It all returns to nothing

Mary sighed in relief. Not only was she finally afforded some privacy, but she’d been holding it in for far too long. It felt good to finally let loose.

“It’s just like the book said,” she murmured, caressing her belly with a wistful smile faintly adorning her lips. “The further along your pregnancy develops, the more pressure it puts on your bladder, and the more frequently you have to urinate.”

Mary wasn’t quite right. Actually her uterus had not swelled considerably enough to put pressure on her bladder- the frequent urination she’d been experiencing was due to her hormone imbalance from early pregnancy.

And it was equally likely that she’d needed to pee because it was a natural bodily function, and it had nothing to do with her pregnancy at all, in fact. But she would prefer to attribute what her body was going through to her upcoming baby, because every time she did, it made her feel all floaty and maternal.

Plus… right now she could really use a feeling like that, to take her mind off the uncomfortable feelings she’d been **** to confront involving Dakota, Nick, and that whole mess of a challenge.

The producer wasn’t wrong when he said that everything going on was starting to bother Mary. That was just a fact. Mary wasn’t very good at dealing with this heavy emotional stuff, especially when it regarded her husband and his connection with Dakota, which was complicated enough as it was.

Mary desperately wanted everyone to just get along and be happy together. Was that really too much to ask for!?

…Sometimes it felt that way, unfortunately…

“I just wish… there was something I could do,” she murmured, stewing in melancholy as she stared down at the linoleum floor of the bathroom. Dakota had been gracious enough to let her go all the way back to the hotel to use the fine facilities there. It was only when she started that Mary realized that it had been a plot to delay her; she had to finish up quickly and return to Nick’s side- who knows what Nick might be going through right now, without her support?

And yet, she still hesitated.

“I just wish… I could understand you, Dakota,” Mary said, rising to her feet and pulling her shorts up. So much of the host was a mystery, and no matter how hard Mary tried, she just couldn’t manage to decipher her.

It was maddening… but what could she do about it? Every time she attempted to get close to Dakota and get to know the real her, the other woman would put a wall up between them. She was the most guarded person Mary knew- and Mary had a lot of experience being guarded before coming onto this show!

Sighing, Mary walked towards the exit. No time to dwell on it now, though, she thought, opening the door. I have to get back to Nick.

But the person she saw standing in the hallway pushed those thoughts aside and made her recoil with surprise. Her eyes widened in recognition.

“N-Nola?” She asked, confused. “What are you wearing? What… what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be assisting with the challenge?”

“Incorrect,” the masked woman said, shaking her head. “I’m not Nola! My name is… Deep Throat.”

Mary stared at her.

“…Can you move, please?” She requested, and then stepped around the other woman when she didn’t comply immediately. “I don’t have time for your games right now, Nola. I need to go back and be with my husband.”

“Go back and be with your husband… and do what, exactly?”

The pink-haired woman’s question made Mary pause. She slowly turned and looked back at the suspicious-looking girl, and gave her a deservedly suspicious look.

“I’m going to support him,” Mary calmly replied. “Obviously.”

She knew that Nola, or Deep Throat, or whatever she was calling herself, might not understand what it meant to be a supportive wife. The leprechaun had spent the last round giving Mary a first-hand demonstration that she wasn’t exactly an expert as far as “supportive” went.

But at the moment, she was given pause. Because the feeling she got from the other woman was completely different from how Nola normally acted- so different in fact that it almost made Mary consider the possibility that this wasn’t just some game the leprechaun was playing on her… that she really did… have something serious to talk about.

Or maybe she really wasn’t Nola at all, like she claimed to be.

…

…No, that was stupid. Mary wasn’t THAT gullible. She had two perfectly fine eyes and could see clear as day that this woman was indeed the perky leprechaun, no matter how much she tried to disguise herself.

“If you really want to support your husband, Mary… perhaps there is a better way to do that than being by his side,” the other woman ominously suggested.

Mary gulped. “Wh-what do you mean?” She demanded.

“I heard what you said in the bathroom.” The masked woman took a step closer. “You said that you wanted to understand Dakota better, isn’t that right?”

“That… that’s right,” Mary nodded hesitantly. “But that was just-!”

“I can help with that.” Now they were eye to eye. Not that Mary could see the other woman’s eyes through those thick, dark lenses.

She gulped again. “…You can?” Her squeaky voice wasn’t as confident as she would have liked it to sound, unfortunately.

“Come with me.” The masked woman who claimed to be called “Deep Throat” turned and headed down the hall. She stopped and looked back, waiting to see if Mary would come or not. “If you really want to understand Dakota, that is.”

Mary could feel an immense pressure welling up inside her. She didn’t know how she knew, but something about this felt both wrong and right at the same time. Like she was setting out down a path that she knew she shouldn’t, but at the same time, it was a path that she knew she had to tread.

