The curtain of the night was drawing closer. Time was running out for the Doctor to gain a meeting with the Reaper, of whom two versions wandered the hallways. The tangible version of the being was amidst the copious amount of guests, using the visage of the deceased bellboy Cole, while the memory of the creature's raw form was on the hunt for the manufactured ghosts of Alison and Simon Stead; the past re-enacted in the present.
The Doctor was pondering his options. Either he went out to find the memory of the Reaper with no place to start looking, or he let the ghost of Alison be killed in order to make sure the hotel's memories were played out properly, so he could know where the Reaper would be. For the Doctor had found a problem in his original plan. They had interfered with the ship's simulation by saving Alison. The Doctor had realised that as long as Alison was in the room, the Reaper might not find her, and events might not play out as they did when the recording mysteriously played for them on the upper level of the hotel. To ensure this memory played again, he would have to let a good woman die for what could be the hundredth time, but could also be the last.
''We can't,'' said the Doctor to Amy. They were huddled in the corner of the room while Alison was freshening up in the bathroom. ''We can't let him find her, she still has memories and thoughts and hopes and dreams, she's still real and it's as good as killing her.''
''We could find the real Reaper,'' Amy suggested. ''The one that took the form of Cole. All we'd have to do is get someone to summon the bellboy.''
''No, it's too dangerous,'' said the Doctor. ''The memory can't affect us. We can interrogate it without being harmed.''
They had already figured that the version of Cole they had encountered in the lobby upon their arrival was an actual being like them. They knew he wasn't merely reset each morning because if he was, his voice would be younger, higher pitched and more innocent, signalling that the night of his death was yet to come. But his voice was hoarse and deep like the Reaper's, and so that time had already passed.
All day, and all of the last day, there had been a ghostly form of Cole running around the hotel scared, trying to escape the clutches of his master. Over and over again this scenario played out, day by day for however long the recreated 'Vaconian' had been around. Each day, Anton, Simon and Alison had been killed. Every day for what could have been weeks, before the Doctor and Amy found Alison distraught in the hallway of the thirtieth floor. Alison came back into the main area of the room and the Doctor and Amy's conversation fizzled out.
''He tried to warn us,'' she said, clearly forcing herself to explain the events surrounding her brother's death. Amy and the Doctor listened intently. ''Cole, h-he's been working here longer than I have and he's always seemed nice, but lately he's changed. Any new guests that come here, well, I never see them after he takes them to their rooms in the elevator. They never come to any meals down here; never order room service. Nothing. But then Cole started panicking about something.''
''When did he come to tip you off?'' asked the Doctor.
''Yesterday,'' answered Alison. ''He'd been finding excuses to be around me for the last few weeks. Like he was following me. Then yesterday he came over and told me that he wanted to get away; that someone was making him trap the new guests and, then they vanished. He just wanted to get away and he wanted me to come with him. Then something disturbed him, and he left and said he'd come back for me.''
''Where did he go?'' the Doctor probed.
''I don't know. I told my brothers he was acting strange and to keep an eye out for him, and told them what he'd said about the people going missing and now Anton's dead and I don't know where Simon is and he doesn't have a phone and I just want to find him and-''
She broke down and a barrage of tears crawled out of her eyes.
''Ssshhh, it's okay'' said Amy, embracing her as best as she could with the knowledge that she couldn't entirely touch her.
''We know where Simon will be,'' muttered the Doctor, more to himself than anything. ''He's coming to this floor in a few minutes.''
''H-how do you know that?'' stammered Alison.
''Oh,'' came the Doctor's reply, ''it's just something I remembered from yesterday.''
...
'Don't move. Stay here.' These were the last words that Alison Stead heard before she was left alone in a solitary hotel room with nothing to dwell on but her dead brother. Her instructions to stay put were given so she would be kept out of danger, but that was not what the hotel had in mind. Alison sat on the floor against the side of the bed, waving her frazzled hair between her quivering fingers. The Doctor and Amy hovered just outside, waiting for the right time to act.
