MY LIFE AT HOTEL VALHALLA (A MAGNUS CHASE STORY)

II

When the glowy girl dropped me off, I was in the courtyard of a large building. Theo fell in a heap next to me. He was scared of heights, or so he had signed to me on the flight over, so he had passed out about 5 minutes into the ride. The ride had been about a half an hour long, since I lived in an apartment on 14 Logan Way. Still, it shouldn't have taken that long, but glowy girl number two had dropped Theo onto a roof on the way there and we had to wait for all the pigeons to fly away naturally so it didn't look like a giant wave of pigeons suddenly rose up and flew away all at once. I still had both my daggers, one in each hand, and my shield, for I had been clutching them tightly the whole way. They tried to evaporate into smoke once, and I screamed so loudly a few of the mortals in the street looked up. They solidified again and stayed with me. I stayed outside the building for now, by Theo's side until he came to about fifteen minutes later. I took a second to explain what was happening to the best of my ability, then we agreed that we had to go inside. So I took his hand and we walked to the door. I reached out and pulled the handle, and swung the door open. Inside was probably the biggest and most hectic hotel lobby I have ever seen. I gripped Theo's hand more tightly and stepped up to the front counter. "Hello, news." Said a man who looked honestly sucky. He looked mean. "I mean, hello Akanksha and Theodore." "Akana, please." I said, not a question, a command. In the same tone, I heard, "Theo, please." He turned red and I giggled as quietly as I could, but he still caught me and gave me the stink eye. I stifled it with a cough. "You two will be on floor thirteen. Ask your hall mates to show you to your rooms, and trust me, you will be able to tell which room is yours." "Thank you, good sir." I said with an exaggerated bow. Theo followed my lead and we walked to the elevator. A spear flew at my head from the left and I ducked without even having to look. I used a smoke hand to push away a dagger before it hit Theo's back, still without needing to look back. I pushed the elevator button and the door opened almost immediately. We both stepped in and I pressed 13. As soon as the door opened, I threw a punch out the door. I hit a big oaf in the nose as he charged me and Theo bare-handed. "Hey!" Yelled a girl with flaming red hair. "That's my boyfriend!" "Sorry, but he was trying to kill us . . . Again." She rolled her eyes. "Your rooms are the last ones down the hall. Welcome to Hotel Valhalla." Two people, one with blonde hair that looked like it had been axe, and another with green hair which I loved, I think it's so awesome when people do whatever they want to feel like themselves without caring what other people think. "Hi, sorry about them," the blonde boy said. "My name is Magnus, this is my boyfriend Alex, and welcome to Hotel Valhalla. Do you want us to show you to your rooms? We don't know which is which but we know which ones aren't yours, so process of elimination, blah, blah, blah." "That would be great, thank you," I said politely. Theo eyed me, probably suspecting I had a thing for this Magnus guy. We all walked the whole way to the very end of the hall. The last two doors, across the hall from each other, were the only ones that didn't have marks, cuts, and images or posters. We entered the room on the left first, where there was three rooms branching off to the sides. In the center was a cupboard that we found filled with different games such as twister, pictureka, sorry, etc. This was not mine. "Theo, start unpacking. This is not my room." Everyone laughed. We walked across the hall and found a room far more earthy. The floors were soft grass over springy dirt. In the center was a campfire ring with benches made of half cut logs with the rounded end down. "Now this is more like it." I walked to the room on the left and found a small living room with a brown couch and string lights hanging down in strands. A fire roared in the fireplace and a tv sat above it. A shelf full of video games sat on the side. On the mantle sat three pictures: one was when I was about five. I had a tooth gap because my first tooth had fallen out that day. One of my front two teeth on the top. I was beaming like the sun. One of my parents sat on either side of me; my real mom, not that imposter Tessa. They both looked happy af, just like me. Another depicted me a few years ago, after my mom had died and we had to move out of the house I had spent my whole childhood in. I was balling into my father's shoulder, and he was delicately stroking my hair. He was silently crying himself, but trying hard not to let me see. I only knew because at the time the back of my shirt had gotten wet from his tears. Although it was sad, it had been one of the major bonding points with my father in my life. The last was earlier today, when I was dying and Theo had leaned down to kiss me. It had captured the exact moment our lips met, my shock but ecstasy. "The pictures will disappear if they're about things you want to forget. New ones will show up slowly." Alex said from just behind me. I jumped a little because I had assumed everyone had left. He laughed. "Yeah, I'm still here. Sorry if I scared you." "No problem." I sat down next to him. "Hey, can I ask you kind of a weird question?" "Shoot." He replied. "Why did Magnus kind of... hesitate before calling you his boyfriend?" He seemed to relax a little. "Oh, that's easy. I'm gender fluid, and Magnus is one of the few people who can tell what gender I am sometimes. He was right, today I am male." He looked at me like he was expecting me to flip out or go on a homophobic rant or at least stand up from my position next to him on the couch. But I didn't. I simply said, "Mm-Kay." And then turned on the TV. I stood up for a moment to put in the game Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and he stayed on my couch and watched me play for an hour or so. Then he left, and I played for probably about another half an hour before I got bored and wandered across the hall, to Theo's room. What I saw inside shocked me.