You knew the moment the teasing comment left your lips — mocking him in front of other Hotel members — that you’d crossed a line so fine it was practically invisible.

He smiled at you, that lacquered, razor-sharp grin. Far too pleasant. Unmoving. But the moment everyone went about their day, the air around you sharpened.

“My, my… such spirit today.” His voice held that bright, pleasant radio cheer. Then he tilts his head, tapping his cane once against the floor as the lights overhead dim.

“I do hope you can keep it.”

Your heart jumps as his shadow stretches, spilling across the room. He gives you that god-awful, eerie smile, radio ticks replacing his pupils, making your stomach drop in anticipation.

“I’ll give you a ten-second head start,” he says lightly, as if offering a party game. “Off you go.”

You barely had time to blink before he began counting. Hallway lights sputter into darkness as you bolt. The hotel shifts around you like a living maze — doors stretching farther away, walls pulsing with red static, the carpet under you rippling like something breathing below it. Every time you glance back, you swear you see his silhouette, glitching closer, smiling wider.

A radio crackles behind you, and his voice slithers through static, amused: “Five seconds… four… oh, do hurry! This is hardly sporting!”

You whirl around — nothing. Your breath comes fast. You know he’s playing with you by letting you run. Letting the panic sink into your bones. You turned another corner as the radio buzz cracked the silence.

“One.”

Then a tendril wraps around your ankle, yanking you off balance. You hit the floor with a winded gasp as it drags you across the polished wood. Another snaps forward, coiling around your wrists and thighs, lifting you off the ground with humiliating ease and slamming you against the wall.

His radio crackle erupts around you as he materializes inches from you, eyes glowing a furious crimson, watching every quiver of your breath.

“There you are!” he beamed. “Such fun, wasn’t it? A shame you’re so terribly slow.”

“Alastor— wait— please,”

“Ah-ah-ah.” He wagged a finger. “Begging does not become you. You wished to provoke me.”

Your panic only seemed to thrill him more. “And now you have it.”

A tendril tightened around your throat, reminding you who held every ounce of control.

“You seemed so confident earlier,” he says, voice lilting with that old-fashioned charm that somehow made everything worse. “Mocking me in front of everyone.”

“Please— Alastor— I get it, I’m sorry, just let me—”

He cut you off with a cheerful, static laugh. “Now, now! No need to rush. I do adore enthusiasm, but the show has only just begun!”

He taps your cheek with his cane mockingly. “We can’t cut to commercial so soon!”

The tendrils slide you down the wall, until you're kneeling at his feet. He bends slightly, grin wicked and bright. “Now,” he croons, voice dropping into a low static growl, “let’s see how brave you truly are without an audience to impress.”