The smell of decades of second-hand smoke emanates from the threadbare carpet and faded walls, mixed with the faint smell of chlorine from the indoor pool down the hall. Stale donuts and cold coffee sit at the continental breakfast bar. There are a few small tables and chairs. A coffee table is surrounded by a few overstuffed armchairs and a sofa. A check-in desk stands across the entrance hall from the breakfast area, but the night auditor is nowhere to be found. At the end entrance hall, door-lined corridors stretch into the distance to the left and right. The parking lot can be seen outside the windows, lit by the monochromatic light of sodium vapor lamps, but the darkness and driving rain obscure everything beyond. If there even is a beyond…

A low thump can be heard from behind one of the nearby doors, followed by the quiet clicking of tiny paws on the tile floor. The door creaks open, and a wet nose framed by whiskers pokes out, twitching a few times as its owner scents the air.

“Yay!” yips the little stranger “We’re on Earth. Finally I can meet a human!” Overcome with excitement, the creature trots into the hallway, nose to the ground drinking in the mélange of aromas. It’s covered in earthy brown fur. Its only clothing is a backpack stuffed to bursting. Its head is vulpine, but its body appears more like a new world monkey, with a broad back and thicker limbs. Its sinewy tail, long enough to touch its nose, is held aloft with the end curled up. It walks on all fours, but all four six-toed paws look like grasping primate hands, save for the extra thumbs.

It prances over to the glass door to the pool and rears up on its hind feet. It presses its forepaws against the glass. The tips of its digits are hairless, with grayish-black skin like an orangutan. Each digit is tipped by a sharp iron-enriched claw. The underside of each digit possesses a carnivoran paw pad, and there’s another arrangement of pads on its palms. The three palmar pads indicate the creature is a male. “Ooh, mama Redclaw, can I go swimming? Please?” He suddenly realizes there’s no one else around.

“Mama redclaw? Papa Sunfire? Mama Moonshine? Papa Hearthfire?” He runs back to the room he came out of. Finding nobody, he tries knocking on a few of the doors with his tail. Eventually he walks into the check-in area and puts his paws up on the counter, his pointed ears and wet nose barely visible from behind. “Anyone?” He begins crying, rills of crimson lacrimal fluid dribble from the corners of his black lips, matting the brown fluff of his chest. “Anyone?” He lets out some ugly gurgling sobs, which echo unheard down the halls.