Cyrus walks up to Emily’s unconscious body and attempts to pick her up before remembering how damaged his arm is. He stares at her for a moment before turning around to the man standing by the door to his suite.

“You were a great help man, you sure did a lot there”

The man ignores the sarcastic tone looking at Emily’s closed eyes while on the ground “is she going to be okay?”

“I’m not a doctor don’t ask me… Could have been avoided if you just let her in” Cyrus scowls at him

“I’m sorry, I have a family inside, I was too scared to open the door at the time, then I heard more of you out there an-“

Cyrus cuts him off

“Whatever man, if something happened to her it would have been on you”

I wonder what he thought he was going to do with that golf club of his

The man looks down at his feet like a child being disciplined by his parents as if contemplating his actions, then returns his gaze to Emily’s closed eyes.

“Here come inside, my wife’s a vet maybe she can help tend to your wounds”

Cyrus looks down at his arm trying to move it. The shock starting to wear off, he feels a sharp pain with each attempt.

This isn’t good at all, I should take him up on his offer. Someone needs to bring Emily in

He looks over to Josh who is approaching the group “Hey, can you bring her in?”

Josh examines Emily carefully “I don’t remember seeing her get hit, is she alright?”

Seems nobody saw what I saw. Maybe I was just seeing things

“She probably fainted, bring her inside so we can keep an eye on her”

Cyrus watches as Josh lifts Emily up carefully.

The man opens the door and they all enter a glamorous suite. Inside, 2 children in the corner are being comforted by a middle-aged blonde woman.

Her arms around them as their heads buried into each other. As the door opens, the children raise their heads to see who it is.

“Daddy?” the little girl releases herself from her mother’s arm and runs up to the man.

“it’s okay, you don’t need to be scared anymore”

He runs his hand through her hair, while she stretches her arms wide around him as if she is trying to wrap her arms around a large tree trunk.

The woman sees Josh walk in holding Emily and immediately gets up, with her face changing from fear to concern.

“Oh my lord, what happened to her?! Gregg is this the girl you didn’t let in? I told you to open the door!” She says while scolding the man

“I-I was just trying to look out for you and the kids, Sandra…”

Sandra quickly rushes over to the bed, clearing away the clutter and clothes that were left there.

“Please, lay her down here”

She gestures to the bed.

The group enter the room further, Cyrus closes the door behind them while Josh lays Emily down onto the bed.

Sandra retrieves a flannel and a bowl of water and rushes over to the bed to tend to Emily. Josh reaches into his pocket for his phone. He notices a few missed calls and messages he missed during the mayhem before.

The kids in the room are sitting on the sofa, and seem to be calmer, while they play on their phones.

“She doesn’t seem to be in any physical pain, she’s probably in shock. It’s best if she just rests for now.”

Sandra says with a straight face while still staring at Emily, stroking her hair to the side.

Cyrus walks towards the bed and sits down on the corner with a serious look on his face.

I don’t understand what’s going on, it’s like I’m dreaming. But it feels way too real to be a dream.

“Do you want me to look at your arm, sir?”

Cyrus snaps out of his deep thought and turns to look at Sandra, who is standing next to him holding a first-aid kit.

“You look like you’re in a lot of pain”

Cyrus look to his damaged arm, running his other hand over it for the first time properly examining himself.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me” Cyrus says frankly.

Is this all really happening? An earthquake in London, some weird abomination almost killing everyone? What a day…

He lifts his head up and looks towards Josh, who is still looking through the messages and missed calls on his phone.

“Yo Josh, any news on what the actual fuck is going on here?”

Josh returns his gaze to Cyrus with a slightly worried look on his face, trying his best to maintain his bravado but the fear is obvious.

“Most the staff left the building… Some are missing and there’s more corpse-“

he stops himself as he quickly notices the children in the room.

“I mean, some other guests weren’t so lucky”

“Why haven’t the police been called?!” exclaims Gregg, frustrated and directing his question to Josh.

