[4-14] The Town

[Gin Yatreg]

"You know, this bodies showing up out of thin air thing is starting to get pretty damn old," Gin thought. "Was that an explosion I heard just now?" He wondered.  His legs still felt like rubber for the moment, which was a new experience for him. Usually alcohol doesn't affect him this badly, thanks to his altered body, although the fact that it was scotch might have had something to do with it. Gin stumbled around the bed, and got a closer look at Jace's corpse. The weeks of decomposition it had been through led to it being fused with the wall, as if it were here the whole time. Gin knew that wasn't the case of course, the room was clean just a couple hours earlier; yet it was here now. He bent down and picked up the golden pocket watch and opened it up. While it was perfectly clean on the inside, the hands had stopped moving, and he was unable to turn the wind-up dial. "Maybe something's wrong with the clockwork?" Gin thought, turning it around. He fidgeted with the back until it popped open, and revealed a key jammed inside the mechanism. On the key was the word 'SAFE' engraved into the end on both sides. Gin put the key in his pocket and set the watch on the bed, its gears broken thanks to the key. 

Outside, a loud thump echoed through the halls. Followed by the sound of something being dragged, accompanied by erratic footsteps. Another thump, and then the footsteps once more. The pattern repeated as it grew closer and closer to room seven. Gin pressed himself against the wall, and held his breath. Finally the noise passed in front of the door, and began to grow softer as the source moved further away. Gin let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his muscles a bit. With the wall as support, he shambled to the door, he opened it slowly and peered out into the hall. 

On the floor were deep scratch marks, darting through deep crimson footprints that came before them. They led down the hall and around the corner, towards the front of the hotel. "Looks like we wren't alone here after all," Gin thought. He played with the key in his pocket, wondering what he should do next. "Remilia's safe upstairs, so I won't have to worry about it going after her. I am curious about the safe as well," He thought as he pulled the key out, "Chasing after it probably isn't a good idea, especially while I'm like this. I'd better see what's in the safe first...If I can find it anyways." 

~~~

Gin slowly moved down the hall to the front of the hotel as he cursed himself for not realizing the staff areas would be at the front and not the back. "Looks like I'll have to deal with the mystery monster after all," He grimaced. Gin peeked around the corner, and thankfully saw nothing out of the ordinary in the lobby. He didn't hear anything either, which was a good sign. His legs had finally started to get their feeling back, however he still used the wall as support just in case. Gin moved to the front desk and ducked behind it. The desk spanned a good portion of the back wall, which made it the perfect cover for Gin to get to the other side of the room. He crawled to the other end, and went back to  a crouched position once there. Just as he was about to move to the closest door marked 'STAFF ONLY', he heard a familiar sound echo from behind one of the other doors. Gin hid himself against the desk as the door slowly opened up, and out walked the monster from earlier. Against his better judgement, Gin took a peek from around the desk as the creature walked by. However, he was only able to catch a glimpse of two large, bright white, claws being dragged along the floor. Suddenly the footsteps stopped, and Gin's blood froze, along with the rest of his body. His heart began to beat faster; did it know where he was? Had he given himself away somehow? These questions spiraled around inside Gin's mind until the footsteps started back up again. His body refused to unfreeze however, not until the monster was well enough away from his position.

Finally the footsteps grew quieter, and Gin shakily moved to the staff door, and stepped inside as quietly as he could. The staff area was split into two rooms, one was a break area of sorts, with the door in the back leading to the manager's office. Gin went inside, he found a normal office, albeit  covered in dust from the long years. The safe was built into the back wall, sitting there untouched despite rest of the hotel being looted beyond belief. He moved to the safe and pulled the key out of his pocket, gently inserting it into the keyhole. He turned the key and, with a satisfying click, the safe door popped open. Gin pulled the door all the way open, and looked at the safe's content with surprise. "Is that a..." he managed to say before being cut off by a loud crash outside the staff area.

Gin slipped the object into his pocket and hopped inside the nearest closet. Just as he closed it shut, Gin could hear the door burst off its hinges. A low growl came from the other side of the thin closet door, whatever was on the other side stood there motionless for what felt like forever to Gin. Finally, it slowly walked out of the room. Once he couldn't hear anything outside, Gin stepped out of the closet and hobbled over to the doorway. Nothing was in sight for now, and he damn well didn't want that to change. He was gonna head upstairs, get Remilia, and get the hell out of there. 

Just as Gin made it to the hallway, a loud screech tore through his eardrums. "Oh no," he thought as he turned around to meet the stalker he had attempted to avoid. The creature stood tall on extremely long legs, its head barely touching the ceiling. Its head was pure white, with no facial features to speak of outside of a distinctly distorted mouth. The rest of its body was the same color, what little body it had anyway. From what Gin saw, where the legs ended led into a small chest area just big enough to house the essential bones and organs needed to move and survive. The arms that hung from its shoulders reached down to the floor, ending in sharp white claws that it dragged behind itself. The entire creature looked like a person had their legs and arms stretched like taffy, followed by their actual body getting crunched in on itself. Then had hot pure white wax poured onto their flesh,  leaving only their mouth as the remaining distinction of their previous form. Gin turned to run, he couldn't fight it in his current scotch affected state. All he could do was run and try not to get caught. His body then chose the wrong time to have a disagreement with him, as his legs gave in, sending him down to the floor. 

The creature began its charge, using whatever remained of its lungs to screech at the highest octave it could achieve. Gin stumbled to his feet and ran for the nearest unlocked door, slamming it shut and locking it behind him as he did so. It would buy him a few seconds, but not enough to find a place to hide. He needed to find a way to defend himself or lose the monster fast. He turned around to find himself in the kitchen, and his eyes fixed on the gas stove he used earlier. Gin ran over to the stove, activating a shield fist before punching the gas pipe clean off. The distinct smell of rotten eggs began to fill the room as he broke as many gas lines as he could find. Gin picked up a flip lighter and fell back to the rear side of the room, pulling his shirt up over his nose as he did so. The monster burst into the room and laid its non-existent eyes on Gin. As the creature ran around one side of the room, Gin bolted down the other and straight out the doorway. He turned around and flipped the lighter open, "Go to Hell!" he yelled before lighting a flame and tossing the light into the room. Gin booked it down the hall as the room exploded into a glorious sea of flame that broke through the aged walls of the hotel and shot up through the ceiling. 

Gin sank into a chair in the lobby, out of breath. He did not have time to relax though, as the sound of footsteps echoed from down the other hall. 

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Thanks Alex for letting me edit a finale into this. I tried to make a lead into your post so your editing would be easier. Hope this was good!