Act One: The Afternoon

It’s 4:30 p.m. Ramón7 and Mari Carmen6 meet in the hallway and head down Corridor B toward the reading room. They arrived at the hotel the night before and have decided to stay one more night before continuing their journey to the North.

Ramón7 had suggested to Mari Carmen6 that they take a trip together along the old Highway. He had framed it as a sort of spiritual road trip, a journey to their origins to connect with the memory of their ancestors. In reality, it was just a pretext to spend time alone with his friend from the Eco2Pilates Center and put into practice the seduction secrets he had learned in Mr. Valmont’s course, hoping to finally consummate the carnal act with Mari Carmen6.

When they saw the Faceless Grotto sign on the side of the Highway, they remembered a podcast they had listened to during their trip about the Ring incident. Driven by curiosity, they decided to take a detour to see what remained of the cave and its surroundings.

It was an ideal place to try to reconnect with the memories of their versions 3 and 4, back when Faceless Grotto was still a popular vacation destination, before the Ring incident. That event marked the beginning of the end of its tourist appeal, and its total decline came when Google decided to remove the location from its catalogue, sealing the fate of Faceless Grotto and turning it into a practically abandoned place, visited only by Scamors.

When the grotto was delisted, Google penalized it with a 0 Sights rating, making it invisible to humans prior to version 4 (>4), even in visual records. Despite the limitations of this site, since it is neither visible nor reproducible, Ramón7 and Mari Carmen6 were determined to fully experience Faceless Grotto and what little remained of it.

In the reading room, they sat at the small round Jane Austen-style table in front of the large window overlooking the Cave Shelter and the Ring. Ramón7 stared intently out the window, trying to imagine the shapes of the Cave and the Ring, while attempting to emulate Mr. Valmont’s “Seated_Stallion_Position”: legs spread, chin tucked, mouth slightly open, gaze half-lidded, and always positioned under a good light source.

Mari Carmen6, ignoring Ramón7’s signals, glace over an old book about the Grotto, in which the images appeared blurred to her. She wondered if any of her previous versions had ever been there.

It was 5:10 p.m. Mari Carmen6 headed toward the coffee machine while Ramón7 attempted to execute the “Reading_Stallion_Position”. Suddenly, a loud gurgling noise from the reception area broke the silence in the reading room, and a large group of Scamors began to file past the door, those interdimensional beings with whom, back in the humans3 era, bonds had been established after several attempts at a fraternity treaty.

Everything changed with the signing of Protocol-Respect 1, which banned oral and physical interspecies contact in Terrestrial Plane 1 and Terrestrial Plane 2. Since then, Communications X had been conducting a constant smear campaign against interdimensional species, especially against the Scamors. In fact, Scamors was a derogatory term given to them, referring to scamorzas, an ancient food of humans1.

Ramón7 observed the Scamors and said to Mari Carmen6, -How do you think a Scamor feels? I mean… sinking our hands into their mass, stroking them, licking them…

– As he spoke, he gestured with his fingers, subtly suggesting to Mari Carmen6 that they temporarily disconnect their protocol receptors to be able to feel them.

-You’re crazy!- Mari Carmen6 replied playfully. -No! but we could get closer to them. After all, they barely see us, and they perceive us as very distant.-

Mari Carmen6 and Ramón7 stealthily approached the door and peeked into the hallway, where they saw the hotel manager at the reception, a human2-looking who had attended to them the night before. Beside him stood a Scamor Guide, recognizable by the pale blue ribbon on its upper extremity, giving directions to the Scamors that continued to enter the hotel.

 

Act 2: Ready for Tonight

It’s 5:00 p.m. Scamors Guide arrives punctually at Quietude Quarters Hotel. At the door, as always, Mr. Korft is waiting for her.

She has been traveling to Earth 2 for a long time, and yet, seeing a human still astonishes her. Each time, she is overcome by the same profound reaction of estrangement toward that colorful being, with four tentacles, covered in multiple materials, surrounded by structures and all kinds of artifacts to function.

<Good afternoon, Mr. Korft,> she communicates. <Thank you for hosting us tonight.> <Yes, we have reserved the All-Included Service.>

<Don’t worry, we will be staying under the Ring.>

<Absolutely!>

<You are summoned to the convention room at 8:15 p.m.>

<Oh, yes, thank you for checking the hydraulic codes of the floor.>

<Yes, we Scamors like it that way…> Scamors… she thought. It amuses us that they call us that. The lack of dimensional understanding in humans makes them self-referential beings, even though most of them already have the Protocol…

Scamors Guide installed the Protocol to be able to lead her companions to the Ring. The Protocol plug allows her to communicate with Mr. Korft and ensure a safe journey for her fellow travelers through Earth 2.

…Absorb their light. Ring, materialization… -Scamor Guide mused inwardly-… Black light. Wherever you go, do as you see… Ring the King… today… Today, for sure! Mr. Korft snapped her out of her reverie with a rough cough.

Observing the multicolored surface of the human, full of protrusions and cavities, and those two mobile, lubricated orbits, Scamor Guide thought that, despite his unsightly appearance, Mr. Korft had always treated them well. It was also true that, without their presence, the hotel would always be empty, and she doubted that frail being had any other purpose in life beyond attending them…

The Scamors, guided by Scamors Guide’s instructions, begin making their way to their rooms on the first and second floors.