“You have a phone, why don’t you do it you entitled prick” snaps Josh.

Gregg gives him a distasteful look.

“You think I’ll tolerate the ‘help’ talking to me like that?! I’ll be having a word with your manager!”

Josh’s eyes widen with anger while standing in an aggressive stance.

“You think I care? Be my guest, call my manager. I don’t think you will have any more luck than I have trying to get a hold of him. We have missing guests, we had a literal monster in these halls. My job security is the last thing on my god damn mind!”

“Please! Can you guys calm down? Gregg what’s wrong with you have some decorum!”

Exclaims Sandra trying to calm everyone down.

Gregg relaxes himself and looks to his wife with apologetic eyes, he then glances over to his two children who are minding their own business while on their devices as if everything was normal.

“I’m sorry love, you didn’t see what I saw...”

Gregg look back towards Josh and sighs

“I’m sorry we’re just scared”

“Don’t worry man, we’re all stressed”

Josh returns to his phone trying his best to get a hold of someone but with no success.

Cyrus gets up off the bed and grabs the remote, turning the TV on and flicks through the channels.

There has to be something on the news about this, this is too crazy

“ZOO ANIMALS?!”

exclaims Gregg hysterically

“that THING we saw wasn’t an animal!”

Cyrus turns the TV off and sets the remote down next to him

“The point is it sounds like there’s more.”

“There’s more? Holy shit…”

Josh whines.

“How did this even happen?”

Cyrus thinks for a moment trying to recollect his memories

“It all started with that earthquake, I can’t remember the last time there ever was one here, when I looked out the window I saw accidents but that wasn’t the weird thing… There were very few people on the road, like some cars had no drivers”

“What? So you’re saying there was an earthquake and people just vanished?”

Asked Gregg

Cyrus runs his hand over his damaged arm and then looks to Emily, who seems to be moving a little as if sleeping through a bad dream

“Yeah, seems like it. I just don’t know where that thing came from.”

Everyone in the room sits in silence, as if forgetting anyone else was there with them. Suddenly the silence is replaced with a rumble, almost like the room is gently vibrating, enough for everyone to snap out of their thoughts and brace for action.

Another earthquake?

The vibrations come in short bursts, as if a hammer was being hit against the frame of the building.

“Is it happening again?” asks Sandra while huddling up with her kids again.

“This doesn’t feel like another earthquake, it’s like this building is trembling.” Cyrus stands and focuses as he tries the feel the floor beneath his feet

“I think we need to get out of here”

Emily slowly sits up with half opened eyes, her head resting against the wall next to the bed to support her neck as she turns to look around.

Her expression grows confused as she is unfamiliar with where she is.

“W-where am I, w-what’s going on?” Emily stammers as she struggles to speak.

Oh yeah, what we gonna do about her?

“I don’t know about all of you, but I’m gonna get out of this hotel”

Cyrus says with a neutral expression. He notices Josh still sending out texts messages and dialling numbers but it seems nobody is responding.

“Josh any luck getting a hold of somebody?”

Josh drops his hands to his sides and puts his phone back into his pocket.

“Nah man, nobody’s answering. There isn’t even a dial tone most of the time. It’s like some of these numbers are disconnected.”

Josh’s face pale, as pale as an African man can be

“I even tried calling the authorities… no response”

Sandra rocks back and forth while holding onto her children as if shielding them from something. She looks up to her husband with teary eyes

“Gregg what do we do?”

All of a sudden the vibrations stop, and the room lay silent again.

Everyone in the room is looking at each other as if waiting for someone to speak up when suddenly the silence is again replaced with an ear piercing screech.

“What in god’s name was that?!”

Emily says as she sits up from the bed, now fully conscious.

There’s more abominations here, we might be trapped.

“Sounds like we got more zoo animals”

Cyrus says while sitting back down as he leans his head on his fist.

*sigh* another reason to hate Mondays…