Hey, I'm so sorry! Here's my form!

Name: Shining Star (Star)

Pronouns: she/her

Appearance: Brown hair, brown eyes, medium-toned skin, lots of freckles

Packing list (please note that any silver watches will be confiscated if found): Socks, pretty white tops, skirts, and jeans. All in pretty patterns!

Personality: Calm, gentle, a peacemaker. Cheerful and compassionate to all!

Lucky number: 8 (Born on October 8th, in 2008, at 11:08pm; rode a horse on my 8th birthday)

Is the glass half full or half empty?: half full

What do you say at the end of a story?: "That was great!" or "It wasn't my favorite."

Is it going to be okay?: Definately! (Although I was listening to Amanda Fagan's Monsters, and the line saying "Nothing's gonna be okay" came on JUST as I reads that)

What’s in the mirror?: A monster! XD (Said song: There's a monster looking back at me in the mirror....) Just kidding. What's in the mirror is you, but backwards.

Favorite beverage: Coco

*starts singing Broadway Musical songs*: Ummm great?

You wake up and realize that someone has dyed your hair purple. What’s your reaction?: "Woo-hoo! It looks so good!"

Aren’t I so good at writing questions?: Very good!

Last, and most important of all… What is your greatest weakness? Something you want to fix about yourself?: My quick temper

Anything else?: This is exciting!

Day 0, Part 1

The woods were particularly peaceful today, Writing thought, taking a bite of xyr granola bar. Writing loved hiking, especially on cloudy days that came just after a rainy night, like this one. Xe had the perfect pair of hiking boots to get over the muddy terrain, the birds were chirping, and everything was crisp and new and beautiful. Yes, hiking was good, very good. 

Well, it was good until the ground decided to disappear from under xem. 

Writing plunged down into the nothingness. It was so dark xe could not tell if xe had xyr eyes open or not, and there was mud, so much mud. Xe screamed and screamed and screamed until—Oh, what was this? 

Xyr eyes fluttered open (so they had been closed!) and xe sat up to see 12 people staring at xem. Xyr cheeks went pink. “Um, hi.”  Writing rubbed the dirt off xyr face and gave an awkward wave. A few of the others smiled and nodded, and Writing noticed with envy that nobody else was covered in mud. 

“So,” xe asked awkwardly, “This… Is the Somewhere Hotel?”

“Yes, looks like it,” Shining Star replied. Writing looked around. They were in a grassy field surrounded by mountains. The grass was, noticeably, a much paler green than what would be described as “normal,” as though it was perhaps covered in frost. The sky was mostly gray, but bits of blue poked through here and there. And in front of them, a tall, creamy-white building of at least 12 but less than 21 stories stood. The doors were made of glass, and beyond them laid an inviting lobby with a long red carpet. A sign above the doors read in loopy golden letters: The Somewhere Hotel. 

  O

“So that’s the hotel,” Fenrir said. “And where might our hosts be?”

“You’re early,” snapped a voice from behind them.

“What Atom means is, um, welcome to the Somewhere Hotel!” 

The 13 guests turned around to see Rose and Atom, who they all recognized from their television screens, staring at them. Rose was waving and smiling. Atom was doing neither of those things. 

The guests looked their hosts up and down. Rose wore the same jacket and headband, as well as a simple pair of black leggings. The most noticeable part of her outfit was her shoes: a pair of Kelly green high tops with “WICKED” spelled out on one of the toes and “DEFYING GRAVITY” on the other. Atom wore a plain gray hoodie and blue jeans, plus a pair of white sneakers. Well, they probably had been white at some point. 

“Welcome!” Rose said again. “We’re very excited to have you here. The next 13 days will be filled with adventure!” 

"There are some ground rules," said Atom. "Because the hotel changes location every night--"

“—Wait, it does what every night?!” Interrupted a surprised pangolin, refusing to believe a hotel could move.

“Oh, I guess we didn’t mention that, hm?” Rose laughed. “Our hotel is not like any other. It chooses where it goes every night. And when we wake up in the morning, we’re someplace new! Pretty cool, huh?”

"As I was saying," continued an even more irritated Atom, “Because the hotel changes location every night, curfew is 10:00 PM. We don’t want any of you being stranded out here.” Atom’s expression said he didn’t actually mind the idea much, but he moved on. "Silver watches and the use of silver watches are prohibited for our safety. All silver watches that were found in the luggage—” their eyes met Darkling’s, and he glared— "Have been confiscated."

“Your luggage has already been moved up to your rooms,” Rose said. “Room assignments are in the lobby.” She turned to Atom. “I think that’s everything, right?” Atom just shrugged. “Well, let’s go inside then! We won’t get much accomplished standing around out here, now will we?”

So Rose led them all through the doors and into the lobby. The lobby was the same creamy color as the hotel, and its carpet was one of the only colorful things in the room, plus a jar of candy and a painting of the night sky. In the middle of the lobby was a twisted staircase that, presumably, led up to the bedrooms. 

Darkling made their way across the room to see a silver wristwatch—their silver wristwatch—on the carpet. Actually, it was really only the remains of their silver wristwatch. The glass was cracked, and gears had fallen out of the watch. Atom saw the watch and said, "Oh. So Echo did find it.”

What was that supposed to mean? Silver Crystal, who had overheard, felt worry coursing through her veins. First, Atom had said silver watches were prohibited for safety. Now, looking at the destroyed one on the floor, he said that Echo found it? Silver Crystal was growing more and more suspicious of Echo.

