Grand Raven Hotel

A chilling breeze swept through the corridors of the Grand Raven Hotel, banging the doors and making the floorboards creak. Darius didn’t find it pleasing that every corner of the hotel was filled with cobwebs mixed with the faint acrid odor of rusty furniture. Darius couldn’t go one step without feeling that his back was being followed, but every time he turned around, the feeling disappeared, and the image he would see was of old furniture and paintings—and sometimes an old light would flash on and off, accompanied by a cold gust of wind that would go up Darius’s nerves and tell him something was wrong.

Darius’s heart pounded in his chest, his breathing came in short, sharp gasps. He was certain something was wandering with them in the hotel. Something else was creeping out in there. It was exactly what you could find in a horror movie, and Darius didn’t like it a bit.

Searching in the cabinets and closets wasn’t doing much for their investigation; it wasn’t as if you could find clues stuffed in random places. Things like that didn’t happen in real life because real-life people didn’t go to abandoned hotels. Then again, Darius was in an abandoned hotel and he didn’t understand why.

Darius knew there was only one way out: finding Kevin and honoring his promise. His fear screamed at him to leave, but he couldn’t abandon his mission. And, of course, Darius’s body wouldn’t cooperate; his legs kept shaking like wobbling Jell-O, his heart was going faster than a Ferrari, and his eyes kept darting from place to place, with the only thought in his mind: “I don’t want to die.”

Creak.

A sound, faint, but still something his ears were able to catch. It was coming from behind him, a couple of meters away.

He froze completely. He could sense something beside him, something that wasn’t furniture or an old painting, but something with shape, a human, a living thing or maybe it wasn’t a living thing…

Darius wanted to run away or turn around and see that it wasn’t something either, but a cat that had crept into the hotel by mistake. But his limbs wouldn’t respond. It didn’t matter how many times Darius commanded his legs to move, they just wouldn’t. He was stuck there.

“Hey, I think I found something.”

Darius didn’t have time to react; his heart gave a giant leap, making him fall to the side and face what he thought would take his life. It was… his friend? Elliot?

“Hey, man. You okay?” he asked, offering a hand to Darius.

Oh, it was Elliot. Of course! Elliot had been here to help him with the mission. How had he forgotten about him? It was as if his mind had completely erased him from existence, but he was here, and that meant that Darius could stay calm for a bit.

Darius let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah just a bit on edge.”

Elliot smirked “Thought I was a ghost, didn’t you?”

Darius didn’t answer and only took Elliot’s hand, cleaning the dirt off his shirt and jeans. The wooden floorboards were really filled with lots of dust, maybe because the cleaning ladies didn’t do a good job, or maybe because, well, the hotel was abandoned.

“So, what did you find?” Darius asked.

Elliot’s smile was unmistakable, “I think we may have found ourselves victory.”

Darius’s heart clenched “Then let’s get it and get out. I promised to get Kevin back and I’m not leaving without him.”

Victory wasn’t anything but an old library, filled with yellowish manuscripts and lots of books with grotesque cover pages. This room didn’t feel any calmer than the previous ones. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees and the atmosphere felt tense. The chandelier above them swung from side to side with a couple of lights flickering. Faded portraits of rich people filled the walls, and what used to be a cool wallpaper pattern was now scratched and unraveled. Creepy-faced statues were placed strategically on top of the furniture. Darius’s only thought: spirits living inside them.

Darius looked around the closed room, trying to find what Elliot had mentioned that would finally put their investigation to an end. But the only things he saw were more books scattered around the floor and the principal desk in the center of everything. Every second he spent there made his heart race even faster and his nerves get colder and shallower. His limbs could stop working and his eyes wouldn’t stop darting from direction to direction, searching for the source of the chills.

“It’s so cold,” Darius said, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, right? I think the owners forgot to turn off the AC,” Elliot said, pacing around the room. Then he added in a lower voice, “I think it’s here, somewhere in here.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“What?”

“The cold,” Darius spat, “Don’t you feel like if someone or something else was here with us? And that’s where all the cold is coming from, something paranormal.”

In unison with the word paranormal, the lights from the chandelier flickered off and on more rapidly. Seconds later, they returned to their usual lighting. A chill crept up Darius’s back.

“See what I mean?” Darius showcased.

Elliot didn’t seem to pay him any attention as he kept looking at the bookcase. He said without turning around, “You’re just being paranoid, man. Ghosts don’t exist and they never will. It’s just that you’ve watched too many movies and you’re stuck with that idea. Just calm down and you’ll see that we’ll find Kevin in time. Not to worry.” He turned around to Darius. “Found it.”

He pulled an old electric blue book from the bookcase, but instead of it coming out, the book got sucked inside the bookcase, which began turning around with a small cracking noise, like gears moving. What was left was a hallway fit for human beings. Elliot smiled.

“Cool, huh?”

“How did you find it?” asked Darius.

He shrugged. “Just, you know, maybe a bit of luck. But c’mon, let’s go in there.”

