The Hotel

The boy was shivering with fear. His foot was numb as if it didn’t exist, and his muscles deserted him at the worst time. The pure white moon was shining brightly. It gleamed on the pale white sand, uncovering millions of dunes in an empty desert. Desperately, he searched for shelter across hundreds of miles with his aching legs, only to find empty areas that only cacti lived in. Endless dunes were in front of him. His own face was as pale as the sand. It was dark, and suddenly an old abandoned hotel appeared in front of him.

He saw planks of wood scattered everywhere he looked. "Umm," he said, concerned he could hear his words echoing. Leo felt strange, as if an aura was coming from this hotel. He saw a squarish hole in the middle of the door, with dark wooden planks scattered everywhere. He could catch the sound of the howls of hounds. His own teeth were chattering with fear. His nose tingled as he whiffed at the stench of flesh rotting, but he was still confident that this was just the outside. “Maybe the inside will be better. Never judge a book by its cover.” He said this, comforting his soul. “This is the only shelter I found.” He stood there frozen for a moment to think, and then decided to go in.

As he entered, he looked around and only saw the reception. As he walked past the lift, he saw that the lift was broken, so he went up the stairs. He chose his lucky number, which was 7, and got on to that floor. He went to sleep in the first room he saw. He got comfortable and slept through the rest of the cold night.

When he got up the next morning, he checked the worn-out clock that was beside him. He felt the same aura he felt yesterday when he was entering the hotel. His arm stretched for the door when suddenly the lights flickered and switched off. He saw an inky-small figure with bright, glowing white eyes glaring at him. It quickly darted around the room like a lunatic.

SCREECH! SCREECH! SCREECH! The figure leapt at Leo and whipped him violently with its tail. CRASH! It broke a vase, and the glass shards scattered everywhere, jabbing both him and the monster. Then it disappeared into smoke.

In the dim, blurry room, he reached out for the door, but it was locked. Another door appeared on the other side of the room with a sign that said 001. He twisted the door knob and found out that it was not locked. "It looks like this is the only way out!', he yawned, uncautious of what would happen. So he went through the door and got sucked into a portal.

After a few minutes, he found himself lying in a narrow hallway. Tinted glass shone upon a bookshelf full of different stories. The light from the windows lit up the red carpet beneath it. Dust particles flew in the shades of multiple different coloured lights, yet the corners were so lonely and so dark that not a single bit of sunlight entered hem. Next to the corner was an iron ladder. It stood as straight as a soldier. On the other side, there stood a fancy golden door waiting to be opened. That door had a sign carved into it saying 002. Leo walked through the light, past the corners, as his hand reached for the golden handle. It was locked. “There's probably a key somewhere,” he whispered to himself. Quietly, he scavenged through the hallway, from the corners to the carpet, yet no key was to be seen.

The one place he did not check was the ceiling. As soon as he looked up, he saw the key hitched to the golden chandelier dangling above him. “How am I going to get it?" he thought. Then he exclaimed, “The iron ladder!” and went to get it. He climbed it cautiously, going step by step, until he finally unhitched the key and put it in the lock.

When Leo entered the next room, he suddenly heard a sound: “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” It sounded like a chainsaw, and it was getting louder. There was no time to run, so he quickly hid in a closet. CRASH! The lights went out. The sound of the chainsaw stopped, so he gently opened the door and felt his way out to door 003.

As he stepped past the door, he felt something crawling on his back. He turned around and... SCREECH! A screeching black, inky monster with wide, beady eyes and six legs pushed him, and he fell to the floor. He felt as if someone had bitten his face off. He quickly got back up to his feet and ran to the next door, shutting it behind him. He kept running through rooms, panting, until he got to door 010.

As he shut door number 10 behind him, there were a million eyes of different colours staring at him. It felt like acid was burning Leo’s eyes, but when he covered his eyes with his arm, the pain stopped. Covering his eyes, he felt his way out of the room and to door 011. As he opened his eyes, he found himself in a storage room filled with cupboards and drawers. He opened one of the drawers and found a fizzy drink. In another, he found a worn-out note with the words smudged. ”Whoever is reading this, this hotel is haunted and full of monsters. Note: Use items to help go through doors. Crosses can banish monsters.' "So that's what this is for," he whispered to himself.

He looked in every drawer and, in total, got a note, a lighter, a wrench, some medicine,a fizzy drink, and a crucifix.

He walked smoothly with ease all the way to door 025, when suddenly he heard, “PSSSSSST!" A drink levitated in front of him. He reached to grab it and wondered, “What is this for?"

In front of him was door 26, but from the moment he entered, he felt like he was being watched. He looked around and saw black eyes everywhere. Many black, inky eyes were stuck to the wall. Its eyes followed every move Leo made. Windows were not to be seen; instead, black eyes patched on the window were staring at him,and on the ceiling were millions of those infested-like eyes glaring at Leo. However, the eyes seem to not harm Leo, as they only watched him. So he walked to the next room, trying not to think about the eyes staring at him now.

