"also, everything is so fucked right now. which I suppose means I should be posting more, for those who need it. so I'll try harder."

- @HalimedeMF, apologizing for not posting more due to Bloodborne 4 February 2026

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I step past the automated glass doors into the lobby of the Midnight Arms hotel and its all utilitarian and more than little bit cramped thanks to all of the signs, advertisements, expensive but not comfortable looking chairs, and the decorative smoothed out rectangle of mahogany just propped up against a window all kind of hemming me in as I head towards the reception desk at the end of the hall.

When I get there the brown haired and vaguely pleasant smelling woman behind it looks up from a little tablet playing some sorta paddle based sport stream with her big green eyes and squints at my face for a bit longer than I’d like before she settles into a usual seeming rhythm of smiling and politely saying, “Welcome to the Midnight Arms Hotel ma’am, how can we help you?” In that usual polite but only just so tone.

I fumble around in the pockets of my jeans out of habit until I remember that my wallet and backup physical ID are with my old clothes and phone somewhere back at the nonspace that is the cockpit, which is now about… sixty odd kilometers or so away give or take. 

Not like she would have let me in there to pick them up even if I wanted to though I suddenly realize, not unless I wanted to conquer this poorly made fortress from the… Typh-Ea that’s the name of a holding company, it doesn’t work that way I ca-how do you know all this anyway?

I realize that the woman is staring at me again, she’s still smiling though, maintaining some sense of politeness and professionalism about it all. I cough, and pretend that I didn’t just stare off into the distance for no reason, “Oh I’m here to check into room 609 under the name of Ms Aliyah Ziegler and Ms Holly Bashur, I know we’re late but we’ve booked it since a couple of days ago.”

She nods and goes “Of course ma’am, I’ll get on it right away aan-” she’s moving her mouse as she speaks, a barely audible click sounding out before noticing something, “Oh huh, it says right here that the room is already occupied ma’am, did you misplace your keys?”

I can’t help but start smiling from ear to ear. I had a hunch, or well a slim hope that she made it through at all but she’s still here? That’s just… God thank you thank you thank you. “Oh, Ms Ziegler must have gone ahead of me then, can I just head up or?”

The receptionist woman (name tag Winda) gives me another weird look before continuing on with, “Guests can’t head up without a keycard or verified chip ma’am, I can make you another one or register your chip but I’m going to need to see some ID first.”

I let out a sigh, Salome gave me a phone but it wasn’t really registered or linked up to anything yet, and without my wallet the closest thing I’d have to an ID was in my bag an-oh right, “I’ll take a keycard, would an eye scan work? I…. got mugged recently, yeah.”

The receptionist glances up at the golden horns still visible on my head as if internally going ‘yeah of course you did’ before she pulls out a bulky black metal handheld scanner and holds it vaguely close to my right eye until it lets out a little beep, “Oh okay Ms… Baashur, let me just.” 

She pulls out one of many identical looking black plastic cards and slides it into a card reader thing while presumably using her mouse to key it into my room. Before with another practiced smile and motion she pulls it out and offers it to me with her right hand, “The extra card will be charged to your account later, will that be all ma’am?”

I nod and put the card inside of my shirt’s pocket, “Yes thank you,” is all I could bother to say in response, already turning around to head to the elevators only to hear her follow up with.

“Oh, by the way, if you’re getting room service don’t order the fish.”

“Why?” I end up asking, only to hear her kind of bluntly say, “It’s not in season.”

“I… okay, thank you.” 

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The elevator doors open up on the seventh floor and the first thing that hits me is the scent of something sweet and I think floral in the cold air, and the sight of the hallway lighting up bit by bit with each step I took.

Everything here is extremely tightly controlled, I can hear the vague buzz of vents and airconditioning systems secreted away around the room that keeps the air fresh seeming despite the lack of windows, and the clean off black and blue walls are lit up by hazy multi colored shapes that’s supposed to suggest something or other off in the distance. 

It takes a bit, but as I walk past it something just clicks to mind all of a sudden. A cloudy night sky on old earth lit up brightly by the moon and countless stars strewn across the sky, for a brief moment I can feel a cool moist wind brush along my face, a warm sense of satisfaction in my chest as I laugh and laugh to announce my presence and glory to the world. I spot a white chair nearby and I have to resist a vague pull to take in the sight a little more instead of making my way to our room.

Five knocks, each louder than the rest on the grey metal door, a button to press near the lock that lets out a ringing sound loud enough to hear through it, no response to all of it, worrying. 

I let out a sigh, shove down the loud voice in my head telling me that this is a waste of our time and I swipe the keycard against the lock and the door clicks open with a hiss that lets out the stagnant-lukewarm dead air inside it and the lights are off and I instinctively know that no one’s there.

I slide in my keycard into the appropriate slot and the air conditioning whirrs to life and the lights turn on and despite everything most of our bags are still propped up against or on a table just the way I keep complaining to you about and I don’t think about the passwords and contacts inside of my laptop or how stupid and brave and lucky you must have been back then to take all this with you because I am struck by the single bed in the room, unmade, and big enough for two.

