𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟭

《 startling noises 》

[A few days into staying at the hotel]

I'm laying awake, unable to sleep as I have been for the past few days we've been staying at this hotel. The longer we stay, the longer I feel as if something is so wrong with this place. I still haven't put my finger on it, though. I've stopped trying to explain it to the others. They don't take me seriously anyways

I turn to the clock that's on the table that separates the two beds. 1:58 am. I sigh and face to the ceiling, covering my eyes with my arm in frustration

Suddenly, I hear a crash outside of the room, like something broke. I flinch and sit up immediately. I look to Vurb and Spifey. They're still fast asleep. I get up hesitantly and go to the door. I reach for the doorknob, but pause. I wait, listening. Silence.

I shakily grab the doorknob, my imagination going wild at what could be on the other side. Ghosts don't exist. With that thought, I open the door

Nothing

I look and see that one of the bulbs that were previously in place to light up the hallway was now on the ground in shards. My brain doesn't even entertain the question of how it fell. I'm about to go back inside the room, but something stops me. I don't know what it is. A feeling? An urge?

I look down the ominous hallway. It's so much scarier at night. But something is telling me to go down it. Not processing, I begin walking down the empty hallway. The silence is louder than any noise that may wish to scare me. Nothing does, though.

I make it to the elevator and I'm about to press the button to go down, but someone says my name in a whisper-shout and I flinch. I turn around to see Spifey coming my way. "Dude what are you doing? It's 2 am!" He whisper-shouts, obviously confused and kinda worried. "I-I just- I don't- I don't know, I just wanted to-" he cuts off my stammers "come back to the room, it's late. You should sleep" he says, holding my hand and leading me back. While we're walking back down the hallway, I turn my head back to the elevator. I could've sworn I saw a figure standing in front of it, before I get pulled into the room

Spifey and I both lay back down where we were before "go to sleep, Zak" he whispers to me, turning away. I sigh and turn onto my side, closing my eyes.

The last thing I think of before falling asleep is that figure at the end of the hallway.

The next morning, I wake up to Vurb shaking me. "Zak wake upppp! We can't get food until you're awake! When did you even sleep last night?" He groans. I smack him with a pillow and cover myself with the blanket. He attempts to pull the blanket from the bottom. I let go, making him fall into the wall behind him as I get up.

I go to the bathroom with clothes and leave after changing. "Where do you guys wanna go to eat?" Spifey asks us, looking at his phone. "McDonald's!" Vurb exclaims. "We've had McDonald's 5 FUCKING TIMES SINCE WE'VE BEEN HERE" Spifey yells back. "I'm fine with anything" I say. Spifey throws the phone onto the bed "ZAK PLEASE-"

After a bit, Zelk, TapL, Spifey, Vurb, and I all decide, since we're so bad at agreeing where to go, that we'll just eat the hotel food. We didn't want to do that before since we're all awkward and didn't wanna figure out how it worked, but we decided to suck it up. And by that, I mean we all played rock-paper-scissors to choose who has to figure it out. Zelkam lost :)

After we all eat, we sit in Zelk and TapL's room. "I'm so booored. Have any of you seen anything cool here, yet? I thought this place was haunted" Vurb groans. I shake my head, along with the others. "Zak, you're lying obviously" Spifey butts in, making the rest of them snap their heads towards me so quickly that I thought their necks might break

I turn to Spifey "what?". "Last night" he mentions, trying to jog my memory. "Dude I was half asleep, I don't remember anything" I say, half lying. I don't remember much, but I do remember the figure and the smash of the light bulb

"Don't be shy, spill" Vurb says, interested. "Okay, so" Spifey starts "last night I woke up. I don't know why, but I immediately turned and saw Zak was gone. The door was open, too. I got up and went over to the door. I saw Zak all the way down the hallway and he was about to go in the elevator. I called out for him and he just looked at me. His response to me asking what he was doing was just stuttering and nonsense. I had to drag him back to the room to go back to bed" he explains, the others listening intensely.

TapL looks to me "dude, are you haunted? That's scary as shit" he jokes. "Haha very funny. I just wanted fresh air" I roll my eyes. "Then why didn't you say that at the time?" Spifey raises his eyebrow like he just cracked a case. "Cause it was 2 am my guy" I say, rubbing my eyes frustratedly.

We all start watching YouTube on TapL's laptop, bored