Three refs!!! I was originally just going to do Dupe and Sally in one post because they group together into the ones who were killed by Dread AFTER the hotel became dangerous, but I caved and made Hide as well, so I might as well include her.
(Content warning for talk of child death in Sally’s section — there’s also just death in general)
1 Dupe was the first human to die after the other monsters established themselves as “threats”. In his human life, he loved to explore hidden areas — the smaller, the better.
During his trek through the hotel, he spent a lot of time looting subrooms — which eventually resulted in his downfall.
As a monster, he pushes trespassers along by preventing them from making the same mistake he did and by doing what he did best.
2 Sally ended up in the hotel shortly after Dupe did. When the garden area surrounding the hotel became infested with screaming Mandrakes, Sally’s father (The Groundskeeper) was able to save her by shutting her into the lobby of the hotel after placing her inside through a window.
As Sally trekked the hotel, the entities were faced with a new problem — there’d never been a child in the hotel before. Only unfortunate adults. So, they did their best to keep her as safe (and sane) as possible during her stay.
Eventually, after being chased by Halt, Sally found herself in a large room devoid of closets and beds (where node entities such as Rush and Ambush are forbidden from entering while there is a trespasser inside). She found some lock picks in a drawer, and played with them silently for a long time.
Dread was freed, and began to pursue Sally, as she had now overstayed her welcome.
Rush tried to save her, by breaking the no-closets rule and running into the room anyway, but he was a second too late.
Now, Sally stays in the hotel, but often likes to spend time in the rainy outdoors, occasionally breaking back into the hotel through windows.
3 Hide is Seek’s younger sister, and as their names suggest, a way they’d pass the time as humans was by playing games of hide and seek with each other. The closets in the hotel were Hide’s best friend for a while, until Seek eventually noticed a pattern and realised that all he’d need to do to find Hide was check every closet, because she’d always be hiding in one of them.
So, on the last day of their stay at the hotel, Hide decided to crank up the difficulty, and hide in a basement instead. After spending an abnormally long time trying to find it to no avail, Seek began to worry.
Meanwhile, Hide felt victorious as it heard her brother calling out for her, when the basement suddenly became abnormally dark.
She heard a bell tolling beside her.
Now, Hide stays in closets and under beds. There, Seek can always find her, and it can push trespassers ahead. But she’ll never enter a basement again.
