Kinda Tacky. That was the first impression that Nick got. Gold painted dado rails and cornices highlighting off-cream walls. Dark wood furniture; it all felt very dated. After his critique of the decor, Nick assessed the rest of the room. What first greeted him was a group of guys dressed in similar scrap metal armour like Gareth. They didn’t speak to the family, just gave them the once over before turning to their card game. Seeing that they weren’t interested in him, Nick didn’t pay them much mind.

Lily started whispering. “What do we do? What’s going on?”

She was looking around, desperately trying to make sense of this rather tacky yet mundane room. It was filled with Sofas and coffee tables, it was awfully normal. Benny just looked too nervous to say anything and was hiding close to his dad.

“Well, why don’t we ask someone?” Nick suggested, then strided over to the busiest table in the room. The large group was drinking and chatting, occasional bouts of laughter spreading through them. As he approached Nick noticed one distinct feature about all of them. Denim. Most of the people were wearing at least one item of denim, one person was even wearing two! Nick wasn’t a fan of denim, he almost considered talking to a different group. Alas he arrived at the group before he could abort.

“Hello there!” The group all turned to him.

“Wassup?” One of the men asked.

“My folks and I just got here and we're looking for a place to get some rest.” Nick said.

“Ah yeah, Mindy, wanna give em a tour?” The group all turned to one of the women. Nick almost jumped in joy. This Mindy was the only one in the group not wearing denim. She had a pink crop on matched with a black leather skirt, Nick had never been so happy to see an outfit.

Mindy beamed at the opportunity, clearly very excited she jumped to her feet, bumping the table and spilling people's drinks.

“Eeek! Haha sorry guys. Hi I’m Mindy!” The girl leapt over the back of the sofa with surprising dexterity and introduced herself to Nick.

“Nice jump dude, I’m Nick.” He then looked back at his shyly approaching family. “This awkward bunch is Henry, Benny and Lily!” Nick pointing to each of the members respectively.

“Ughh” Henry groaned.

“hi…” Benny whispered.

“Hey.” Lily said despondently.

Either not noticing or uncaring about her attitude, Mindy charged the girl. “OMG! I love that dress! What floor did you get it? I haven’t seen anything like it before!”

“I uh, got it at H&M?” Lily responded.

Mindy then took a look at Henry, clearly noticing his apparent condition. “Wait…” She turned back to Nick. “When you said, just got here… You meant just got to the Complex?”

Nick simply nodded his head in response.

Mindy’s face lit up for a second time. “OMG! OMG! GUYS!” She ran back over to her group, which had already gone back to drinking and having a jolly time.

After some squeals and other boisterous noises Mindy came scurrying back to the very confused looking family.

The girl seemed to compose herself, trying to put on a serious face but completely unable to hide her excitement. “I officially welcome you to the Complex! It sucks! BUT! You made it to the hotel! I can’t wait to show you what’s up!”

Henry seemed to muster up the energy to say something. “Actually I’d love to just have a good sleep.”

“You need a bit more than just sleep. Though…” The girl seemed conflicted for a moment. “Aaaa. I can’t give you any pills, Tony would get super mad.”

“Tony?” Lily asked.

“Yeah the big man who holds this floor, Tony Two Times we call him. You’ll definitely be meeting him eventually. Sooner rather than later.”

The girl lightly shook, as if shaking off a bad vibe. “Anyways! I guess I’ll show you the rooms for now! But you better come find me once you get some sleep!” The girl pouted.

The girl seemed excessively childish to Nick, but he guessed it was kinda cute. She had makeup on to make her look younger, rosy cheeks and glossy skin. She looked like the egirls he was familiar with, but her fashion sense was far too dated. He couldn’t help but ignore the advice of Gareth.

“Hey, how long have you been here Mindy?” He instantly regretted asking.

The girl lost her cheeriness for a moment, quickly trying to recover it with a forced laugh. “I uh was born here.”

The girl couldn’t have been much older than 20. She’d been here for 20 years? It partially explained the 2000s aesthetic of the people he saw but boy did it raise some huge questions. Questions he had to swallow down. And slap down in Benny and Lily, who both looked like they were about to ask a torrent of questions.

“Wow! So you’re definitely someone who knows their stuff! Couldn’t ask for a better guide!” Nick said with a wide smile.

Mindy glowed at the compliment. “Thank you! I’ll do my darndest! So this is the way to the bedrooms!”

And with that Mindy lead the family through a series of doors. Each door opened into another wide open space, mainly filled with sofas, chairs and tables. Though there was the occasional stack of cupboards taking up entire walls. These rooms were filled with people, just sitting around, playing board games or chatting.

“Okay so, you should totally try and remember the route we just took. But if you forget you can tots just ask anyone, everyone here is super nice!” The girl beamed. “You guys are so lucky you ended up here and not the parklands! That place sucks!” Nick noticed a shadow fall across Mindy’s face while saying that.

He knew his family had just as many questions as himself but he signalled them to keep quiet.

Mindy led them through one last door which, unlike the others, opened into a single corridor that stretched further than Nick could see. The corridor was lined with doors far too close to each other to make any practical sense. Mindy swung one of them open revealing a similar corridor of doors, but much shorter with only five doors on each side before it ended.

The doors simply didn’t make sense at all. The doors on the left should open into the larger room they’d just been, but there weren't any doors Nick had seen on that wall.

“Unusual Cave Space Thing for sure huh.” He muttered to himself.

Mindy turned to the family. “So uh each door in this corridor is the same as this one. And each door in those corridors leads to a room.” She said.

The family nodded. This making absolutely zero sense to them.

“Any room with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign has someone in it or it’s being used. Any other room is free! Don’t worry about anyone coming in, everyone here respects the rules!”

