"What the hell are you doing here?"

Colonel Wei Guang snapped, glaring at me like I was not where I was supposed to be. Trust me, dude, I completely agreed with that assessment.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous this place is?" His voice continued to get louder and louder... and squeakier and squeakier.... with every word out of his mouth. Clearly, this man was not having a good day.

Still, that didn’t make it right for him to take his bad mood out on me. I wasn’t the one to kidnap him and dump him in a poorly run zombie hotel.

"I can’t believe it! You wouldn’t get off your couch when I offered you my protection, but now you show up here and expect me to save you like it’s just any other day of the week!"

I blinked at him slowly, trying to make sense of this words.

Well.

Somebody clearly woke up on the wrong side of the dirt floor.

Honestly, I thought seeing another living human being would improve his mood a little, but apparently not. He was determined to be cranky.

"What do you mean, this place is dangerous?" I asked, looking around the dark, depressing basement that we were locked in. "And who cares if we left with you or not? Clearly we ended up in the same place at the same time. But next time we do this... can you pick a better place?" I continued. "The atmosphere here is a little depressing."

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop the bark of laughter that threatened to come out. Wei Guang looked one sentence away from a stress-induced heart attack.

Behind him, several soldiers immediately looked down at the floor like they were trying not to laugh.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one having a hard time keeping a straight face.

"Captain Wei Guang?" Chenghai suddenly said from beside me, sounding genuinely confused for the first time since we entered the hotel.

Oh God... here we go again with the selective amnesia. Really, I need to write a complaint to whoever was in charge of rebirths. We really should be given the body’s memory up to the point that we take over.

It would stop so much confusion.

And drama.

Chenghai took a slow step forward while staring at the other man carefully. "Captain Wei... is that really you?"

Wei’s entire expression changed slightly as he spun to stare Chenghai like the other man was an idiot.

"Zhou Chenghai," he snapped. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I’m sorry," Chenghai replied after a brief pause, shaking his head once. "It’s just been a long time since I last saw you. I’m glad you’re doing well."

The entire basement went quiet for about three seconds before Wei stared at him like he had finally lost his mind.

"...We saw each other a little over a week ago," Wei said slowly... like speaking slower would help jog memories that just weren’t there. "Don’t you remember? You turned down a spot with us," Wei continued while pointing accusingly toward me. "Didn’t want to leave your couch."

Says the man that just demanded to know why I wasn’t currently on said couch.

"And just how exactly do I look like I’m doing well right now?" he demanded while spreading one arm toward the basement around us. "Do you not understand what is happening here?"

I looked around again obediently and took in the wet concrete, the exhausted soldiers, the mold growing places that mold should not be growing...

And the giant black hole smashed through the far wall.

Yeah.

The vibes definitely weren’t great.

"I mean..." I said carefully. "I probably wouldn’t leave a five-star review."

Several soldiers immediately started coughing into their fists when Wei spun around to stare them down. When they stopped laughing at him, Wei turned his attention back to me and Chenghai. He looked personally offended by my continued existence.

Commander Li finally pushed himself away from the wall behind him and walked toward us slowly.

Up close, he looked worse than I originally thought. He was too tired, too thin... it had been months since the last time he had come over to the house, and time had not been his friend.

He looked like he had been to hell and back and did it all without a shower or a break. But his eyes were clear, still focused, still saw more than he should.

I hummed as he smiled at me. "I’m glad you’re alive," Li said quietly. He looked like he wanted to say more, but then he saw the look on Wei’s face and closed his mouth.

"You look terrible," I informed him honestly, and Li laughed in response. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t joking, but I thought that might be a little harsh, given the current circumstances.

"We’re a little short on luxury accommodations," he replied dryly holding out his arms.

"No kidding. This place should be on HGTV or something like that. It really could use a makeover."

I finally looked toward the far side of the basement properly, toward the hole.

It looked less like a tunnel and more like something had physically torn through the concrete wall itself. The edges were jagged with crumbled concrete at the entrances and broken pipes stuck out from the exposed concrete. Black water dripped steadily somewhere inside the darkness beyond.

Nothing about it screamed comfort, and I don’t think there was a poster big enough to hide the wreckage. The hole was large enough to drive a truck through, and yet... not a single ray of light shone inside of it.

Almost like even the light was scared to go inside.

Well... if I was a betting woman... which I wasn’t.... I was willing to bet that the big bad boss was somewhere inside that hole.

I took a few steps toward it, my eyes narrowing slightly as I tried to see inside it. The smell coming from the hole was awful... I legitimately had no idea how to describe it. Think wet earth, cow shit, rot, blood, and a smell that clung to the back of your throat making you want to puke.

Yeah... this place needed more than a few scented candles...

And even then, I didn’t think it would make things better.

Before I could take another step, Commander Li reached out and gently grabbed my arm. "Don’t go closer," he warned softly into my ear. "People go in, but they don’t come out."

As if to completely contradict his words, one of the zombies suddenly appeared from the darkness. He grabbed the closest human and began dragging the unwilling man toward the darkness.

The man started screaming and begging, looking at the rest of us like we would be willing to stick our necks out and save him. When he realized that none of us were moving, he started to claw desperately at the concrete floor while the zombie continued to hauled him toward the darkness.

Then both of them disappeared into the hole and the screaming cut off almost instantly.

Silence settled over the basement again as everyone went back to doing whatever it was they were doing before they got so rudely interrupted.

But not one person looked toward the hole afterward.

Not even Wei.

"Huh," I grunted, my voice echoing around the room. "That seems like fun."