“…Okay,” she said, making her choice. She clenched her fists tightly. I’m sorry, Nick, but I’ll be a little delayed. Hold on without me, please! I’ll be there as soon as I can! But first… I have to find out what it is Nola wants to show me!

While Mary set forth to solve the puzzle that was Dakota, Dani and the Morgana clones were working on a puzzle of their own. Dawn’s help having fallen through, it was down to the three of them to work together and solve it.

“No! It totally goes there!”

“Obviously not. It goes here.”

…For once, Dani got to feel like the smartest person in the room.

As she studied the pieces to the puzzle as best she could, she found it all too difficult given the rambling voices of the Morgana duo in her ears. Magnifica and Moonshadow were debating how the two pieces they were each holding could fit together, even though at a glance it was clear none of them worked together.

“Ah! There you go! See?!”

Magnifica beamed with triumph as she slotted two pieces together. They held firm, the colorful pattern blending together seamlessly. “I did it! It’s perfect!”

“Rrrgh…” Moonshadow bit her thumbnail in frustration. It was vexing that her duplicate was able to find two pieces that went together first, when she was the more levelheaded of the two! (Of course they were both working with Morgana’s brains, so if anything, she should have been just as happy for her other self. But that was certainly not the case.)

“Cool, let me see,” Dani popped in, wondering if the two puzzle pieces would fit with the bigger section she was working on. She glanced over the puzzle pieces. “Yeah, that looks… …wait, hold on a sec…”

She stroked her chin and squinted.

“Something wrong?” Moonshadow inquired, all too pleased by the prospect that her other self might have been incorrect.

“It’s perfect! See? They fit together just right!” Magnifica defensively proclaimed.

Dani shook her head. “…No, they don’t, actually,” she said. “Take a look right here. You see where the two blue splotches meet?”

“Right, they line up perfectly,” Magnifica bobbed her head up and down.

Dani shook her head again. “No, these are two different parts of the puzzle,” she said. “The blues are off. They’re almost the same, but if you look closely, this one has a slightly darker hue than the other one does.”

Magnifica did a double-take. “No way… you can tell that much?!”

Moonshadow was just as stunned as her duplicate. “That… I can’t see a difference at all,” she said in disbelief, shaking her head.

Dani’s cheeks reddened. “Well, it… I just… I’m not, like, an expert or anything, but I’m pretty versed in colors and hues, so…” She modestly attempted to downplay her experience as a painter, but neither witch was having it.

“Dani, that’s just amazing!” They both said in unison, their red eyes sparkling as they gazed at Dani in awe.

“Th-thank you?” Dani stammered, blushing even harder. She picked up the two puzzle pieces and broke them together. “Look, um, these two, they match really well, but they’re off. If we make a mistake now, then what happens when we’re almost done and suddenly have a bunch of pieces that don’t fit together? That won’t work at all!”

She suddenly flashed back to kindergarten, back to that time she’d gotten so frustrated trying to put a puzzle together that her chubby little fingers jammed the pieces in place until they fit, ruining the puzzle for all the other kids.

Yeesh.

“Anyway, it’s clear that this is some kind of color trick,” Dani said confidently. “I don’t know what the point of this puzzle room is, or what all these doors are for, but when it comes to seeing the differences in colors and what pieces go where, I can do that much, at least!”

“Yeah, Dani! Way to go! You can see colors, awesome!” Magnifica cheered.

“Indeed, it is quite fortuitous that you know how to put puzzles together,” Moonshadow agreed.

Dani was less than flattered by their praise. “…Gee. Thanks.”

But she didn’t have time to give the two girls the business. With all these pieces they could be stuck in here for hours! If Dani had to do this alone without the other two to help assemble, she might call it quits and just pick a random door.

“If only we had a little more help,” she grumbled. “That would be just-”

“Uwaaagh!” Another girl suddenly appeared right above the pile of puzzle pieces stacked in the center of the room. She crashed down in the middle of it and sent the tiles scattering every which way.

“Oh my gosh!” Magnifica gasped.

“Who is it?” Moonshadow demanded.

“Ow… what the heck…”

Dani’s eyes widened in surprise and her face lit up when she saw who it was. “Vivian! How did you get here?!”

“Err…” Vivian’s cheeks were red and her hair was matted to her face with sweat. She scratched her cheek sheepishly. “It… it’s a long story,” she murmured, embarrassed. Then she noticed Dani was smiling. “Wait… are you happy to see me?” She asked, her heart soaring hopefully.

“Am I?” Dani nodded. “This is perfect! I was just saying how we needed someone else here to help out, and here you are!”