And I can’t help but laugh and laugh, just, God if none of this had happened I would have been roped into this huh? You’d have made something up about the hotel making a mistake with our reservation, maybe went down by yourself to lie about trying to get another one from the receptionist and finding out that this place has been fully booked. We’d have spent days in this town you know? Seeing the sights, hanging out together just like we did back then just, relaxing, pretending that we had all the time in the world.

I slide into the bed and it’s far far too cold now but the sheets are soft and the mattress pliable and inviting and there’s a hint of something I can’t quite place and I can just imagine talking about taking the floor instead and you complaining about how that’s utterly nonsense and patting the mattress to get me to come over like I’m some sort of cat and you’re telling me it’s soo much more comfortable and there’s a lot of space and you can just wriggle away if we get too close until I relent and slide down onto the bed and the whole damned thing depresses down pulling us both super close to each other at the center and you’ll laugh and say that you’re really glad we did this you know? I’ve been so busy lately that it’s just nice to be able to hang out like this again even if it’s just because I’m a failure (you wouldn’t say that about me but I would) and I’ll say that yeah well honestly I wasn’t really sure about any of this but I’m really glad we went together because I don’t think I’d be able to find out about or really afford most of these places on my own and you’d laugh a little and say that you’re glad and drift a bit closer to me and in a lull in the conversation you’d look me straight in the eye and tell me that you’re not blind and you know the way I’ve been looking at you this entire time and that there’s a reason why you’ve been letting me do it and that you’re too old now to just play around like this without asking if I meant anything by it (I’d complain about you being too young to really say that but you’d brush me off).

And then maybe we’d manage a kiss or something before I pass out from exhaustion just like I am now.

I don’t even get a chance to properly dream of something, anything at all really before the sound of the doorbell ringing jolts me awake and I find myself not in Aliyah’s warm embrace but cold, shivering and lying on a blanket but not in it for some reason. I flop vaguely out of it, and still barely awake and even aware of where I am really I move to pop open the door without a care in the world and its… that same suited woman from before the uhh, the driver that got me here yeah! One of Salome’s employees, I think her name was uh, fuck.

‘Uh, fuck’ is glaring at me which I obviously recognize a-wait, didn’t she drive off as soon as I got here? I’ve been asleep for probably a few (two) hours by now right? How long has she been waiting here?

“Miss Bashur,” she says, somehow still sounding polite and deferring despite her obvious annoyance, “My employer wishes to speak with you in person.”

Fuck, no really what was her name again?, “What? But I just le-wait is Salome here?”

She shakes her head, “Ms Tzeitman is currently waiting at a branch office in the nearby town of Milan, she sent me to pick you up as I was still in the area when she called for you.”

Oh so she was just waiting this whole time, and not only that but her boss too who’s one of the… Typh-Ea interrupts my descent into self loathing and panic over inconveniencing one of the five most powerful women on the planet by reminding me that A. ‘My people at least have telecommunication devices now’ and that B. Not only have we made that a six, we could also readily kill or subjugate the others with barely any effort on our part, how comforting.

“I… oh God that’s, couldn’t we do this over the phone? Or back at the quarry?”

She’s looking at me but somehow past me somehow,  “No, Ms Tzeitman has insisted that you meet her in person at the branch office in Milan specifically, for her own safety and your’s.”

“Our safety?” 

Her eyes twitch slightly and she doesn’t think I can hear it, but I can see her mouth open and close for just a second, as if she’s sighing, there’s a noticeable delay before she speaks again.

“Rumors are already spreading about you Ms Bashur, very dangerous rumors indeed. It’s something my employer says she is willing to help you handle, so long as you agree to a few requests.”

I am looking at her glasses now, and my eyes catch the faintest glimmer of something and my new nose takes in a deep breath by itself and I can smell something projecting from and towards it and so many other things around me that my mind forgets out of fear. She’s wearing one of those things and relaying everything I say back to Ms Tzeitman huh? God, is she watching me even now? I absentmindedly start to brush aside the mess that is my hair.

“She’s not going to accept no for an answer is she?” 

I can sense Typh-Ea shifting without me, the sound of somehow twice distant screaming as a woman climbing up to her face is sent down to the ground below but thankfully caught by the bungee cord like device she is wearing alongside the rest of her team. 

I somehow think that Salome, and this woman she is talking through probably knows about this as well. And yet my driver smiles as if on command and struggles to seem calm and reasonable when she says, “Ms Tzeitman says she is willing to hear any concerns you may have for her proposals, at Milan, within her branch office, in the Velvet room. She says it’s her favorite.”

I am aware of us taking off into the air, I understand where Typh-Ea is headed, what she wishes to do once she gets there, and what she can do to me to make me comply. But I think about the people still in my life, and all of those rat bastards I had the pleasure of interning with, the life I wanted to have… And I open my mouth and say, “Okay then, I’ll need a moment, do you have a pen or?”

I take the smallest of my bags with me, and leave a few more essentials than I’d like behind along with a message in the hotel’s napkin, but it should be enough, enough to tell Aliyah that I was here, that I had to go too soon, where I’m going, and that I would be back sooner than later, I hope.

‘Maybe there’s still a way out of this if I just make it through’ I think to myself on the drive over, as I watch Typh-Ea’s giant form hover judgementally over us the entire time, screaming in my mind and sometimes in person all the while about blood, glory, and righteous conquest.

I don’t manage to fall back to sleep.