As we walk back towards the lobby, I go over the facts of the case in my mind again. We’re stuck in a dead end. The pool of suspects is still at ‘just about everyone’. Nobody’s even bothered to try coming up with an alibi. And even if they did, it’s not like we know when exactly this girl died.

After we take the elevator to the ground level, we stumble into a bar brawl with glasses, chairs, tables and even people flying all over the place. But since neither John nor the barkeeper, who just stands behind his counter, his head propped up on his arms don’t seem to be surprised or worried in the least, I decide to ‘not be worried’ either.

“Happens often, huh?” I ask after overcoming the initial shock.
“At least once a week. Don’t worry. Keep will step in before they go overboard. Going all out is what the twilight wing is for anyway.”
“Why’d they fight in here anyway?”
“Alcohol plus pent up frustrations make for a very explosive atmosphere. All it takes is a spark and the entire place goes up in flames. Don’t worry though, it’ll be back to normal by tomorrow.”

I stop dead in my tracks and mutter, “Back to normal...John, when people die in this place, they just wake up in their rooms the next day, right?”
“At least that’s what I’ve heard. I’m not so much on the violent side, so I usually stay clear of those rooms. Why?”
“...what if it actually was an accident?”
“Sorry, but from what I’ve seen she sure didn’t look like ‘killed by accident’.”
“No, I mean the killing itself happened on purpose. But what if the perpetrator just...you know, assumed that she’d wake up the next morning as well? Like everyone else does?”
“...that would mean that there wasn’t a murder at all. Lack of intent.”
“And they wouldn’t even consider killing that girl as anything special! For all we know, they just intended to teach her a lesson! But for some reason she, of all people, didn’t wake up in her room. Up to now, we looked for someone who lied, because they didn’t want to get caught. But we’ve gone about this all wrong! We don’t have to find out who killed her. We need to figure out why she, of all people, stayed dead!”

We shove ourselves through the mass of brawling bodies. Thankfully nobody really seems to take notice of us. On the contrary, if they take notice of us, they actually move out of the way so we can pass. Now, that I’m looking at this rationally, I can actually spot a few people who moved to the corners of the room peacefully sipping on their drinks, watching the spectacle.

After we arrive at the barkeeper’s counter, he waves us to follow him to one of the side booths and once we enter, the noise of the brawl suddenly tunes down to a fraction of the volume.
“My apologies for the mess,” he says nodding at the still ongoing fight that had already produced a bunch of bloody noses and rearranged faces. Some of the participants weren’t getting up either, though it was hard to tell whether they were knocked out, ‘dead’ or just sleeping due to intoxication.
The barkeeper leans to the front, crossing his arms in front on the table and asks, “So, did you find something?”
I clear my throat, trying to tear myself from the brawl happening in front of me and explain our latest findings.
“So her name was ‘Mary Sue’? Man, whoever named her and then had her come here must have a sick sense of humor.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“You don’t work with literature much, do you, detective?”
“Can’t say I do. Why?”
“‘Mary Sue’ is kind of the personification of bad writing. She’s ‘perfect in every way’, but not in the Mary Poppins way, but much rather in the infuriating sense. Whatever she attempts, it works out and everyone is somehow magically at her feet. There’s no shortage of Mary or Gary Stu characters in storytelling, although of course they aren’t named like that. In a world where ‘stories come together’, actually having someone called ‘Mary Sue’ is...bothersome, to say the least. That I don’t know her story even more so.”

“...it may seem crazy, but...could it be possible that she arranged for her own death? So she would be mourned?” I ask.
The barkeeper props up, scratches his head and then says, “I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff in these halls here without ever stepping in front of the door. But someone actually ‘wanting to be dead so people would mourn them’...no, that’d be a first. Especially since nobody would ever mourn anyone dying in this place, because death just is...not as permanent as it is in their world.”
“So if we went up and told Mary to cut it out already, she might come back to life?!” I exclaim a lot louder than I intended, but nobody seems to be bothered.
“You’re free to try, but aren’t you forgetting something? Nobody can even approaching her body...but then again, that’s wrong, isn’t it? You can, after all.”

A heavy silence falls inside the booth. Keep is right, of course. All we’ve achieved with our line of reasoning is pile up more mysteries on top of her very existence.

John eventually breaks it by saying, “Alright, I doubt we’re gonna solve this by sitting around. How about letting it all sit for a night and do the good ol’ subconscious do its job?”
“Have a good night, John,” Keep says and I look after him, suddenly feeling very tired myself.
Apparently picking up on it, Keep says, “You should go to your room as well and get some rest. A well rested mind works so much better.”
“My room? What makes you think I have a room in this place?”
“Don’t be silly, everyone who comes in through that door has a room.”
“Alright, and where would ‘my room’ be then? You’re in charge of this place, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be telling me where it is?”

Apparently caught off guard, Keep stares at me with big eyes and finally says, “...no, I’ve got nothing. Hold on.”
He produces the same kind of device he had given me and points it at me, but apparently doesn’t see what he expected to see. Sensing my anxiety, he turns the screen for me to see and my breath stops for a second.

The screen is entirely blank. No name, no room number, no description.

Keep mutters something that sends chills down my spine, “I’ve only seen it do that once before.”
I gulp, already fearing the answer as I ask the question, “Where?”
“...when I tried to scan the body on the fourth floor. It only did that once before when I tried to gather information about Ensign Mary Amethyst Sue.”

The implication of what the barkeeper had just said is like a cold shower and my exhaustion is blown out of the water.

I am a blank. The barkeeper doesn’t know about me. I have no room.
If I were to die in this place...would I wake up like everyone else? Or would I...be the second victim of permanent death in this world?