One Star

Thomas Joel  

★☆☆☆☆ 

The Mayveiw Hotel was one of my first public stays alone. It was unsanitary and grimy, but I managed to cope with long saunters outside. The commute to work (I was on a business trip) was one of the peaceful things I looked forward to. Along with my grievances I thought this place was surly better than others. I was proven wrong 

I’d like to begin my story with the uplifting part. Or should I say the only reason I gave the place one star. Although the quietness was appreciated, I did think it was a bit off. Maybe it was the fact I thought nobody was staying here that made the silence exceedingly comforting. I wish I hadn’t doubted my gut.  

It was approximately the third day of my business trip, and the day was humid. All I wanted was to go home and, “kick back and relax,” as some folks may call it. I supposed I received the opposite. I jammed the key into the lock only for my door not to open. Given the situation I was in I trudged down to the receptionist's office, in high spirits that I would fulfill my quest to get a new room key. Instead, when I met with the stodgy woman, she told me that no back-up keys were available. “How peculiar.” I thought. So, I left her to head back upstairs. About an hour had passed when I had decided to give up on jiggling my key in the keyhole. I hopelessly sat slumped against my door, sweat dripping off my tired soul. I thought that there might be some perseverance left in me, but it turned out I was wrong. 

After a few minutes a flattering woman walked by with all of today’s beauty standards attached to her body. She looked down at me and asked whether I was alright and I told her about my situation. I guess her attractiveness and concern made me venerable. She humbly offered for me to stay with her. Normally I would reject with sincerity, but I was so relentlessly parched, my morals were overruled. I stumbled inside her hotel room and collapsed on the couch, but quickley sat up to straighten myself out. The woman, whose name I recall being Percilla told me she had to leave for a moment. So, with one swift move she got up and left. As soon as that heavy wooden door shut, I jumped up, suddenly filled with adrenaline and ran to her bathroom. Without even thinking I turned the faucet on and drank until I could no more. It wasn’t long until I had finished and taken a fascination to Percilla’s room. I was sure that she must hold secrets among these hotel walls just like anyone else. But I sat back down on the couch. I presume I fell asleep, because the moment I was awakened from my unconsciousness my body felt light but limp. I remember from my high school days (or should I call my teenage dirtbag days) finding some pot. Drug after drug I had tried. It was an interesting time in my life. So, when I was awoken feeling the similar symptoms of some kind of drug, I immediately assumed I needed to escape. From this point on the story gets graphic, so if you’re not comfortable with any descriptions of grotest subjects and images, viewer discretion is advised. 

Anyways, as I was right about to head out the door, Percilla stopped me. I lied and told her I had gotten a text from the receptionist that I had gotten a key to my room. How foolish of me to do so. I slightly pushed Percilla away and pushed the door open. The humidity had hit me like a brick wall for I was so used to the air conditioner, and the sweet coolness of the bathroom water that soothed my aching throat. After I escaped Percilla’s hotel room, I tried the door on my room but this time it had opened. My door creaked open, and it was pitch black. I stumbled over something soft. A thick liquid splashed over me, and I opened and closed my hands, trying to get it off but it didn’t work. My last resort was to smudge the liquid off my body. (Sadly, not knowing it would stain my shirt.)  

But as I reached for the light switch, I collapsed from a burning sensation on my body. It slowly began consuming everything in one, and I curled up in a ball, wincing back and forth. When the pain finally seized all at once I took a deep breath, but only once more I felt the tireless burn all over my body. I cried out from the pain and slowly subsided into my own wallow of self-pity. After a couple minutes it stopped but as I ran my fingers across my skin, I felt it bubble up and peel. A thought came to me that it was the sink water, but how could I feel so much pain just by drinking tap. I crawled over to the light switch this time, only for it to just flicker on. Lying there I hugged myself wanting to go home, but I realized that it would never happen. So instead, a put on my ‘big boy’ pants and turned around. I was horrified to see the pooling body hanging from my celling. I examined it from top to bottom. Bone peeked out from the side of the neck, and it was riddled and blood. It oozed down and quietly dripped on the floor. I looked into the eye of the lifeless soul that still haunts me today. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, wondering if those eyes are still looking at me the same way as they had before. As I looked down at my hands, ripped up and tearing. The pain was becoming slightly barrable as I focused on dragging my hands across the wet burns. Pink and blistered, they oozed puss and blood, and it mixed like vinegar in water.  

A foul smell eroded from the bathroom. I began to crawl over; I hadn’t taken notice of the sticky blood all over the floors. I rubbed my face but blinked as I began to see red. And as I looked down at my hands, I saw how much blood I was covered in. I shivered and shrieked at the sight. I felt my stomach churn and soon enough I was sitting in a pile of my own vomit. But something inside me told me to go into the bathroom, and so I did. When I dragged myself over to the tub and looking down, I saw dismembered limbs piled on top of each other. I couldn’t even make out what was what because of how much blood was smeared across the walls. Parts of the body looked bitten and mutilated, as they sagged down into one another. I retched and heaved until I could no more. And soon enough there was a pile of vomit on my lap. I was out of breath and longed for home so desperately. I let my body collapse on the side of the tub where I silently cried to myself. Too weak to reach for the phone, and too tired to even ask for help.  

I was later found by the police. The receptionist walked into the room and called the cops as soon as she walked in. And I wrote this review sitting in my hospital bed, where the walls are no longer red, they’re white, but that still doesn’t change a thing. All I know is that there’s still something out there.