Scamors Guide has room 234 on the second floor. Room 234 is the GRAND GROTTO suite. The rooms on the first and second floors have long been adapted to the forms and mass of the Scamors. Scamors Guide positions herself in the center of the room, over the code on the floor, and begins reviewing her speech for the evening.

At 7:32 p.m., a distant and familiar clinking sound pulls her out of her concentration. It’s the sound of the drink cart Mr. Korft is dragging down the hallway on the ground floor toward the convention room. The time has come to head downstairs to the room and prepare for the human fun, the first phase of the expedition: the All-Included time, before the free camping under the Ring.

When Scamor Guide enters the room, the drinks are already prepared, and the music is playing: Your Love Is King, by the original human Sade. Mr. Korft is perched on a stepladder, putting up the final decorations.

It’s 8:04 p.m. The room is bathed in the light of rotating colored spotlights and the glow of garlands adorning the counter of multicolored pay pays. The convention room is ready to host the group of Scamors, and the music continues to play. Now it’s Let’s Stay Together, by Al Green2. Scamor Guide begins moving to the rhythm of the music through the still-empty room. Soon it will be full, and she’ll have to calculate her movements, but she enjoys this
brief moment when her mass becomes a body, and her surface glides across the freshly waxed floor as the colored LED lights soak into her skin, and her upper limb is crowned with multicolored pay pays in her initiatory dance.

It’s 8:15 p.m. Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe, by original human Barry White, begins to play. Mr. Korft considers his workday over. Mari Carmen6 and Ramón7 start dancing in a corner of the conference room.

Outside, the Ring begins to phosphoresce, illuminating the circle where, in a little while, the group of Scamors will gather to worship it.

 

Act Three: Good Morning

That morning, Mr. Korft had gone up to the hotel’s rooftop. It is 8:45 a.m., and he didn’t want to miss the view from above of what was about to happen.

After the Incident, no one had bothered to dismantle the accident simulation system, a siren that went off religiously every Sunday morning since the Grotto opened to the public. Over time, the sound of the sirens not only stopped bothering Mr. Korft but even came to comfort him. Hearing that intermittent beep every Sunday at 9:00 a.m. made him feel alive and in control. And the spectacle his soft and milky-colored guests offered, responding to the shrill sound, is music to his eyes.

There were a couple of minutes left until 9:00 a.m. Mr. Korft, leaning on the railing, watched expectantly. From above, he could see the group of Scamors gathered in a circle under the Ring, illuminated by the morning light streaming into the Grotto. He couldn’t hear them from there, but he knew they would be emitting those characteristic muffled snores of Scamors at rest.

-“Filthy slugs, long live the circus!”- muttered Mr. Korft. -“Pigs, more than pigs! On top of being disgusting, you’re pigs! You bring your filth with you and leave it all for me…”- he lamented.

Sundays were tough for Mr. Korft. The Scamors left behind a large amount of waste: viscous excrement and mountains of trash from the All-Included Service. Still, he had never wanted help at the hotel. That place was his life, and only he should jealously care for every corner of the inn.

He accepted the Scamors’ visits because they paid well, and in the end, that was what kept the business afloat. Few humans came to the Grotto anymore. The Ring barely received any likes, and it had been decades since Google decided to delist it from its archive. The colossal Grotto and the Ring no longer attracted anyone’s attention, not even that of pre-4 humans. (<4)

Communications X claimed that the Ring was a black ring, dead and dry. But Mr. Korft was convinced that this wasn’t the case, that darkness wasn’t the end. At least in that, he agreed with the Scamors.

9:00 a.m. The siren began to sound, with initial sinuous buzzes that crescendo into a climax of 3 minutes of deep buzzing, making the Grotto and the hotel’s foundations vibrate.

-“Here we go!”- he shouted, his voice fading into the roar of the cave and the hoarse, agonized grunts of the Scamors, who, startled, abruptly snapped out of their trance, creating violent spasms that made them crash into each other, bounce, and roll around in their own nervous secretions, all to the staccato rhythm of the siren.

That barbaric, sinuous, and lubricated dance delighted Mr. Korft—an apotheotic, orgiastic 3 minutes.

The siren stopped, and he could hear the Scamors’ growls.

Mr. Korft went down the back stairs to the ground floor and headed to the dining room, where, as every morning, he had left everything ready for breakfast. Although it had been a long time since anyone sat at those tables, breakfast was always served.

That morning, however, there were two guests occupying one of the tables: the occupants of rooms 28 and 27.

He checked the buffet counter. Everything was perfect, impeccable. Every slice in its place, the Pay Pays arranged by color, all the brews aligned and full. The lighting of the bar cabinet complied with the Protocol, and his personal touch floated on the rotating platform of the Grotto juice dispenser: a white carnation that he changed daily.

He heard the Scamors entering the hotel, still dazed from their abrupt exit from the trance. He headed to the reception, adjusting his suit lapels. There, Scamor Guide stood, organizing the flow of the rest. When she noticed Mr. Korft’s presence, she approached him.

She thanked Mr. Korft for their stay and apologized for the inconveniences caused, embarrassed by the trail of secretions they had left after their night of All-Included and Wild Camping under the Ring*.

<Don’t worry, we all know how these things go with the Ring,> smiled Mr. Korft, communicating with his impeccable manners. <I hope you had a pleasant stay at Quietude Quarters Hotel and that we’ll see you again soon.>

He paused briefly before adding: <Please don’t forget to deposit the room keys in the box on the counter.> Then, with a polite gesture, he concluded:

<And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to work.>