“Eh?!” Vivian beamed from ear to ear, all her prior negative thoughts blown away by the tornado of joy that was having a friend who needed her help. “Dani!”

“Wait, isn’t Vivian, like, a fashionista or something?” Magnifica noted.

Moonshadow nodded. “Indeed, if anyone else would be able to discern the differences in color, it would be her.”

Dani quickly explained everything they were doing here. By the end of it, Vivian was all smiles.

“…Sounds like I arrived at just the right place,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “Brilliant, Dani! Just brilliant!”

Dani smiled back at her. With Vivian on their side, they could definitely do this!

Vivian glanced over at the two Morganas, finally turning her attention to them.

“…And these two…?”

“Another long story,” Dani sighed, scratching her head. “Believe me, we don’t have time to talk about all that.”

Vivian nodded. “Fair enough,” she agreed. “One last thing then. What’s with the doors?”

“Yeah, you’re telling me!” Magnifica groaned. “There’s so many of them!”

“We don’t know,” Moonshadow said. “Presumably the puzzle will tell us which one is correct, once it is solved.”

Vivian nodded. Dani could tell from her calculating expression that she was thinking about something else though.

“Vivian? Did you have another thought?” She asked. Her instincts were telling her that she should trust the heiress’s intuition here.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Vivian said, shaking her head. “I’m talking about why they’re all slightly raised off the ground like that. You guys notice?”

Dani scanned the room again and saw Vivian was right. The doors lining the walls were all raised just slightly above the ground, leaving about an inch or so of difference between them. Maybe closer to two inches.

“The door we came in through was the same way,” Dani said, nodding back to the entrance of the room. “Don’t know what it means, though.”

“Mmm… I’m just saying it’s unusual,” Vivian said, picking up one of the tiles. “The difference between the doors and the floor… it’s about the same as the thickness of these puzzle pieces.”

Hearing that made a lightbulb go off above Dani’s head.

“That’s it!” She gasped, her eyes widening. She snatched another puzzle piece from the pile and took a look at it. “You’re right, Vivian! These puzzle pieces are the perfect size!”

“Perfect size for what? I don’t get it…” Magnifica grumbled.

“Certainly you wouldn’t,” Moonshadow scoffed, tearing her other self down to hide the fact that she had no idea what the two women were talking about either.

“This puzzle isn’t just a puzzle,” Vivian said with a twinkle in her eye. “I think… the puzzle is also the floor itself!”

“Huh!?” Both Morganas were taken aback.

“There are a lot of puzzle pieces here, and it’s a big room,” Dani said, looking around. “I think you’re right, Vivian. The way we get through this room is we build the puzzle on the floor… and it will end up being big enough to take up the entire floor itself!”

“Precisely,” Vivian nodded back. She snapped her fingers. “Let’s get it all put together first! Then once we do, we should be able to find everything out!”

There was a pretty big error in Vivian’s thinking, Dani reasoned. They had no idea if they were building the puzzle correctly. The room was rectangular, which meant there was a chance they could end up putting the puzzle together backwards.

Hopefully, that didn’t end up happening

Dani wasn’t sure how long it took them to finish the puzzle. She hoped it had gone faster than it felt like, at least.

“Okay, and that’s the last piece,” Dani said, slotting it into place. She took a step back and surveyed the work. “What do you guys think?”

Vivian blinked. “…It looks like someone ate a rainbow and then threw up,” she answered honestly.

Dani rolled her eyes.

“She isn’t wrong,” Moonshadow murmured.

“I think it’s pretty!” Magnifica chirped. “And so colorful, too! I just love colors!” (Yes, part of Morgana said that.)

“But the issue is that we don’t know what we’re supposed to do with it,” Dani pointed out with a sigh, gesturing to the multicolored puzzle tiles that they were standing on. “We have a lot of colors, but other than that, it doesn’t actually tell us what door to take!”

“No, I guess it doesn’t,” Vivian had to agree. She stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Well… unless…”

“What?” Dani turned to look at her. “What are you thinking?”

“Look at how the colors fit under the doors,” Vivian said. “It’s obscured a little by all the splotches, but… doesn’t that shape over there kind of look like a trail?”

Dani followed where the heiress was pointing, tracing a curvy, pale line of blank tile, devoid of color. Like a negative painting, the spots without color formed a slightly broken line that led all the way back to the main door.

“That’s it! You’ve got it!” Dani smiled eagerly. “That must be the right door then!”

Vivian shook her head. “Not quite. Look over there. Another path.”

She pointed to another trail of white flecked with splotches of color leading from the entrance to a second door.

“So wait, which one is it?” Magnifica asked. “I’m confused…”

“By my count, there are five trails leading to five different doors,” Vivian judged. “We narrowed it down, but we didn’t solve anything.”