Well, it was too late now. She was already here. Maybe Echo was just clumsy. It was a hotel. It was made to be safe. Yeah, Silver Crystal thought. Silly me and my overactive imagination. 

The guests made their way over to the staircase, where a list told them what room they’d be staying in. Then they made their way up the steps to the bedrooms that would house them for the next 13 days of adventure.

~~~

Welcome, everyone! If you've got any problems with the way I used your pronouns or anything, please let me know. 

Our first victim: Rest In Peace, silver wristwatch. 

OH WOAH, ythis writing is very beutifull, I can't wait for the next part

Nice job. Are you Sterling, Jaybells, or Tsuki the Skywolf?

Day 0, Part 2

That night, Rose had prepared a lovely dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, careful to avoid serving any meatballs to the vegetarian guests. She, herself, was a vegan, so she knew how to take precautions.

The guests enjoyed their dinner, and all was well until Darkling, who’d had too much coffee, decided it would be a good idea to jump onto the table and start drinking the marina sauce while the other guests chanted “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” And pangolin and Tsuki sang “My Shot” from Hamilton.

“Okay,” Rose laughed. “And on that particularly loud note, it is time for bed.”

“Awww,” Reuby whined, and her fox mimicked her. “Can’t we just stay up a little later?”

"No," Atom snapped, pointing to the clock, which read 9:30. 

“But I thought curfew was 10:00?” Questioned Foxwood. 

"Curfew is 10:00 for people who don’t dance on the furniture and sing dumb songs,” Atom responded, leaving Darkling, Tsuki, and pangolin all especially irritated.

Rose stepped on Atom’s foot. Hard. “What Atom means is that you all must be tired from the long trip. You can stay up as late as you wish, but you ought to go to your rooms to settle down a bit.”

Writing, who could still feel mud in xyr hair, nodded. “I’m going to need a lot of shampoo.” 

“We’ve got you covered!” Rose chuckled. “Vanilla, peach, and coconut scented hair care can be found in your bathrooms. If you need any more, you can find some in the closet down in the lobby.”

So the guests went up the stairs to their rooms to wind down a bit before bed. Downstairs, Rose cleaned up the table and made a mental note to give Darkling decaffeinated coffee from now on. Atom went up to his room, room 789, probably to complain about the pesky guests in his journal.

In her room, Avara started unpacking. She put on some classical music to make the boring chore more enjoyable. Clothes went in the closet. Books on the nightstand. Pen and notebook on the desk. Unpacking isn't so bad, Avara thought. I'm pretty good at it, too.

While she was unpacking, Avara noted the attention to detail in her room. It felt as though it had been customized to meet her needs and interests. When she’d first walked in two packs of pumpkin tea had sat on the pillows, and a beautiful painting of a woman playing the viola sat above her bed. The oak desk had a few craft kits, one of which she’d enjoyed tinkering with when she finished unpacking. She wondered what types of things the other guests had in their rooms.

Eventually, everyone fell asleep, and the hotel sat alone in the dark. It was at night that the hotel was free to do what it liked. Sometimes it would go a dozen different places before it chose where to settle down for the day.

Tonight, under the waxing crescent moon, the hotel first teleported to a field of lovely pink cherry trees surrounding a lake just large enough not to be a pond with a wooden gondola floating across it. The hotel could not see (it was a hotel, so it’d be weird if it could) but it could, in a way, feel. It took in its surroundings in a way that was perhaps more meaningful than seeing them. Instead, it interpreted the emotions of them. 

The cherry tree field was full of nostalgia. It was a bitter-sweet place, a place to say hello and goodbye all at once, a place to hope farewell was not forever, a place to apologize and to forgive. This, the hotel understood, was beauty, not because of the lovely pink blossoms or the glassy lake, but because of the world of passion hiding beneath the quiet peace. 

But it was not what the guests would want, not yet. This field was more of a finale than a beginning. The guests were hoping for something exciting, something exotic. Still, the hotel wanted this place to be a part of the journey. Maybe it’d return here later. 

While the hotel sat, considering where to go next, a particularly powerful gust of wind blew through the hotel’s open windows, reaching each and every guest’s room. It interrupted their dreams (and possibly nightmares), and amplified something in their minds, though it seemed impossible to interpret exactly what that something was. For the majority of the sleeping guests, the wind seemed neither good nor bad, just neutral, and not truly effective. But the wind blew harder in one guest’s room. Cherry blossoms floated in from outside, and the guest’s eyes popped open, though they were only really half-awake. And what they felt at that moment was not anger or sadness.

It was fear.

A looming, terrible fear that threatened to eat them from the inside out. But the guest remained only slightly conscious, and drifted back to sleep.

So maybe this fear hadn’t bubbled to the surface yet, but it was coming, all right. People do things when they’re scared. Terrible things. And it would seem that something terrible was most definitely coming.

~~~

@pangolin, yes, you can guess me! I am only one person (I went a little overboard and came up with three different characters to write as... oops).

@Shining Star, no, I am not any of the people you listed! Good guesses, though! 

I apologize if this part seems too similar to the Locakria House ski lodge by Socie Grishelm/pangolin. I wanted to add the motivation for murder, if you know what I mean, and I tried to keep it my own but I worry that it is a lot like pangolin's amazing ski lodge, so I'm sorry!