Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“Then here, put this in it.” I handed him the book that I had taken as well. “Now come on.” I rushed him out of the room and into the hall that was beyond.”
“The first floor will have the kitchen, the dining hall, and the training hall. The second floor will be storage rooms and Alaric’s office. The third and fourth floors will be bedrooms. And the basement will consist of the dungeons and the wine cellar. He was an avid collector of wine.”
“Then should we go up before we move down to the basement? Or should we start in the darkest part and move up?” I wasn’t sure which option would be best at the moment.
“Hmm. I want to check out Alaric’s office, but how about starting on the fourth floor and making our way down. Then we won’t feel as if we’re repeating as much. The stairs are inside that door there. They are closed off and very annoying. It was the thing that I hated the most about this place.” I saw Dietrich shutter a little. “Come on, let’s get this over with.
It was now Dietrich that was pulling me in the direction of the stairs. When he opened the door, I saw a tightly winding staircase leading upwards.
“This is actually terrifying.” I shuddered as I looked up the dark passageway.
“Yes, again, I hate these stairs. But come on, let’s get it over with.” Dietrich hurried in and I followed after him. They were not wide enough for us to walk side by side. Hell, the stairs were barely wide enough for one of us to walk normally. It was so claustrophobic in that broom closet of a stairwell that I felt the need to shrink in on myself and hunch over so that I wasn’t about to bump into something and get hurt. Not that I couldn’t heal or anything, it was just on principle that I didn’t want to be injured.
After several agonizing minutes, we made it to the top of the stairs and exited into a hall that was filled with eight total doors. One of them was none other than the door to the stairs that we had just exited. The door across the hall from the stairs was just a linen closet that I swear was wider than the stairwell was.
To the right of the door there were two bedrooms and to the left of the door there were four. In total, there were three bedrooms on either side of the hall. We started on the right so that we could check the shorter end of the hall first. The first room was a little bit of a surprise. It was not small by any means, but it was crowded. There were four sets of bunk beds in the room. And crammed in there were eight small dressers.
What was even more odd about that room, was that there seemed to be a lot of stuff that was left behind by the previous occupant.
“This is not how these rooms were before.” Dietrich looked around the space and took in everything that he saw. “This used to be a room for one person, or a couple. Not a dormitory style group setting. And none of this is antique. This is all modern.”
“I would say so. And why is there a laptop on that bed.” I pointed as I walked over there. “If this place has no running water or electricity, how were they using it?”
“Good question. Perhaps there are more secrets lying in wait for us to discover.” Dietrich took the computer from the bed and put it in the bag. “Let’s look for more clues.”
The closet in that room was empty aside from some clothes and empty hangers. The dressers were mostly empty, but they missed a few things when they were clearing out. There were some papers that were scattered over the floor that we collected. We would need to check them for hidden messages later, but for the time being, we were stuffing them all in the bag. I did notice that the papers seemed to be flyers for different businesses that were in the nearby cities. Flyers for nightclubs, convenience stores, shopping malls, and many more. Things that teenagers would grab when they were out and about.
What was the purpose for these flyers? Did they have another meaning? Or were they just pieces of trash that were left behind when the group left in a hurry? I didn’t know for sure and that meant that I was going to be worrying about it incessantly. It would be on my mind until I was able to read them with the red candle.
****
Shawn
****
Moving on we found that all the rooms on that floor were the exact same. The clothes left behind were different, but the set ups were the same. Half of the rooms were for women while the other half were for men. That was evident by the things that were left behind. Each room did have a crude bathroom. No running water but there was a toilet like thing that was in each room with a pipe that led somewhere out of sight. I believe they had to pour water down the toilet for the 鈥榝lushing’ to happen. The tub also needed to be filled manually. That must suck for all those people that needed to bathe on a regular basis.
Dietrich and I moved down to the third floor next. The hall was set up the same. There was a linen closet across from the door to the stairs. To the right of the door there were two bedrooms and to the left there were four of them. We checked them in the same order, moving to the door closest to us on the right first.