The family nodded again. Perfectly reasonable.

“Oh each of the rooms is kinda random, so uh you might need to do a bit of checking before you find one with enough space for all of you!”

The family all nodded. This had been too long a day.

Mindy made to walk past them before stopping herself. “You’re new so you wouldn’t know but two key things. If you see a cleaner, DO NOT GO NEAR THEM! At all!. And uh don’t go wandering off. This place might just go on forever. Have a good sleep guys!” With that Mindy skipped off.

The family all looked at each other.

“So where the heck have we ended up?” Lily asked.

“U-C-SHT. The Unusual Cave Space Hotel Thing of course.” Nick replied matter-of-factly

Benny giggled and Lily scrunched her face.

“She looked at least 20 Nick. Not to mention her whole Mean Girls thing she had going on.” Lily said, concern thick in her voice.

“I don’t have any answers Lily, but we’ll find them.” Nick gave a reassuring pat to Benny.

“Find me a damn bed.” Henry groaned.

“Alright, let's get you tucked old man.” Nick laughed.

The family began their search through the various hallways, checking for a free room. Luckily they didn’t have to walk too far down the corridor to find something that fit. It was a couple dozen doors down, but thankfully they could still see the door that led back to the wider room. It was reassuring to not just be stuck in an endless corridor. The room itself was rather impressive, a large space that was split into three distinct doorless sub rooms with a bathroom. There were 2 bedrooms, a small lounge room and then the bathroom. Nick was rather impressed, it was better than any hotel room he had ever stayed in.

“Bloody nice beds.” Henry called out as he collapsed into one of the beds. Nick explored the room a bit more as his family each took a bed. Nick found a mini bar that was stocked full of booze and chocolates, but decided to not touch the U-C-SHT confectionery. He then checked the bathroom, finding it stocked up on towels and with running water.

“Wild.” He muttered in amazement. This place just really didn’t make much sense to him. He walked back to the subrooms and found that each of his family members had taken a bed for themselves, leaving him with the couch. His dad was already completely out of it but Benny and Lily were just sitting on their beds.

“How we holding up guys?” Nick asked.

“This place seems kinda cool.” Benny said, letting out a yawn.

Lily gave him a ‘we need to talk look’.

“Alright chief you’re looking knackered, I think it’s time to hit the hay.” Nick helped the kid get into bed. Nick gave him a hug then he and Lily stepped out into the hallway.

“What the fuck is going on Nick?” Lily’s stress was finally leaking out.

“I’ll be real with you Lily, I have absolutely no clue. There seems to be a lot going on here. Groups, Cliches, massive monster things. That infection stuff.” Nick then filled her in on the stuff he learnt from Gareth.

“Not reminding people of their circumstances huh? An interesting bit of advice.” Lily pondered out loud.

“Mindy said she’d been born here, but I don’t think everyone was. The way they reacted to us shows that there’s at least more people like us. They’re also culturally distinct to the 2000s.” Nick brought up. Most of the people he’d seen, outside of the scrap armour folk, were wearing very dated outfits.

“So you’re saying that these people have been here since the 2000s? Mindy being born in here works on that timeline… The hotel itself is tacky and dated looking, definitely not a more updated modern style.” Lily and Nick were really bringing their brains together to try and piece something together. They individually thought for a bit longer but just couldn’t gleam much else.

“We just don’t have enough information yet.” Nick concluded.

Lily nodded. “We’ve got some work on our hands Nick.”

Nick abruptly pulled his sister into a hug. She sagged into his arms and hugged back. “At least we’re all here together.”

Lily laughed. “Cringe dude.”

“I just couldn’t help it.” Nick grinned. “We’ll work it out dude. After some good rest though.”

Lily pulled back and looked Nick up and down. “Yeah look Nick, you’re not going to win anyone over looking like that. Clean yourself up man.”

Nick looked down at himself and saw that his clothes were completely covered in dust and gravel, likely from his fight with the Nightmare Boar. “I totally whopped that thing’s ass, you shoulda seen it dude.”

“Uh huh, sure Nick.” Lily rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

The two of them went back into the room, Lily headed to her bed and Nick went to the bathroom. Deciding to see if the shower was as good as it looked, he stripped down and hopped in.

It was better than it looked.

A nice hot shower later, Nick was feeling a million dollars. Once he was dry he looked down at his dirty clothes. A simple white shirt and some tan chinos, a fit that never failed him. Though they were a bit too dirty right now, he decided to look for a change in the wardrobes in one of the bedrooms. They were completely packed with clothes.

He was deeply saddened by his choices though. Too much denim. Looking for anything that might be his size he eventually had to settle on a pair of jeans that fit surprisingly well and a white T-shirt that was a little too big. Whatever, free clothes were a win, though he hoped he could clean his chinos somewhere.

Nick plopped himself down onto the sofa and picked up his phone by reflex. He didn’t get any service in here, unsurprisingly, but he was glad he could still look through all his photos. He was mindlessly scrolling through his masses of saved memes before he realised that he was just burning up his battery and they probably didn’t have chargers here.

Wait, electricity? He sat up and looked around the room, he saw a power socket on the wall, though it wasn’t one he was familiar with. He wasn’t very well travelled but he recognised it, he thought it might be from America.

“American power sockets?” He murmured. He got up and looked for another, he found one and it surprised him. It was another socket, but different to the last one he saw. He then found another, a different socket again.

“Yakno, I’m just making more questions than answers here.” Nick went back to the sofa and got comfortable. He stopped to focus on his breathing, clearing his head of all the piling questions. That was tomorrow's job, and there were lots of jobs to do tomorrow.

Nick would need the energy, so he settled down and tried his best to fall asleep.

It had been one hell of a day.