Hotel Between Worlds

The voice in his head startled Darian, who had been zoning out under the cold mountain valley wind and then it left him even more stunned.

So stunned, in fact, that it wasn't until Elara shouted in his mind for the second time that he finally snapped out of it with a jolt.

"Elara...?" Darian blinked. At the moment, he was cautiously moving toward the dilapidated, collapsed old temple, all while staying alert and scanning the valley for any threats, hoping to find a temporary place to shelter. At the same time, he tried to respond mentally, "How... how are you contacting me? I mean, you're literally talking in my head..."

"Is that really so hard?" Elara sounded completely confident. "I'm one of Alice's dolls!"

Darian thought for a moment but just couldn't connect the dots… Was she implying that all of Alice's dolls could do this? That they could all speak directly into people's minds?

"I already went into your dream once, didn't I? Once I've been in, I can find the way again," Elara explained patiently when she noticed he hadn't responded. But then her tone suddenly changed. "Wait, seriously, where the heck did you run off to? I can't sense you at all…"

Darian stayed silent for a couple of seconds. Looking up at the misty, forested ravine surrounding him, he couldn't shake the feeling that any second now a seven- or eight-meter-tall monster might pop up, complete with a heroic orchestral background track. The thought chilled him.

"…I might've gone a bit far from home. Getting back doesn't seem very likely right now…"

Elara clearly froze as well. After a few seconds of silence, her voice came back, sounding slightly delayed:

"…Didn't you say you were just taking out the trash? Did you get scooped up by the garbage truck?!"

Darian had no idea how she managed to come up with something like that…

Still, he had to admit, hearing Elara's voice even if just in his head brought him some relief from the intense panic of being suddenly thrown into such a remote and desolate place… Even if it was just a little bit.

At the very least, it proved that his connection to the original world hadn't been completely severed. If Elara could still reach him, then there had to be a chance, however slim that he could return. He had no clue how, and no reason to believe it was possible, but he had to hold on to that belief.

As for the present, his top priority was ensuring his own safety.

The valley was eerily quiet. Aside from the occasional hollow sound of the wind, there was nothing to hear. But Darian couldn't shake a strange and suffocating feeling. It was like something was watching him. something cold, void-like, and hungry. Its gaze kept sweeping across the valley, across him, again and again.

The growing sense of unease pushed him to find a place to hide. He couldn't afford to keep standing out here in the open.

In his line of sight, the only potential hiding place was that nearly fully collapsed temple. The forest in the distance was dense, sure, but its atmosphere was even more disturbing and sinister. Plus, "entering a dark forest at night" was a classic setup for horror story death flags. No way was he going near it.

Unfortunately, sneaking into an old temple at night wasn't much better, it was also a textbook horror cliché. The only real difference was that in the forest, you were more likely to run into wild beasts, while in the temple, it'd be monsters or ghosts...

Both came with the same dramatic orchestral BGM.

Gritting his teeth, Darian finally moved toward the only corner of the ruined temple that still looked somewhat intact.

At the same time, he kept mentally communicating with Elara, briefly explaining his situation not that there was much to explain. After all, even he had no idea how any of this had happened. From beginning to end, all he'd done was open a door…

After hearing everything, Elara was quiet for a long time. Then she spoke hesitantly,

"Sounds like you've fallen into an 'Otherworld,' huh?"

Standing in the ruins of the temple, Darian paused. Then, suddenly, something clicked.

"Otherworld? That's what you call this place? You know where I am?"

Elara's voice sounded oddly confused.

"Huh? There are tons of Otherworlds. How would I know which one you landed in...?"

Hearing her mumbling, Darian frowned slightly. He suddenly realized he had just gained a bit more knowledge about these so-called "supernatural realms" and with it, a crucial realization:

Maybe he hadn't been thrown into "another world" at all. Maybe he'd just encountered something that Elara considered a perfectly normal "natural phenomenon"?

As that thought crossed his mind, Elara seemed to have come to a similar realization. She spoke again in his mind, sounding incredulous:

"…Don't tell me, you've never even heard of an 'Otherworld'?"

Darian's expression turned odd.

"…Should I have? Is this supposed to be common knowledge for regular people?"