Darius wasn’t very happy with that idea because most of the time when people went into creepy secret compartments it meant one thing: Certain Death. Darius wasn’t a fan of certain death. But since Elliot was already walking inside the hallway, Darius decided to follow, turning on his flashlight.

The walls were made of old stone cracked bricks covered in cobwebs and orange vines. The hallway looked endless and Darius didn’t know if it would ever end; the stone bricks kept extending across, and the flashlight wouldn’t reach an end. It was scarier that way.

Darius couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was watching them from behind, but the flashlight didn’t show that anyone was actually following them, and it was impossible that someone else was there with them in the hallway.

A bang was heard behind them. Darius jumped in his place and turned around slowly, his flashlight pointing behind. Elliot did the same and both flashlights were pointing at the side they had come from. Darius’s teeth wouldn’t stop clanking.

“What was that?”

Elliot shook his head and turned around. “I’m sure it was nothing, maybe the bookcase closing up. It’s got this super advanced mechanism and—”

“We can get out of here, right?”

Elliot nodded without much conviction. “Yeah, don’t worry about that, we gotta keep walking. C’mon.”

“You sure he’ll be here?” asked Darius with a hint of doubt. “I’m not very sure that he would get in here.”

“Anything for the views, man.”

He pulled Darius forward. Both of them walked forward for around fifteen minutes, Darius unable to remove that creeping feeling from the back of his neck. Then they arrived, and the cold definitely increased by a couple of degrees.

A black wooden door stood menacingly in front of them, its surface decorated with gold inscriptions scattered around it. The edges of the door frame were trimmed with pieces of gold, adding a bit of mystery that didn’t give Darius a good feeling. Lots of vines went from the top of the door to the bottom, giving it a vibe of human veins going all across it. And the door handle with a golden boar gave the final touch to the scariness.

“I’ll give you the honor of opening the door,” said Elliot. “I think I’ll stay here; you go and open it.”

“Why me?” asked Darius.

“You were the one with the idea to search for Kevin and his research”

“I wasn’t the one who planned this whole rescue mission, in an abandoned hotel!” said Darius, offended. “You were the one who got us into this situation and thought rescuing him was a good idea. So,” he stepped aside, “it’s your turn.”

Elliot clenched his fist, swearing under his breath, but finally agreed. “I’ll go. Fine. But cover my back, I don’t want anything strange happening.”

“So you do agree that there is something creepy about this hotel?”

Elliot snorted. “I didn’t say that.”

He walked up to the door in small steps, his face reflecting terror. Maybe he was finally considering that this wasn’t any normal hotel and that things wouldn’t be safe in here. That was at least something. Elliot touched the golden boar handle and turned to Darius for guidance; Darius only gave him a thumbs-up. Elliot gulped and turned the handle clockwise.

With an irritating creak, the door began to open slowly, not needing even the slightest push from Elliot. It was as if the door had its own life, or… or maybe the levels of altitude weren’t good and the architects hadn’t done a good job. That could be the other alternative.

Inside was pitch black. Fully black.

“Um…” began Darius.

“I don’t think he’s in here,” said Elliot, the terror creeping up in his voice. “I think we’ve made an error coming here. We-we should leave, Darius.”

Darius began walking slowly toward his friend, his heart racing faster than it ever had in his life, his hands searching for something to do. Something wasn’t right about this. “What did you see, Elliot?”

No answer; his friend kept looking at the dark space in the door. Darius didn’t see anything there, even if he tried to squeeze his eyes shut. But by looking at Elliot’s expression, he knew something was wrong. His face was going pale, as if he had seen a ghost…

“E-Elliot? W-what did you see?” stuttered Darius.

No answer again.

A click sounded from inside the door. Darius’s eyes widened as a shadow moved from within the darkness. Something shot out of the inky blackness and Darius’s only instinct was to jump to his friend and cover him. Both of them hit the ground hard, and Darius’s abdomen began shrieking in pain.

Darius looked down in horror to see a knife stuck in his abdomen, pain running through his body non-stop, blood gushing from the wound. Just seeing it with his own eyes made matters worse. He tried to put pressure but that didn’t stop the blood from coming. Elliot stared at Darius with wide eyes.

“Elliot,” Darius’s voice came as a whisper. “Help me.”

Elliot snapped out of his shock and rushed to Darius’s side, putting pressure on the wound and holding his dying friend in his arms. But it was too late. Darius’s vision was already blurring. He looked up, trying to see Elliot’s face, but his eyes were drawn to the door.

A pair of jade green eyes glowed in the darkness. A creepy, malevolent smile spread beneath them, sending a final icy chill through Darius’s body. His heart pounded slowly, each beat slower than the last.

He looked up at his friend and tried to smile, something that wasn’t possible after what he saw. “Love you, man.”

Elliot’s voice sounded as if it was coming from a mile away. “Darius! Stay with me! Please, please.”

But it wasn’t possible. His vision darkened, the world slipping away, only to be replaced by the pair of jade green eyes and that terrifying smile. From that moment, Darius knew it wouldn’t leave him. He knew he wouldn’t be at peace…

He wished he had never set foot in the Grand Raven Hotel.