Chapter Three: Room 205
532 Words
Advait stood at the base of the staircase for a moment longer, listening.
Old wooden steps. Faint ticking of a clock somewhere inside the hotel. The air smelled of wood polish, wet carpet, and a kind of decay that wasn’t just physical—it was memory, rotting over time.
“Up the stairs, second door on the left,” the woman said without looking at him. “It’s still locked. You’ll need this.”
She slid a heavy brass key across the counter. It looked older than the building itself.
“You kept the original key?” he asked, surprised.
She gave a tired shrug. “No one else asked for it.”
Advait took it slowly, fingers brushing against the cold metal. The moment he touched it, his hand tingled, like it remembered something his mind didn’t.
As he climbed the stairs, each step creaked under his weight. He remembered coming here once before, years ago, when Ira had checked in. She was laughing about something stupid—probably mocking his choice of woolen socks. That laugh stayed with him longer than her disappearance did. It was the last real sound he remembered of her.
Room 205.
He stopped outside the door. The faded number was still nailed above it, paint flaking off. The lock stared back at him like an unblinking eye.
He pushed the key in. It turned with a loud click, and the door creaked open into a room preserved by silence.
Dust covered everything. A thin film on the curtains. Stale air hanging like a warning. The bedsheet was still folded neatly, though the edges had browned. A glass of water sat on the side table, now dry, the rim caked with dust.
The window was half-open, curtain fluttering slowly in the mountain wind.
Everything was just… still.
Advait stepped in, closing the door behind him. The wooden floor moaned under his boots. He reached for the light switch. Nothing. Either the bulb was dead, or the room hadn’t seen power in years.
He pulled back the curtain, letting in weak sunlight.
The view outside was breathtaking—rolling hills, distant mist-covered trees, the sleepy rooftops of Guldarh below. It was the kind of place you could disappear in. And someone had.
He opened the wardrobe—empty, save for a rusted wire hanger. Checked under the bed—nothing but cobwebs. The drawer of the bedside table was stuck. He yanked it open.
Inside, he found a single torn photograph.
He picked it up carefully.
Half the image was missing. The rest showed two people. A man and a woman standing in the snow. The woman had her back to the camera. The man’s face was partly cut off, but there was something strange—he was wearing the same jacket as the driver from this morning.
Advait squinted closer. At the bottom corner of the photo, a name had been scribbled in faded ink.
Ira.
His stomach twisted.
Just then, the floorboards behind him creaked.
He spun around. The door was still shut.
But he wasn’t alone.
A shadow moved past the frosted window of the door—slow, deliberate.
Someone was watching Room 205.
- Writer
