ROOM 13

I never did like motels or hotels that much. I’m not sure why there was just something about them that I didn’t like, maybe it was the fact that a hundreds of people had stayed in the same room that I would be staying in who knows, they just bothered me. But here I was at some little motel in some little town that I was in so that I could get some pictures of the buildings and forestry in the town and use it as a reference for the levels I’m making in the game my company is working on, we make horror games mostly and this one is no different it’s as horrifying as the others, it’s about a man that opens a door into a supernatural world that’s full of horrifying beings that try to hunt him down while he tries to find his way back, I had the idea for it while I was walking my dog one day it just popped into my head and this little town was a perfect setting for it because it just has a kind of haunted look to it because of it’s age so the buildings are perfect ideas for the town the game is based in but it’s not even in  the same state as me so I have to stay in a motel for a couple days until I get the pictures I need.

The place is pretty small; it’s got a log cabin look to it which is why I chose it I figured it would be a good place to start getting ideas. I get into the lobby and see a small desk with a computer on it and a man probably in his forties or so, he’s got red hair that’s going thin and an expression that reminds me of a basset hound because it’s so droopy but he has a nice look to him that seems welcoming and his attitude is exactly that, welcoming and nice “Hello there you looking for a room?” he says with a smile “Yeah actually I am I made a reservation about a week ago for tonight till Sunday,” I say “ alright let me look and see if I got you in the book, what’s your name?” he asks while typing something into the computer “ it should be under Carl Cheekibur” he types in the name and is silent for a second while he looks at my reservation “alright there you are but you didn’t specify a room…” he says puzzled “yeah I didn’t really care all that much about what room I was in, I’ll be fine with whatever room you put me in” I say, hoping that since I didn’t pick a room he didn’t accidentally give out all of his rooms. “ No, no that’s no problem at all there Carl and luckily I have one room left but it’s not such a lucky room” he says with a laugh “ It’s room thirteen” this threw me off a bit because motels never have a room thirteen “I thought motels never had a room thirteen because it was superstition?” I asked the owner of one of the motels I stayed in while working on another project and she told me about it, I found it odd since there still would be a thirteenth room it would just have the number fourteen on it. “Yes that’s normally how motels are set up” he says with a smile “but my grandfather wasn’t a superstitious and he found it a silly rule so he made it room thirteen anyway instead of skipping from twelve to fourteen” the fact that the room was number thirteen didn’t matter to me as I told him “well it’s a good thing I’m not superstitious either than eh? I don’t believe in superstitions or ghost stories either it’s all just a joke” I say, which makes him laugh “well that’s good because some of the people who stay in that room say it’s possessed and that the door led them out to a different place in the middle of the night rather than leading them to the outside it led ‘em to a different land apparently that was barren and cold, if ya ask me though I think they just had a bit much to drink and had some nightmares.” This story kind of startled me since it sounded like the basis of my new game “that’s pretty funny actually because I work for a game design company as a level designer and that sounds like the basis of our new game, I bet somebody got an illegal copy of the beta and they’re having nightmares about it” this might be true actually we have had a few incidents of an illegal beta leaking out somehow. “Well I’m gonna go to my room and get some shut eye I’ll talk to you later” I say and take my key off the desk “Alright I’ll see you tomorrow then, have a good night” he says kindly “Yeah you to.”

I got to my room and looked around; it was your basic motel setup with a queen bed and a little fifteen inch television, it also had a little table and chair in the corner. That would be perfect for me to sit at while I worked on the level ,since I had the program that my company uses on my laptop I was able to work on games even while out on these little trips. It had a pretty comfortable atmosphere to it like when you walk into your house after being away for a long time. I put my stuff next to the bed and got changed into my night clothes and got into bed since it was getting late. I fell asleep watching a show on UFO sightings.

Something woke me up at about three in the morning I wasn’t quite sure of what it was at first when I looked around the room. Then I noticed that there was something wrong with the door but I couldn’t really tell at first because it was so dark but when I turned on the light I realized what was wrong and it made me stop cold. The door was black now and it had been whitewashed when I had entered the room, there were also a kind of black goo oozing in from around the door in strange tentacle patterns, it made the door look like a fifty pointed star because of how the goo came out around the door. By now I was beginning to come out of my frozen stupor and something in me was fighting to open that door, but the logical part of me refused to even go near it because it was so evil looking. In the end the part of me that wanted to open it was stronger than the logical  

part, I hate my curiosity to this day for nudging me to open the horrific door and allowing me to enter into this Hell. I hadn’t realized it but I had been walking toward the door slowly for the past minute and was now within reach of the door, I could open it now, but did I really want to? Was this really something I wanted to do, I mean the door oozed evil it was not something I would normally ever touch. But something was calling me from the other side and I was powerless to ignore it I reach toward the doorknob and grab it, it’s cold to the touch so cold that it almost burns my hand, then I turn it and open the door and what I see will forever haunt me.

