#pp closed

This place is strange, listeners.  It is somehow both familiar and completely alien to me.  In some ways, it resembles home.  But there is this foreboding air to the place, and I can't put my finger on it.

Finally, Cecil had decided to put an end to his day.  He had found nothing on his first venture through the park, and had decided it would be best to go back to the hotel before it got dark.  While he felt perfectly safe walking around after dark in his home of Night Vale, he did not feel that same safety in this new place.  And he wanted to be inside, where he hoped he would be safe, until he knew more.

So, he had consulted his information and found his room, 208, and he settled in for the evening.  The information said he would have a roommate, but so far, the room had stayed empty.  So he was left alone with his thoughts of home, confusion about his new surroundings, and thoughts of how much he missed his Carlos.

To be taken from home so soon after my perfect Carlos was brought back from that desert other-world.  It's not fair, my dear listeners.

He had been carrying his phone and charger (he always had one on him, always prepared) when he was taken from home, so he sat at the desk of the hotel room charging his phone.  He could not call home with it, but he could look at the photos.  And that's what he did, while the phone charged, he flipped through pictures of himself and Carlos, and smiled fondly.

He was torn from his thoughts when he heard the door open.  Cecil turned to look at who he assumed to be his roommate, all three eyes taking in the sight of the rather young looking man entering the room.

Listeners, I am starting to feel very isolated in this strange place.

Cecil had met a few people so far, of course.  The woman he first encountered when he arrived, some employees (although they did not speak back to him), and he had been told that he would have a roommate (well, the information given to him upon his arrival did).  But he did not know anyone here, not really.  Not in a meaningful way.

And this time, unlike with my beloved Carlos the Scientist, I cannot contact home.  I can't call, text, Snapchat, or use my Tumblr blog.  Listeners, it's unbearable.  Not knowing how he is.  How you are.  I do hope you are all doing well.

He felt isolated, so completely that he was starting to feel properly lost.  He could not let those feelings get to him, otherwise he feared he would be lost to this place forever.  That he would become like those speechless employees there.  That the strange surroundings would swallow him whole and never let him leave.  He worried that he would become a mere shell.  An echo of who he once was.  And if he had a prayer of getting home, he needed to speak to people.

If there's one thing I love to do, it's talk.  Connect with people.  After all, listeners, that is why I became The Voice of Night Vale, so I could speak to and connect with all of you.

It was then that Cecil came to a decision that he would speak to the next person he saw emerging from the front doors of the hotel.  He had been sitting outside to get some fresh air and contemplate things, before he would go inside and check on the room and roommate situation.

So, when someone with long red hair stepped out of the hotel, Cecil decided he would speak with them.  It would help ground him, and keep him from drifting away.

"Hello," Cecil greeted cheerfully as he approached his fellow hotel guest.  Well, did they count as guests if their stay wasn't entirely voluntary?  Probably not.