed the button to the 1st floor instead of the ground floor and he only realised this when he faced the mirror to touch up the tie. This was an old building with an older lift at that. You simply could not press the same button to reset, you had to press all the buttons in the right sequence for a complete reset — and thats what Rumi did. And happy he got. Having set his hair for the perfect resting conditions and having put the right litres of misty wood, he waited for the door to open. He felt confident. He felt the most dapper and the most eligible. The door opened and he welcomed the night of thousand possibilities with open arms . Little did he know that one of those possibilities that had almost negligible probability of occurrence was now coming into existence this right moment.

While he was in the process of stepping out of the elevator, something strange was happening . Even though the view from inside the elevator was exactly how it had always been, but while stepping out of the elevator the view in front was becoming stranger by the very second. It was strangely hologram like. It was shimmering for an instant and then it stopped. Then the view got completely different. Something that he did not and could not understand. That was when the first drop of sweat rolled from his face.

All of this was happening so fast that before the image in front of him could completely materialise, he turned back to the elevator —to calm himself down in the familiar space. In an instant he saw that shimmer and then complete darkness and then just white. His pupils went wide and dark and then really small in size. Then there was nothing — just a while wall and five words written on it .

Welcome to the hotel pulse.

He heard foot steps behind. Rumi hoped this was all a bad dream and closed his eyes really hard and clenched his fist in hopes of waking up in his bed.

“You are trespassing” said the cold steel voice. Those words sounded pre-recorded to Rumi, like the ones that are played in the Local trains he used to commute to work in.

Hearing any discernible sound in that strange place took some of the fear away. As he was turning to face the source of the sound, he felt a tingling sensation in his feet and he fell flat. Before he passed out, he saw a silhouette of white light and heard feebly in the same cold steel voice :

“I am the Keeper”

Pulse
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