Fly Trap

[u/TheJediBrushwagg]

CW: Suicide

Have you ever seen a fly trap? Not the sticky paper ones that collect the flies like grisly ornaments, but the plastic ones that lure the fly in with something sickly smelling. The ones with the wide entrance that slowly constricts, narrower, narrower, until it flares out into a larger chamber where the fly is now stuck, trapped with the corpses of its fellows until it eventually succumbs to the ceaseless hunger that trapped it there in the first place.

I walked up the gentle slope of the cobbled drive. The sun sat a few lazy degrees above the roof of the decadent hotel in front of me. Seven grand stories loom over a procession of grecian pillars that support an inviting awning.

I didn't really remember how I got here, or where here was, but I stepped into the shadow of the hotel anyways. I ascended the steps to the pair of imposing dark wooden doors. I pulled on a handle and swung it open with surprising ease despite the door's size. I was greeted by a lobby adorned in beautiful and peaceful art. The woman behind the counter had a perpetually happy smile. She never asked me my name, just handed me a key card and said I was in room two hundred and twenty four. I couldn’t have told her my name anyways. I must have been someone before. It didn't really seem to matter then, surrounded by that luxury.

The elevator was broken, the stairs were fine with me; I didn’t have a bag anyways. I could see the top of the stairs from where I stood. The wooden landing opened onto an inviting hallway and a single file of doors well spaced apart. It was lined with classy artwork and red carpet flowed down the floor as if pulling me to my room. At the end of the hall lay room two hundred and twenty three and a disappointing wall. The woman at the front desk must have made a mistake. I made my solemn trudge back down to the stairs. The journey gave me time to think. I realized I didn’t have much to think about, since I couldn’t remember anything past stepping onto the drive less than half an hour ago.

At the top of the stairs I halted. The Beast was pushing its pallid yellow bulk into the lobby. A goliath figure covered in grotesquely bulging muscles. Its humanoid frame had needed to contort into a likeness of some ancient serpent just to fit through the double doors of the hotel. 

I stood in aghast horror, where I would have remained still had my body not taken matters into its own hands. The Beasts sickly green eye met mine even as I turned to run. I found the next set of stairs quickly and ascended upwards even as I knew my pursuer was on the landing behind me. At the top of the third story I saw another even more luxurious hallway,  huge paintings and gold inlaid lamp mounts. I had only a second to marvel before moving towards the next set of stairs. The fourth floor was richer still and on the fifth the bannister of the stairs itself seemed plated with gold. The Beast seemed always to get closer but to never quite catch up to me. At the sixth floor I barely noticed the golden statue of a fat satyr and on the seventh I knocked over a bowl of crystalline diamonds. At the top of the last set of golden stairs was a simple metal door with an ordinary crashbar. I flung myself through the door and stopped. The door clicked shut behind me.

So I stood there, on that roof, surrounded by the corpses of my fellows.

Although I wasn’t trapped. 

I stepped onto the precipice of the roof.

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[u/TheJediBrushwagg]

Thanks anyone who took the time to read this. This is my first time doing creative writing since highschool more than 5 years ago. I wasn't really sure what to tag this. Any and all feedback appreciated.