Later on, he arrived at door 032, but the door knob wouldn't turn. Leo wasn’t able to continue through, but he found a second door on the side of the room labelled ‘Storage’ that was opened. He looked inside and saw a staircase that went downward into the dark. He used the lighter he had picked up in room 011 to guide him down until he reached another door.

As Leo entered the door, he walked along a narrow corridor. As he got to the centre, he noticed there were three hallways leading him in different directions. In each hallway, there is a drawer at the entrance and a door at the end, waiting to be opened. He opened every drawer, but in the third drawer, a spider jumped out and leaped on his face. Frightened, Leo jumped back, scratching his face crazily as if he were dying. He managed to get the black spider off his fragile face. The spider fell to the ground, but before it could jump up and bite him, Leo crushed it with his foot, leaving only a gross greenish fluid on the wooden floor. Standing in the centre of the room, a voice from the front door groaned across the hallway, saying, “Go through the left door." There was something familiar about the voice he heard, so he decided to trust it and go through that left door.

After roaming through a couple more rooms, he found himself in a pure, dark room. Again, he used the iron lighter and found a lock at the next door with no key. He looked everywhere, but the key was still nowhere to be seen. He sat on the floor, and just as he was about to give up, he felt something underneath the carpet. He lifted the carpet up, and dust particles flew everywhere. In the middle of the dust storm was a key, leading to Door 35.

He looked around and saw the same eyes as before, watching his every move. Suddenly, he felt the floor sink beneath his feet as if it were melting.

“GUSSSSSSSSHHH!” He yelled with fear as he fell down into a room on top of a couch.

“SHHHHHHHH!” He heard a noise coming from the wall in front of him. He jumped out of the couch with fear and saw a snowman with machine guns in his hands standing in front of him. The snowman standing in front of him had half of his body made from metal and bolts. The other half was made out of snow, holding a gatling gun on each arm. The monster stared down at him. “BOOM!” The snowman fired the machine guns, and millions of snowballs suddenly came flying out into the room. Everywhere was a mess, and Leo rolled to hide in the sideroom. He could hear snowballs flying everywhere, splatting on the walls and ceilings. “What to do? What to do?” he repeatedly said to himself, panicking. “Wait, the wrench I can use to unscrew him!” he shouted, grabbing it from his pocket.

He sneaked up on the half-machine, half-snowman by crawling stealthily across the room. When he got behind the snowman, he leapt forward and unscrewed the first bolt he saw on the monster’s face. After a moment, the monster made a thunderous groan and then fell to pieces.

“YEAH!" he yelled and did his victory dance on the floor. Then he reminded himself about escaping, so he went through to the next room. The next few doors were fine until door 050.

Leo found himself in an empty hallway when lightning suddenly struck outside. His heart pounded faster and faster, and when he reached for the door, a noise came from behind. He turned around and saw a one-eyed, shiny black figure rising from the ground. “SCREECH!” The figure yelled, then came running over as fast as a rhino on a rampage. His body was shaking. Leo urged himself to run as fast as he could to the next room. Things were falling to the ground everywhere, from closets to book shelves. The monster was chasing after him, getting closer and closer every minute. Just as the black figure was about to grab Leo, Leo ran into a room and shut the door tight. “BAM! BAM! The door knocked, trying to stop the monster, but it failed. The door broke into splinters, and the figure chased after Leo. His mind was going crazy as he was running when he felt something shaking in his pocket. With sweat running down his neck, he reached for that item. Suddenly it flew out of his pocket, and the crucifix levitated in front of the monster. Bright chains grew out of the ground, latching the figure in place. A glowing circle formed below the monster, and the chains linked. The monster shrieked in pain, and the chains lifted the monster into the air until it disappeared through the ceiling. The crucifix disappeared with the monster, and at once everything dropped to the floor. All that was left was a hallway leading to the next door in front of Leo.

Leo went to the next door and saw a single book lying on the floor. As he flipped through the pages, he found a message written: ”Whoever is reading this, I have little time to tell you that this hotel is not safe. Get out, but there may be no exit.”

"Um, that is creepy," Leo whispered to himself. As he kept flipping, he saw the message he just read repeated many times through the pages. On the last page, he found an explanation saying, ”This hotel is haunted. It once was a beautiful sight that contained many people until an evil scientist accidentally unleashed many hideous monsters in the hotel, causing mayhem and destruction. Many people were forced to flee their homes, and this hotel is one of them. The scientist tried to reverse what he had by creating a portal that sucked all the monsters in.

For a moment, Leo stood there frozen with terror in his eyes. Suddenly, the ground began to sink beneath his feet. “Not this again..." groaned Leo as he fell through the floor. THUD! He landed on a bed, but it was not just any bed. He was in the same bed in the room on the 7th floor that he started in. This time, the door that was locked was now open. He walked back down to the lobby and saw the front doors open. A smile appeared on his face, and he skipped with glee into the bright, magnificent sunrise.