''Now remember,'' said the Doctor matter-of-factly, ''we follow Simon until he encounters the Reaper but do not let him see or hear you. We can't interfere with the hotel memory any further. We'll be lucky if the Reaper still goes after him now that we've taken Alison out of the picture. Once they meet, take Simon and hide and then I'll do the talking.''
Their plan in motion, Alison listened to the footsteps growing fainter as the Doctor and Amy headed down the hallway and around the corner. Her hands began to shake a touch extra; her arms joined in. Soon, Alison's entire body was vibrating like railroad tracks as a train careened across them. Except it wasn't Alison. It was the room.
The door swung open like an invisible force had charged into it and Alison was lifted to her feet and sucked out of it. A violent scream reverberated from the walls. She desperately, but hopelessly extended her arms to try to catch anything that could stop her, but was dragged out of the room and down the hallway like a ghoul floating, charging backwards. The Doctor and Amy watched in horrified surprise as Alison whizzed past them and literally faded out of sight, along with her waning shriek.
...
Materialising in the lobby, thrown forwards and landing flat on her palms over her neat and organised counter, the traumatized Alison immediately switched back to her normal self. Though still obviously in despair at Anton's demise, and worried about the location of Simon and intrigued over the whereabouts of the elusive Cole, she carried on pouring over sheets on the desk as if she had never stopped. She had been retuned into the correct simulation of the hotel's memory, forgetting all about her meeting with the Doctor and Amy.
It was as if they had never found her crying in the hallway.
There was nothing she could do about her troubles. The emergency phone lines were dead and the storm was too manic to get a mobile phone signal to the outside world. She couldn't brave the storm on her own either. Her worry was too great to seek a way out anyway; not without Simon would she leave the hotel, but it would be impossible to find him in among the masses of hallways, staircases and rooms. She had nothing to do but let time take over.
Unexpectedly, the lights died out and the lobby was plunged into gloom. Alison looked up into the void. All of the doors were locked and the staircases were sealed off. No sound emitted from any inch of the place bar a faint tapping on the marble floor. Footsteps. Alison listened, trembling, until a light above the counter flickered back on and a man stood calmly in front of her. Short, black hair; an official looking uniform; a handsome, charming visage. It was the man from the cupboard on the thirtieth floor. The man Alison had been looking for but found dead in a heap.
''A-Anton?'' whispered Alison.
''Hello, little sister,'' came Anton's reply, notes of sarcasm detectable in his hoarse, dry voice. Undeniably the voice of the Reaper.
''B-but… you're d-dead. I saw you-''
''No, no, no. I'm afraid your brother is dead. I am very much alive.''
Alison straightened up with a newfound valour.
''Then it's you,'' she boomed. ''You're the one Cole tried to warn me about. He was telling the truth. You're killing people.''
''This personality of your brother's,'' continued Anton as if Alison had never spoken. ''I have to say, it's not as assertive as I am used to. Maybe it needs a woman's touch.''
He slowly made to reach out and grab Alison but she backed away and he retracted his arm, growing angry.
''You'll never lay your hands on m-'' Alison was stopped by a smoky whip lashing around her throat. Anton's skin was convulsing and, like his arm had transformed moments prior, his entire body disintegrated into the gaseous form of the Reaper. Before a discernible shape could be moulded, a black cloak was fashioned from the smoke itself and covered the entire creature but for its evil red eyes and the foggy chain wrapping itself around Alison's throat.
''Appendages are atrocities that I have to endure to keep up this charade,'' rumbled a voice from underneath the hood. ''My few moments of freedom in my true form are all I have to thrive on between bodies; between wretched personalities that I have to deal with while I carry out the orders that the weakling Cole failed to perform.''
Alison shot up a few feet in the air and glowed with the same blinding light that had once warped the real Cole. Upon completion of the life force transfer, she crumpled onto the desk and ricocheted onto the hard floor.
''Two down,'' said the deep, harsh voice of the new Alison, grinning at her own deceased corpse.