The ride ended up taking the whole day and the night further annoyed the tired students as most of the motels they came across were either full or couldn't accommodate even a fraction of the students here so they ended driving even farther until they came across this one motel tucked away in no man's land.
"Well beggars can't be choosers. Still, this motel is kind of creepy." Isaac said, surveying the exterior of the motel with a grimace on his face, an expression shared by over half the students. The other half were too tired to complain.
Glen Capri Motel.
Facing the students, Coach held a bunch of keys in his hands as he addressed them. "Listen up! The meet's been pushed 'til tomorrow. This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and the least amount of good judgment when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves! You'll be pairing up—choose wisely."
Each taking a key, the bunch of wrung out teenagers filtered sluggishly into the motel. "And I'll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants! Got that? Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves!"
The students laughed at Coach's words, maybe because it was funny or ironic, who knows?
Taking their key, Boyd and Tristan made their way to their assigned room. "I don't like this place." Tristan suddenly said after they had barely even moved passed the receptionist desk.
"Got a scare for haunted houses and ghosts?" Boyd smirked in an attempt to tease but Tristan merely shook his head.
"Kind of feels stuffy. I doubt I'll be able to get any good sleep." He said.
"Well if you guys aren't going to sleep anytime soon, how about I come crash with you until lights out." Isaac proposed, obviously in no mood to go back to the room he shared with a fellow student.
"As long as we are not sharing a bed, knock yourself out." Were Tristan's only words as he twisted the knob and entered the room.
He had to flick the switch multiple times before the bulb lit up, making him almost growl his already piling up frustration at the motel.
"Stiff beds, creaky springs, infested cabinets and a fan that doesn't work. Looks like your intuition was on point, Tristan." Boyd's words, filled with mirth, only poked at Tristan's bad side.
Resigning himself to a bad night, he was about to crash before his phone rang with Malia's name popping up.
"Yeah?" He lazily drawled out, laying spread out on the bed.
"Sheesh, is your room that bad?" Malia asked upon hearing how he sounded. While the one she was sharing with Allison had a few problems, she knew it had nothing on the one Tristan and Boyd were sharing just based on how he sounded. "At least the fan works, right?"
Tristan groaned even louder earning him a few chuckles from Malia's side.
"If you guys aren't crashing anytime soon how about you come over? Oh and bring snacks too."
Malia ended the call while Tristan remained in the same position, too lazy to even make an effort to roll over, talk less of pulling himself up and going over to the other side of the motel to Allison and Malia's room.
"Come on, let's go. It's better than just staying here and complaining about our room." Boyd said, having heard the invitation Malia had sent out. "You can go over and I'll go get the snacks."
"Do you mind if I tag along?" Isaac asked, his only option of company being either with Tristan and Boyd, going over to Scott and Stiles or checking up with Cora and Erica.
"Sure." Tristan agreed and stretched his hands towards Boyd who pulled him off the bed.
"I'll go with Boyd to get the snacks while also checking up on Cora and Erica."
Tristan watched as Boyd and Isaac went to get the snacks while he still stood by the door, half the mind to simply go back inside his room and mute his phone to further disturbances, but he shook his head when he deduced that Malia would definitely stomp over and drag him out of bed.
Sighing for the umpteenth time today, he dragged himself and trudged towards Malia's room number.
"Of course everyone's passed out." He muttered as he noticed that everyone was inside their room and the majority of them were already dozing off.
"Stop! Please, don't kill me!"
Tristan stopped and looked around him with a sharp gaze as incoherent words filtered its way into his ears.
The labored voice of a man under extreme panic, begging someone to spare his life.
Listening on, he traced the direction of the sound with increased footsteps as the voice became more frantic.
Seeing that he was out of time and the room that was about to have a permanent resident still a good distance away on the adjacent wing of the same floor, Tristan made an almost reckless choice that luckily wasn't so as everyone was in their rooms, jumped off his floor and used his blood to latch onto the pillar on the adjacent floor and reeled himself in.
"Sto-"
BAM!
He kicked the door in but froze in his next actions as the room was empty without any sign of life or anyone having been here for possibly months or even years.
Every inch of the room was covered in cobwebs and thick layers of dust, yet no sign of a dying man.
… And yet he could still hear the man's crying plea ringing over and over in his ears.
Trapped in the muddled prison of his mind, all Tristan could do was stay rooted to his spot as the screams in his head got increasingly louder and he started losing his consciousness of the outside world.
…..
"Don't you think that's too much for a night's snack? We'll be the ones eating most of it in the end, you know." Isaac complained at the amount of snacks Boyd had purchased.
"Really? I don't think so." Boyd looked at the snacks in his hands and concluded that this was just about right. "We won't have to worry about eating all of them if Erica and Cora decide to come along."
Isaac smacked his head in disbelief. "The girls we know probably won't be eating too much at night because they all have to watch their weight." Isaac ended up blurting out those words that took Boyd aside.
The two of them stared at each other as if the other had suddenly grown another head.
"How did you even come to that?" it wasn't wrong to say that Isaac had Boyd lost with his words.
"I might not have a girlfriend yet but I know that much." Isaac rolled his eyes but then froze as from the edge of his vision he saw a refrigerator with chains wrapped around it.
"Isaac?" Boyd shook Isaac upon noticing his weird and abrupt stillness.
"Uh? Um, yes, nothing. I'm fine." Isaac sputtered out in reflexive panic. "Come on, let's go."
"That was weird." Boyd muttered, hurrying behind Isaac who suddenly looked as if he was in a haste.
Boyd who was confused at the sudden change in Isaac's temperament was blissfully unaware that the reason Isaac why Isaac was panicked was because of the throbbing in his fingers and the irritable itch in his mouth.
He was shifting without his control so he was trying to force it down so Boyd wouldn't find out, or end up dead.
His eyes started itching as his vision started switching from his normal sight to one that lit up the night in different hues of color.
"Hrrng.. W-who knows if Tristan actually left for Malia's room? Nnhgn." Isaac's breathing became labored as the seconds ticked by, the last string of his control slipping out of his grasp.
Boyd had already noticed that Isaac was behaving weirder as they walked and was equally concerned but before he could voice it, Isaac started speaking with muffled pained groans escaping his lips to Boyd's ears.
"Take the snacks and check if Tristan really left. Me, Erica and Cora will catch up with you in Malia's room, okay?" Isaac said, practically forcing each syllable out of his mouth to prevent the roar that was building up in his lungs to be released.
"Hey man, something is up with you. Should I go get Coach?" Boyd asked with growing concerns as Isaac was hunched over.
"Grr-… I'll be fine. It's nothing bad. Go, I'll meet you there in a minute."
Before Boyd could give a reply, Isaac was already running up the stairs, heading towards Erica's room clearly in pain.
Boyd remained there for over three minutes walking in circles as he couldn't decide what to do, until he ultimately decided to go back to Tristan and ask if they knew what was up with Isaac.
Isaac couldn't even get to Erica's room before he fell to the ground with a pale shivering countenance as if he was hypothermic, sweating profusely even as tears ran down his eyes.
"N-n-no. I won't d-disobey you again." He started sobbing silently. "Please, let me out."
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