The lobby was quiet, the check-outs having just ended officially. There was one or two rooms left who requested to leave the hotel at 14.00, and, of course, for a certain price, no one rushed them. Receptionists made sure to gossip between each other though, huffing about how they wouldn’t spend their last hours in Prague sitting in the room. With lunchtime getting closer, all of them thought about menu for the day more than about work.
In the lobby bar the guy behind the counter was shamelessly flirting with his colleague — a waitress which just started a month ago but already made part in gossips because single clients were tipping her like crazy. Of course, everyone decided, over another cigarette talk, that it was due to her big doe-eyes and even bigger cup which gave her a perfect cleavage most guys were looking into when she was taking their orders. No one ever listened to her quietly complaining to the concierge during quiet hours that she felt like a piece of meat due to that.
The piano recording played through the speakers; the music was slightly off-key but not enough for anyone to notice while everyone enjoyed their time before 15:00 when the main move would start with all the incomings.
Some, of course, would arrive before that, demanding a never confirmed early check-in, but with having 87 rooms in total that was a rare occurrence.
The supervisor for the dayshift, Tereza, sat at the front desk while kicking her foot lazily and scrolling through her phone. Free time should have always been spent for either food, coffee, smoke or catching up on the latest TikTok and Instagram publications, and since she didn’t want to do any of the first options, the last one was her choice now.
No one was there to blame her for doing that or sitting when she had to always stand and smile even though she made a mistake of coming to work in high heels today — Rayan ran off to meet with the owner of the hotel somewhere. The guy would probably brag again about some reconstructions needed because he was closer every day to going as crazy as the owners of ‘Sědy Pruh’ about the whole ordeal. Rayan would stress out, politely tell him off with something like “The building won’t handle more curved angles — you better bring it down completely and rebuilt something new from Zana Hadid’s blueprints”. Upon return he would proceed to complain to Mila about it; Mila would complain about the whole thing in general and Rayan in particular to the reception team. Not that she didn’t like the general manager — hell, if anything, everyone was pretty sure she and Rayan had something going on because their interactions often held a “long married couple” vibe.
The concierge sighed while restocking the minibar carts by the back-office door. Emil was probably being busy sleeping off a headache somewhere beneath the emergency stairs or in a small storage room repurposed into a little brutalist bedroom where he technically lived because it was cheaper with Prague’s rent prices.
Tereza propped her phone between two laminated check-in forms and scrolled through her feed.
A girl with bleached eyebrows filmed herself walking backwards in an inward spiral. Caption: ‘doing the #SoftSpirala ritual cause why not lmao ? wish me luck’. The video cut out mid her laugh, while the comments were filled with all kind of stuff.
‘Is it true you hear yourself scream from outside your body?’
‘Fake af, this is just reversed audio’
‘If Vaclav finds u cute he lets u live, so fingers crossed <3’
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Tereza rolled her eyes. Seemed like kids didn’t have anything better to do these days, but at least they laid off on making “The main hero” trends or creating a whole badly plotted stories in these short videos.
The next video showed an influencer, grinning brightly while holding a selfie stick at the edge of the barricaded Pet?in Pit.
“Okay, so, like, technically you’re not supposed to go past this mirror wall,” he made a turn to show it, “but I swear I saw someone do it yesterday and they didn’t even flicker sooo…. #IntoThePit, let’s go—!”
It cut off before he jumped. Of course, it did.
Tereza tapped through two more clips, one being a blurry hallway in someone’s apartment building. The caption read ‘Next door apartment opened by itself again. He’s watching #VaclavVibes’.
Another video was with a supposed Spiralá playlist titled ‘he hummed a song I already knew’, with the top comment persisting it sounded like it looped even when it didn’t.
Tereza sighed, muttering to herself dryly: “You people are gonna summon a Hallwalker with you ring light on.”
She then stopped scrolling for a second, just staring at the screen. The next post was a grainy zoomed-in photo of someone’s reflection in a tram window, with the caption ‘saw him again.coat.gloves.didnt blink. #SpiralaDaddy?’
She tilted her head, looking at the blurry figure. Barely any features, but the shape was somehow…familiar? No.
Not possible.
She locked the phone, placing it face-down on the counter, and rubbed her eyes with a light hum she didn’t even notice.
The elevator dinged at the far end of the lobby, the permanent guest (or a resident, at this point) being out for his afternoon walk. He nodded as he passed the front desk.
“Good day, Ms. Seifertová.”
Tereza looked up, then nodded back, poker-faced. When he was already a few steps away from the reception, she couldn’t help herself, muttering barely audible: “You don’t need to summon someone who’s already here.”
She was quiet — she was sure about it — but the man paused, turning his head back to her slightly. God, those cheekbones should have been illegal. And those eyes too — dark enough to notice not their color but only their direction. They suddenly reminded Tereza of two Pits, devouring any light which got close, and she felt an unpleasant shiver down her spine as they caught her in their focus.
“Pardon me?”
Tereza blinked, realizing she had been caught, and let out a shaky laugh. God, why did such dumb ideas come into her mind?
“Sorry, nothing. I think I just need to lay off the social media for a while,” she waved a hand dismissively. “Kids these days think every guy wearing a coat is from Spiralá or something.”
The guest looked at his own coat and then smirked at her softly. “Maybe I should change my style then. Although, people always had a tendency for conspiracies. Now the environment just offers the ground for it on a golden plate.”
Tereza nodded softly watching him leave. Yeah, she definitely needed to stop watching everything without filter on the social media.
Who even started this thing about a guy in a coat? – she thought to herself as she moved to look through the arrival notes. Someone who wanted to believe in Men in Black too much?
She let out a soft hum which lasted for seven seconds straight without breaking the tone, but didn’t notice it. The concierge did though. He heard it, his hand with the Coke bottle pausing for a split moment.
He’d have to drop by Emil after he was done with his work here.
Conveniently, the kid sneaked in almost unnoticeable. He had that kind of a little superpower — blending in with the interior when he didn’t want to be addressed to.
The kid was generally a little weird — well, as weird as anyone could get in modern circumstances and not be called an owner of some Stage of a Hallwalker inside their head. Quiet, but not really shy — just more like a cat which liked to observe when in the room full of kids and very much didn’t want to be noticed. The concierge saw that during the lunch a couple of times, and noticed that even if someone was at the table with him, the kid preferred to be silent and not talk much to the point where people near him were forgetting he was there — until he spoke and made everyone jump.
“Hey, you’ll be passing security rooms by any chance?”
The kid paused, blinking slowly as if taking some time to refocus. “Depends.”
“Well, tell Emil to keep an eye out,” the concierge nodded him to Teresa who wasn’t humming already, just scrolling through her phone again.
The kid looked towards her, two gazes making her look up and smile. Both of them smiled back.