This room was set up differently than the ones on the fourth floor had been. There was an antique four poster bed with a queen sized mattress. The frame for the bed seemed to be carved from unstained oak, but it was sanded and smooth to the touch. The dresser, armoire, and trunk all matched the bed as well. It was open, spacious, and seemed to be a lot more comfortable than the rooms up above.
“This is how the rooms were before. Well mostly. There used to be tapestries and a rug in every room, those are missing now.” Dietrich said as he looked around. “Come on, let’s search the place.”
…..
The closet and dressers were completely empty. There was nothing at all left behind in the room. The bathroom, which was the same as the ones upstairs, held nothing either. Under the bed there was nothing, not even dust. This room had nothing at all for us to find. And neither did the other five bedrooms on this floor. Not even the linen closet had anything to find other than some spare sheets for the beds. There was absolutely nothing that would help us on the third floor.
“I guess these people had less to pack and fewer people to fight for space when they were packing.” I commented as I looked at the pristine cleanliness of the last room on the third floor.
“Yeah, and if the upper floor was for the recruits or trainees, then they were probably younger and potentially messier.” Dietrich said as he thought about it.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t a messy teenager, so that isn’t necessarily true.” I shrugged.
“No, not necessarily, but the probability is high.” He laughed to break the tension and unease in the room. “Come on, we have more to search.”
We went down to the second floor next. This floor was Alaric’s office and storage rooms. That was what Dietrich had said. I wonder if there were any differences that we would find now.
The second floor had seven total doors. The side of the hall that had the stairs there were four and across from it there were three. To the right of the door there were once again two doors and down the hall there were four.
The room closest to us and the stairs happened to be a storage room. It was filled with various pieces of furniture. It looked like it was the stuff that was originally in the rooms upstairs. Well, at least they hadn’t gotten rid of it all. They had just put it all away. If there was anything else in the room, I couldn’t see it. And I wasn’t about to dig my way through that mess to find out.
Across from that storage room, Dietrich and I walked into a giant open space that looked like it might have been separate rooms at one time. Now though, it was like one giant hall. And there was a lot of damage to this room compared to anything else. There were racks on the walls that held wooden and metal swords, bows, arrows, maces, spears, knives and whips. Standing along the back of the room, or rooms, were dozens of practice dummies in various sizes and shapes. I could tell that some were supposed to be werewolves, the Hollywood version of them. And some of them were vampires. Others were holding wands like they were a witch or wizard out of those books from England. There was a climb wall and a zip line. I saw piles of mats that were used in gyms for wrestling or for landing in gymnastics. It was a training room. And I guess that explained the damage to the room.
There were gouges, knicks, cracks, and all sorts of damage to the room that had come from people training with real weapons. I even saw several dried bloodstains that had been cleaned up. Oddly though, I couldn’t smell the blood. They had stripped it out somehow and only the color of the blood was left behind.
“What the hell? They had a training hall on the first floor.” Dietrich said as he looked around. “Did they really need to destroy the house to make another one?” He looked and sounded personally offended by this atrocious act. I guess his memories were a little stronger than I thought that they were.
“I don’t know, Dietrich. But I guess they did what they thought was necessary.” I shook my head. Come on. There are still two rooms left.” I walked out the door that was in the middle of this training room.
The door to the left of the stairs was another storage room. This one was filled with more weapons, training dummies, and first aid supplies. I guess they needed to take care of their people when the training got a little too intense.
The last door in the hall was where Dietrich said that Alaric’s office was. While we stood outside of it, his hand on the knob, I could tell that he was afraid to open it. If this room had been destroyed, I was betting that he would be extremely angry at these people. They would have destroyed most of the memories that Dietrich had of this place with this one room being changed.
Finally, after taking a deep breath, Dietrich opened the door to the office. It was unchanged according to him.