The Strange Occurrences At The Grand Hotel

Ellie quickly found the girl and they made their way back up to the presidential suites. Every step she took she felt as if her mind was going to explode. The beautiful lights that dotted the hallways dimmed every step she took and soon lit back to normal after she passed them. Ever since this morning this has been happening. Everything. Everything electronic she passed as she tried to hold in her anger, worry, and just plain fear of what was going on flickered. She could feel the energy on her skin as if it was fueling her nerves.

Her hands seemed to shake as she passed by more lights. All of this energy, being in the middle of New York City and in a huge hotel was making her feel like she was going to explode. She felt as if she was one crack of emotion or painful twitch away from letting all of this energy out. And Ellie knew that something bad would happen. It wouldn't be like short circuiting that toaster at home, it would be worse.

"Ellie?" Oliver finally said, "what are you singing?"

She wasn't singing. She was playing back some annoying foreign song - possibly Japanese- that Ashley was playing on her laptop one day. The music and the stupid voices were in constant loop mode in her head as she tried to think of something different than what was going on. She knew that he was noticing the lights, who couldn't. Their boss even noticed something, though he probably blew it off as he ran off to a meeting with the other program heads.

"Ellie…"

She tried to be strong and put on her "I don't care" face, but she couldn't.

"I feel like that I'm going to explode…" she said clutching her arms.

She felt a soft hand on her shoulder and she looked to Oliver and could see pain in his eyes. Every room they passed to the elevators, she could see something wrong. They exited to the elevators, and waited till one was free of guests. They rode all the way up and they told each other what happened when they woke up.

"I can't block anything… its like I somehow turned on the TV and can't find the remote to turn it off."

He pinched the the bridge of his nose with his fingers and pushed his eyebrows together. Ellie wished that she brought aspirin for him to take. He probably was having the worst head ache ever. She wondered if he had the kind of TV that didn't have any buttons on the screen. Her's defiantly had an off switch, but since it was old, sometimes Ashley had to press it a few times to make it go off. Though, his analogy was spot on. She kept feeling as if she was constantly gathering energy and couldn't turn it off.

"You know I have a TV that you could have if you hate yours…" he said with a shy smile.

She cocked her eyebrows and he apologized. They tried to keep each other calm as they traveled up the elevator. They decided to go check out the room they cleaned before with the stones. Ellie checked and saw that the guy staying in the room wasn't suppose to leave til tomorrow. However as they grew close to the room Oliver's expression changed. As she was just about to knock on the door, the door opened a woman half drunk and in a silk slip walked past them mumbling something about a bath.

Oliver was nice and lead her back into the room and Ellie saw a group of women passed out in the living room area. Ellie didn't need Oliver to tell her that the man staying here before was gone.

"So what are we going to do?" Oliver asked at lunch.

The two of them really didn't want to stay in the building. As they stepped outside Ellie felt a little bit better, but she could tell that Oliver was still not liking the many people that passed them on the crowded sidewalks. Ellie and Oliver sat down cautiously enjoying the hotdog vendor's hotdogs and Ellie tried to make conversation.

"You know, you could try to do what the movies when someone can read minds… focus your mind on some random person and try to block out everyone else? Or something?"

He gave a slight smile and shrugged saying that he had nothing to lose. He looked around and Ellie pointed to a mother and a small child and asked if Oliver could try to hear her. He tried and told Ellie about the woman's thoughts for the future of her child. Ellie then pointed to a few other people and then spotted some person dumpster diving into the dumpster near to where they were sitting. Oliver smiled sort of enjoying the little game and she saw his eyes focus on the man.

Suddenly his head shot up out of the dumpster and Ellie saw the man faintly look around quickly. He looked over by them and was almost instantly by them. He smelled slightly from the dumpster dive, but looked very bizarre. He looked like he was wearing a costume that reminded her of one of those cosplayer people that would go to comic book conventions. His styled long gray hair completed the look. Ellie and Oliver shuttered at the man's strange look as he reached out his dirty hands and took Oliver's clean shirt in them.

"Were you trying to read my mind boy?" he said with a slight twitch in his eye.

"Uh…" Oliver said with a freaked out look.

"How…" Ellie said mimicking Oliver's look.

The man's look changed and he seemed excited. His serious look changed as he hugged Oliver saying random things in a happy tone. He spoke too fast for Ellie to grab what he was saying, but whatever it was made the two of them even more scared. The man pushed Oliver back down on the bench that they were sitting on and pointed to the two of them in an over exaggerated manner.

"From now on you are my students! You shall call me 'Oh Wise Teacher' or Zac," Zac was the only thing in that sentence that wasn't over exaggerated, "whatever you like."

Ellie and Oliver looked at each other cautiously and back at the man who probably escaped from a mental hospital...