It was Hell on the other side of the door but not the fiery, red Hell that most would expect, the air was thick to my lungs and hard to breath. The light wasn’t the normal yellow of day it was a sinister blue tint that matched the cold that I felt all through my body. I began to shiver from cold and from fear as I looked around the barren landscape of this fierce world that I had stepped into from what had been my motel room for I noticed as I turned around that the motel was gone, all that was left was a pile of burnt rubble that had once been the motel. I was oddly calm for some reason even though I seemed to be stuck in this Hell, I’m unsure as to why but it must have had something to do with the suddenness with which I had entered this horrible reality. All around me it was barren, the forest that had once been around the motel was nothing but burnt stumps and ashes and the small town that had been nearby was in ruins just small burnt out husks of the older buildings remained. It was as if a whirlwind of fire had swept through the land and destroyed all in it’s path then just disappeared, I couldn’t believe all this I thought I must have been dreaming, I must have for what else could this be?
I began to explore near the remains of the motel, I looked through what had been the lobby and found nothing but a crimson smear that might have been blood but I didn’t want to think about what might have happened. The other rooms were all empty and still smoldering a little, the smell of a large wood fire filled the air as I looked through the remains of the motel. There was nothing to be found in the other rooms all that remained was mine, room thirteen, the cursed room where this had all started. I entered the room through the door that was surprisingly still standing even though everything else was destroyed it seemed unscathed and in the same condition as it had been when I opened it to step into this world. On the other side I found the room I had left was not destroyed but it was different, very different.
The room I entered was colder even than it had been outside, it was as cold as the doorknob had felt, so cold that it was burning my skin every second I was in the room but I had to stay and see if there was anyway back to my own world or reality whatever I happened to have left behind when I came through that damn door. The room itself was warped as if it had turned to wax and started to melt, everything was disfigured. The bed was no longer the box shape it had been; now it looked as if the whole thing was made out of jello and it was endlessly wiggling. The little television was gone and in its place was an odd basin that was full of a crimson liquid that again looked like blood, but again I really didn’t want to think about it I just wanted to get out of this place I wanted, with all of my being, to be home again. The little chair and desk had been changed as well and now there stood a black marble chair and table, they were so black that it seemed as if there was just a black hole where they stood. As I looked at what had been room thirteen, and I guess it still was room thirteen, I realized I wasn’t alone.
And there it stood, or floated I wasn’t quite sure it was human but it was human shaped. It was quite tall and wrapped in a dark blue cloak that was so dark it was almost black, I could see nothing of its face, all that was there was a black void under the hood of the cloak. I thought maybe it was just an apparition or a hallucination but then it talked to me in a deep voice that I felt vibrate down my spine. “Why are you here mortal?” it stated in a voice that wasn’t quite threatening but it wasn’t really friendly either, “I didn’t mean to come her” I stated in a weak voice that I tried my hardest to keep from quavering “I came here through the door leading outside in my motel room…” It seemed amused by this answer “You are the third one that has said this to me, there seems to be a rift between the two realms that opens surprisingly right on that door at a certain time.” The being paused as if thinking then said in a thoughtful tone “well I have been able to send the others that came to this realm back but it seems this rift will be more of a problem than I though it would…” The being paused to think once again “I will be able to send you back but you need to do something for me” I hurriedly said “I’ll do anything as long as it gets me back to my realm!” the being again seemed amused by me, a small part of me was angered by how amused he was of my situation but the rest of me just wanted to get home. “The thing you must do is to take this blade and carve the runes I will give you on the door in your realm this will close the rift between the realms so that no one, or thing from this side or yours will be able to go through it, do you believe you can do that?” I couldn’t see the beings eyes but it felt as if he were peering directly into my soul, so I quickly replied “yes I’ll do it, but what if someone sees the runes and tries to get rid of them?” I ask for I was afraid that someone would and then something would escape from this world into mine and bad things would happen. “No it will be fine, none but the one who carved the runes with this blade can see them to others the door will seem just as it always did” and with this he handed me the blade which was very ornate and extremely sharp, a piece of what looked and felt like parchment with runes on it that I couldn’t decipher, and once I was in possession of these items he pointed to the door and told me to walk through it and I would be home. I hurriedly grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and darted through the door and as I went to slam it shut behind me I hear the beings voice say “don’t forget to carve the runes on your door!”
That was it, I was back in my hotel room finally as soon as the door was closed I turned around, crouched on the floor and carved the runes on the paper into the door. With each rune I finished I felt more and more odd and when I carved the last rune into the door, I collapsed….
I awoke in the morning with a throbbing headache wondering why I was on the floor; the last thing I remembered was getting into bed to go to sleep. I looked around and everything looked fine, no one had been in my room nothing was messed up except there was a pile of ash on the floor as well as a pool of what seemed to be molten metal. I cleaned up the ash and the pool of metal and then went out to the town and began my picture taking.
I returned later that day when I had gotten all the pictures I needed and decided since I was done earlier I was gonna head home today. The older man that had been behind the counter when I had arrived was there again today and let me check out early, he even gave me my money back for the night I wasn’t going to be staying. “Did you have any odd experiences in that room” he says with a chuckle “actually no I didn’t” I say with a smile “although I did wake up on the floor which was kind of odd but my wife always says I roll around a lot” I didn’t tell him about the ash or the metal, it just didn’t seem like something I should say. I left and headed home, my company finished the game a few months later and I have never been back to that particular motel since.