GRAVEBORN

5\ROOM 12

Tom had always been afraid of the dark, but as he grew older, he convinced himself it was a childish fear. People aren't scared of the dark—they're scared of what might be hiding in it. He often repeated that to himself when the lights went out. Still, the thought of being surrounded by pitch-black darkness made him uneasy.

When Tom's job transferred him to a small town in the middle of nowhere, he wasn't thrilled. His company, a construction firm, had sent him to supervise the renovation of an old building. It was a temporary assignment, they said, just a few weeks. He'd stay in a cheap motel, get the work done, and then be back in the city.

The motel wasn't much to look at—run-down and isolated, with only a few rooms. Tom checked in late that evening, and the manager, a quiet, older man, handed him the key to room 12. The room was on the second floor, at the very end of a long, dimly lit hallway.

As Tom carried his bag to the room, he couldn't help but feel uneasy. There was something off about the place, something that made his skin crawl. The hallway felt too long, too narrow, and the lights flickered as if they were about to go out at any moment.

He reached the door, unlocked it, and stepped inside. The room was small and bare, with a single bed, a tiny TV on a dresser, and a window that looked out over the empty parking lot. It was nothing special, but Tom wasn't expecting luxury. He just needed a place to sleep.

After unpacking a few things, Tom decided to take a shower and get some rest. He turned on the bathroom light and noticed it was dimmer than usual, casting strange shadows across the room. The water in the shower was lukewarm at best, and the drain made a gurgling noise that unsettled him. By the time he stepped out, the room felt colder, and he noticed something odd—the light bulb in the bathroom was flickering more now.

He shook his head, telling himself he was just tired, and got into bed. As he reached over to turn off the lamp on the nightstand, he hesitated. The darkness in the room felt heavier than usual, like it was pressing in on him. But he pushed the thought aside and clicked off the light.

It was then that he heard it.

A faint sound, like scratching.

Tom lay perfectly still, listening. The noise was soft, barely audible, but unmistakable. It was coming from the wall next to the bed. His heart pounded as the scratching continued, slow and deliberate, like something was trying to get through the wall.

"Probably just rats," he whispered to himself, though he wasn't convinced.

He turned on the lamp again, bathing the room in weak light. The scratching stopped instantly. Tom sat up in bed, staring at the wall. There was nothing there—no holes, no cracks. Nothing that could explain the sound.

He stayed awake for a long time, his eyes fixed on the wall, waiting for the noise to start again. But it didn't. Eventually, exhaustion took over, and he fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning, Tom tried to shake off the strange feeling from the night before. He spent the day at the worksite, overseeing the crew and going through blueprints. By the time he got back to the motel that evening, he had almost forgotten about the scratching. Almost.

As he walked up the stairs to his room, he noticed something strange. The hallway was darker than it had been the night before. The flickering lights were even dimmer now, barely illuminating the path ahead. When he reached his door, he fumbled with the key, feeling an inexplicable urge to hurry.

Inside the room, nothing had changed. It looked just as it had that morning, but the uneasy feeling from the night before crept back into his chest. He glanced at the walls, half-expecting to hear the scratching again, but the room was silent.