But Dani was grinning. “No, that’s where you’re wrong, Vivian,” she said, shaking her head. She crouched down on the tile and squinted. “You found the right path. Your eyes just aren’t good enough to see it.”

“Excuse me?” Vivian looked slightly miffed at the tomboy. “My eyes are phenomenal!”

Dani shrugged. “Then you should be able to tell that the shades of white in each of the paths are slightly different.”

Vivian’s eyes bulged out in surprise. Magnifica and Moonshadow were shocked too, but less so. After what Dani showed them earlier, it wasn’t exactly questionable.

“This is the right path,” Dani said, picking the second path from the left. “It’s the only one where the shade of white remains uniform all the way through. The others all gradually shift into a lighter or darker shade.”

She said it with confidence, but she had no idea if she was correct or not. All she knew was that this path stood out from all the others in some way, which meant it had the best chance of being the correct one.

Vivian beamed from ear to ear. “Damn, you really know your colors. You ever do any painting before?”

Dani laughed sheepishly, not sure what to say.

“Come on!” Magnifica was already halfway down the path. “Let’s go!”

The four girls followed the path to the correct door, and exited the colorful room. Dani’s heart swelled hopefully as they walked down the hall, turning the corner in the labyrinth… and running into someone else!

Who could it be?

https://strawpoll.com/Q0Zp7XLm9gM

“We’re here.”

Deep Throat stopped in front of a door that immediately screamed “LEAVE!” to Mary in all capital letters. With bolded font and an exclamation point, too, that was how ominous of a feeling she got just looking at the thing.

“What… what is this?” Mary shivered, feeling like she should turn and run the other direction. That feeling only seemed to get stronger the longer she stood there staring at the dark door.

But she couldn’t run, so she **** herself not to.

“If you want to know more about Dakota, then go inside,” Deep Throat said, skulking towards the shadows. It had been a long walk here, and the faster she got away, the better. “But don’t get caught. And if you do, I had nothing to do with this. You can’t go back, Mary. Not after going in there. It won’t be the same.”

And with that, she was gone. Leaving just Mary and the ominous black door.

…She could just leave. She wanted to, and that was the right thing to do, the more she thought about it. She didn’t have any right to pry into Dakota’s privacy like this.

But then she recalled the anguish on the other girl’s face, the way she looked so lonely when she thought nobody else was looking.

Mary had to do this. She needed to support her friend. So she took a deep breath and pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

…It wasn’t at all like she was expecting. Mary anticipated literal skeletons in Dakota’s closet, or at least some **** tools or something like that.

But she saw nothing of the sort. The only things in the room were a dusty old couch, a television set that looked so old Mary wondered if it even came in color, and a VCR. A single tape was loaded in the slot, the color of pitch.

Unbidden, it slid itself into the machine and began to play. The TV crackled to life, and words flashed ominously across the screen.

THE BLACK TAPE

That was the first thing Mary saw. Quickly followed by…

HAREM HOTEL: ̸̨̛͔̗̳̗̩̘̳̰̈̉͋̌͌̅̑̕̚͝ ̸̤̤̝͈̲̍̇ ̶̨̢̤͕͛̀̈͜ͅ ̴̳̙̈̑̀̇ ̵̡̛̻̘̤̥̩̤̦̳̟̟̳̜̋̓͛̈̈́̊̽͐ ̵̣͛͆̂̈́̏̔̒͊̚͝͠ ̶̻͔̺̣̋̈́ ̷̡̞̳̹͇̝̹̘̹̤̲̭͔̲́̈́͂̌͒̔̈̓̍͝ ̷̨̢̛̪̝̙̯̩̲͙̙̓̄̅̾͑̃̽̃̌́͑͛̑ͅͅ ̴̢̓͊͗̒̑͘͝ͅ ̶̨̢̧͍̫̗̖̫͈̙̰̘̼̠͇́ ̷͍͍̦͎̹͚̮̱̱̲̺̦̗͗͜ͅ ̵̢̘̮͚̲́̄͆͌̕͜ ̷̼̙̺̭̹̰̀̓͐͂̆͌ ̸̧͎̬͇̐̋͠ ̸̛̹͈̱̲͖̘̬̗̊͜ͅͅ ̴̭͈͇̠́́ ̷̹̟͕͚̮͖̾̂̎̋͒̈́͋̌̍̕̚ ̴̡̼̻̼̫͙̗̖̫͙̺̰̮̄̉̇́͋͘ ̵͔̖̭͙͉̇̂̑̔͆̈́́̾͐̈́̒͋̆͝ ̴̧̨͙̺̙̘͔̓͛͂̆̉̈̃̽̕ SEASON

And then the tape began to play.