sweetchaos (sweetchaos) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2021-08-25 23:20:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #june 2018, max |
Who: Max
Where: Atlantic City
When: Sunday, 6/17, early early early morning, then afternoon
Max had no idea what had happened to Caden. They'd been drinking a lot and gambling and at some point they just weren't gambling at the same places. Maybe it had something to do with the buxom blonde he'd been chatting up earlier - before her damn husband showed up - Caden would definitely leave him alone to get lucky. He hadn't gotten lucky. At some point he was strolling around the casino with a whole bunch of chips he'd won on some delightful streak and things were looking good! An hour later he ended up losing it all at Blackjack and things looked a little more grim after that.
He was back to wandering around, this place wasn't nearly as much fun without cash and he couldn't find Aya or Caden. He'd kind of hoped he could sweet talk Aya into getting him some more money; for someone who wasn't stopped by locked doors, money came easy. Getting her to get money for him wasn't half as easy though and he was working up the charmer smile and the tempting words for when he did find her. Or maybe he'd find some lady whose husband wasn't actually around, have a little more fun before he went home. There was always the option of just going to his room and catching some Zs but even on his losing streak he wasn't quite ready to turn in yet even if it was 2am in the morning.
Things got a little weird when he was walking down a random hallway, unsure where he'd ended up. There was a wall with a door that looked very secure and probably locked, but right next to it there was a giant hole in the wall. Just a hole. Like the building was partially - very partially at that - collapsing. There were cameras and inside the room there were rows and rows of chips, enough to make a guy like Max salivate. He didn't really question whether it was a trap or a hallucination, it was an opportunity so he pulled on his hoodie and tugged the hood up before venturing closer, hiding his face from the cameras as he headed on inside and shoved a few chips in his pockets. It was too easy! It was amazing! He was in and out in a heartbeat and when he'd rounded the corner and checked for cameras he pulled his hoodie off so he wasn't as easily recognizable from the security footage, and moved out to blend in with the crowd.
He was on a bit of an adrenaline high after that, kept expecting it to have been a trap, that someone would know that the chips he was now gambling with were stolen. But nobody came and nobody questioned him and he had no idea why there was a giant hole in that wall in the first place. How many people had seen that? How many people had grabbed chips? Were they going to recall a bunch of these winnings when they discovered it? Could they even do that? He didn't really care, not when he left for his room near morning with more chips than he'd arrived with and crashed into bed to sleep, bracing for a nasty hangover.
When he was actually sober he questioned what the hell had happened. A hole in the wall made no damn sense and he would have thought it was a dream, but he still had a hoodie stuffed with chips and he knew he'd been too broke to gamble last night. He ordered food to his room and took some painkillers before having a beer to tidy himself over, but he couldn't stop thinking about that weird and hazy memory. There had been a random door sized hole in the wall and the more he thought about it, the more he remembered how wrong it looked compared to everything else. The wall had looked decayed, there had been pieces of it scattered around the floor. That kind of thing didn't just happen without someone noticing - and it sure as shit didn't just fix itself overnight.
When he'd eaten and showered, he felt human enough to leave his room and headed back to the casino. It was constantly busy, bright and loud which he didn't exactly love in his current state, but he wasn't there to have fun, he was there to investigate and try to set his mind at ease. There were no crime scene banners in the hall or added security; everything looked clear and he did his best to find his way back to that hole in the wall, just to see. It took a while but then he was pretty sure he found the right place even if the wall was completely whole and the only thing that looked like what he'd seen the night before was that thick door and the cameras. He made a point of not lingering or staring too much but his heart was pounding by the time he made it back out of there because something was off. There was no way he was staying put, craving the quiet of his hotel room and maybe some more sleep if his racing thoughts would let him. There had to be a rational explanation, he just wasn't in any shape to figure it out.