The Host's Judgement

8. The Eclipse Nightclub - Part 1

I slammed the door to my room shut, my heart pounding so hard against my ribs it felt like it wanted to break my bones from the inside out. Samuel’s blood was still fresh in my memory, the metallic smell mixed with the gunpowder from the industrial nail gun invading my nostrils.

I leaned my forehead against the cold wood of the door, trying to steady my breathing. That’s when I realized it. The labored breathing echoing in the room wasn’t just mine.

My muscles locked up. The darkness in the room was almost total, broken only by a red emergency light beam coming through the gap under the door.

Slowly, I slid my hand along the wall until I found the brass light switch.

Click.

The yellow light from the bedside lamps flooded the room. I sat down on the floor, shock draining my strength. Curled up in the darkest corner of the room, hugging his own knees on top of my bed, was a boy. The hood of his gray sweatshirt was pulled over his head, but I recognized him immediately. It was Gabriel, the college student. The youngest participant in the group.

“How did you get in here?” My voice came out as a defensive growl. I grabbed the heavy crystal ashtray from the nightstand, ready to use it. In this hotel, innocence was the biggest lie of all.

Gabriel shrank back even further, raising his hands in surrender. His eyes were red and swollen from crying. He was trembling so much that the bed frame creaked under his weight.

“Please, don’t hurt me!” His voice broke, shrill with panic. “When the engineer’s room opened and everyone ran over there, the security system unlocked all the corridor doors for about ten seconds. I saw it on the panel. I… I was too scared to stay alone. My room is terrifying, Hayes. There are things on the walls.”

I slowly lowered the ashtray but didn’t let go of it.

“What things?”

Gabriel swallowed hard, reached a trembling hand into the pocket of his hoodie, and pulled out a crumpled, yellowed piece of paper. He held it out to me.

I approached cautiously and took the paper. It was an old newspaper clipping. The main headline, printed in large black letters, seemed to suck all the oxygen out of my room:

TRAGEDY AT ECLIPSE NIGHTCLUB: FIRE LEAVES 50 YOUNG PEOPLE DEAD.

Security failures, locked emergency exits, and overcrowding turn a night of celebration into a hell of flames and toxic smoke.

July 12, 2016.

The floor seemed to give way beneath my feet. The clipping fell from my hands. The date. The same date engraved on the bronze plaque of Samuel’s destroyed painting. The same date on which my soul had begun to rot.

“Samuel… the engineer who just died,” Gabriel whispered, pointing at the newspaper on the floor. “His name is at the bottom of the article. He signed off on the nightclub’s blueprints. He certified that the acoustic insulation was fire-safe. The Host killed him because of that, didn’t he? It’s revenge.”

I looked at Gabriel. The boy was now in his early twenties. Ten years ago, he was just a child.

“I believe all of this is really connected to that tragedy. But… what about you?” I asked, my voice hoarse, struggling to push down the knot that had formed in my throat. “What does a boy who was twelve years old at the time have to do with this? Why are you here?”

Gabriel’s eyes filled with tears again. He hugged his knees tightly, burying his face in his arms.

“My older sister, Mariana… she was there that night. She was eighteen. She went to celebrate getting into college. She never came home. The firefighters said she was trampled even before the smoke reached her. I… I don’t know why the Host brought me. Maybe he wants me to watch the guilty pay. Or maybe I’m just collateral damage.”

The name hit my chest like a point-blank shotgun blast. Mariana.

The room around me seemed to melt. The hotel’s silent air conditioning was replaced by the deafening roar of fire devouring polyurethane foam. The smell of burnt flesh and melted plastic invaded my mind, so real that I started coughing.

I was there. I was at the back of the Eclipse Nightclub when the fireworks from the show hit the ceiling. The panic was instant. Hundreds of people running toward the same exit door, only to discover that the security guards had locked it to prevent customers from leaving without paying. When darkness and toxic smoke swallowed the hall, humanity ceased to exist. We were just animals fighting for air.

I crawled across the floor, feeling boots crushing my hands. I found a small ventilation window in the bathroom, too high to reach. And then I saw a girl. Her face covered in soot, coughing up blood, collapsed right below the window. She reached out to me. She asked for help.