"Oh, it's totally normal for regular people not to know about Otherworlds. Most folks go their whole lives without ever coming across anything like this," Elara replied casually. But her next sentence made Darian freeze.

"But you shouldn't be unaware."

"Me? Why would I know about it?" Darian looked completely baffled. "I'm just an ordinary guy…"

"…Except you live in an Otherworld. Every single day."

...

Shadows flitted through the night, and the hunters took form within them. A ferocious-looking wolf leapt out from the darkness, bounding nimbly across the uneven rooftops of the old district before landing soundlessly on the empty street below. It stood in the middle of the road, glancing around alertly.

"Get back here!" came an irritated female voice from the shadows between buildings.

The wolf instantly hunched its neck, letting out a muffled whimper before trotting quickly into the shadows beside a nearby building.

A girl dressed in a dark red coat and black skirt stood in the narrow space between two old houses. She reached out to ruffle the head of the wolf that had just returned, then lifted her gaze toward the houses at the end of the old street.

It was a short street, home to only a few dozen households. The view was clear from end to end, and the situation along the road was obvious at a glance. Even without the wolf's eyes, she could assess things immediately.

The girl frowned slightly just as her phone rang, right on cue. It was that classic theme song from the 1986 version of Journey to the West. This time, she answered just as the Monkey King was doing his second somersault. "It's me. Yeah, I'm in the old district, over on Wutong Road."

On the other end came the voice of a middle-aged man so exhausted from overtime that he was barely coherent, rambling on and on.

Little Red Riding Hood listened patiently for a while, then tugged the corner of her mouth into a half-smile. "I'm here, but I haven't found anything, my wolf has already swept the entire street three times, front to back. No signs of a dimensional breach, and nothing from the Otherworld has come through either."

There was a two- or three-second silence before the voice on the phone replied, "But the surveillance team is certain there was a fluctuation here. Wutong Road in the old district definitely showed signs of a portal to the Otherworld, even if only briefly..."

"I believe you," Little Red said with a sigh. "I trust the professionalism of your Special Affairs Bureau's surveillance team. But I also trust my wolves—maybe a portal did appear briefly, but if so, it's completely gone now. Given that a normal breach wouldn't vanish so quickly on its own, it's possible someone else took care of it."

"There aren't many people capable of severing an Otherworld connection that fast. And any organization with such power is registered and in contact with the Bureau," the voice replied wearily. "But I haven't received any communication about it tonight..."

"Maybe it was someone from the Hermit Society. They're always so cryptic and mysterious..."

The girl spoke casually, and sure enough, a familiar stream of nagging followed on the phone. She sighed and cut him off with a string of perfunctory replies. "Okay, okay, I get it. They're all respected scholars, fine... I've always had great respect for scholars. Let's leave it at that. I'll take my wolf pack and do one more sweep through the shadows. Wutong Road's not that big only sixty-five buildings. One more pass won't kill me."

She hung up, and at last her ears were free of the nagging. Looking at her now-dark phone screen, Little Red let out a sigh, then glanced down at the wolves' heads shifting in and out of the shadows around her.

"I haven't even finished my homework yet... Ugh, the life of a freelancer is pure suffering..."

...

Darian sat beneath a section of crumbling temple wall that looked relatively sturdy, the cold wind seeping in through the massive hole behind him. He looked up at the dark, murky sky above the broken rooftop, trying to clear his mind but failing.

Just moments ago, he had learned a shocking truth.

The only place in Boundary City where he had ever felt safe, the one corner of the city he believed to be normal and secure... was, in fact, an anomaly. A place known as an "Otherworld."

According to Elara, an Otherworld is a domain beyond normality, a dimension on the edge of reason. The world that ordinary people live in seemingly structured and orderly—resembles a solid, well-constructed mountain. But in truth, that mountain is riddled with tiny holes leading to realms of chaos and irrationality.

Most people will live their entire lives without ever encountering these "holes." They will never glimpse the bizarre, surreal landscapes on the other side.

But the faint light that leaks from those holes always finds its way into the eyes of a few. For those few, the moment they accidentally catch sight of what lies beyond, there's no going back.

…Still, even for someone as experienced as Elara, a sentient doll from within a painting. the idea of someone living permanently in an Otherworld was a little too far-fetched.

(End of Chapter)

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