The Thirteenth Floor[ON HOLD]

Chapter Six

Jonathan turned around swiftly on his feet, the scream still echoing against the walls. Curiosity took over and he began to take steps up the old staircase. Anther scream, this one more guttural, as if someone was trying to scream through sand or gritty dirt. Jonathan glanced up the stair case with frightened eyes, his heart thumping in his chest loudly. Step after step, sweating his fear out, yet it remained, and every now and then a throaty gargling sound was hear echoing in the staircase, sending shivers down Jonathan's spine.

As he was advancing up the staircase, Jonathan not so much as heard but felt a whisper against the back of his neck.

Jonathan.

He spun around, first clenched and raised but there was nothing. The dingy staircase seemed like a something in a funny house or something, the acoustics were funny, at least that is what Jonathan told himself to explain the impossibility of the whisper being anything outside of his mind.

Jonathan, over here.

He turned quickly, fear beginning to cloud his senses and distort his clear thinking. The sound had come from a door, which he could swear hadn't been there on his first trip down. The door was old, and charred as if from a long ago fire. The brass numbers had been slightly melted by that fire but where still very legible: 13.

Jonathan took a step towards the door, wondering if it was even real. Eventually his hand brushed against the charred wood and he felt something surge through him; and he could feel a presence, more or less, around the door and what was behind it. As Jonathan was rubbing the tips of his fingers together, feelthing the charred ash from the door that had gotten on his finger tips he haeard another whisper.

Jonathan, I'm behind the door.

Jonathan jumped, as if hearing a ghost and walked backwards till his back was pressed against the wall, the voice wasn't a fabrication, or something that his subconcious mind had thought up, it was real. As real as Jonathon's fear and sense of confused terror. He looked at the door, it's charred face riddled with ash; its once clear and bright bronzen letters now patirally melted and tranished. He couldn't help but walk towards it again, it was as of it had a power using it as a talisman or something on Jonathan and ecven a part of Jonathan was ready to go towards it, after all he did need the story. He put his hand on the tarnished numbers, vaguely wondering why this number, why thirteen when the voice appeared.

Jonathan, come in. Come in to the thriteenth floor.

He placed his hand onto the door knob and turned, the door opened and Jonathan walked in. The door slammed shut, sealing him inside, though it was unknow to him at that time.

Once inside Jonathan was immediately thrown back, though not literally, by the intense smell of decay that hung in the air, as if bodies had rotted in there and it hadn't been aired out in fifty years, which was the truth of the reality. The walls were charred, having been scorched by some long ago fire, which killed many people. Jonathan couldn't bear the stench, every moment, every step or turn, he felt as if he was going to puke all over, but he never did, yet the nausea remained, making him feel like utter crap. The numbers on all the room doors were melted beyond being able to be read or recognized, even any educated guess would be futile to guess which room was number 1313, or 1305. The rust and tarnished metal had melted, so that it hardened, leaving trails of now hardened metal down each door, which looked eeriely like blood to Jonathan in the darkened hallway. The voice was gone, and that feeling of awe or curiousity was now replaced by sickening fear and panic.

He had walked down the hallway, going faster as he went, the sick, eerie feeling of being watched by something far more terrible than human never leaving his mind. His jogging only made his nausea worse, and soon he collasped to his knees deep inside the ma dark main hallway of the thirteenth floor.

Thoughts wishing he'd never come into this floor, even that he never tried to get this story as hard as he did came flooding into his mind, and then a soft, but nonetheles evil, laugh whispered around him, as if carried by a gentle breeze. He spun arounds looking for the source of the whispered laughter, which sent chills down his spine.

There can't be anyone in here, right? I mean a room on this floor can't even be rented. He thought as he looked into the darkness of the hallway, the melted numbers o the door looked like blood more than ever.

He felt a breeze (or was it movement?) brush past him and the hair on the nape of his neck stood up, adrenaline rushed into his blood stream and everything seemed to get foggy, and uncertain. Suddenly, without any warning, there was a soft, gentle breathing against the back of Jonathan's neck and he found that he was frozen. He couldn't move, and a part of him didn't want to, he didn't want to turn around and see whoever, or whatever, was brearthing on his neck. Goosepumps traveled over his skin and he was frozen, on his knees, looking down a darkened hallway, the room numbers looking more and more like actual blood to him than ever before.

"Welcome to the thirteenth floor Jonathan Smith. I hope you enjoy your stay, and that you never leave." A voice, soft but gutteral said into Jonatha's ear, the same person, or thing, that had been breathing against his neck earlier.

Jonathan knelt there for a long time, longer than he'd like to admit actually, and when he finally did turn around there was nothing. Only the seemingly endless hallway, with dingy, rotting doors, which had the room numbers in blood rather than brass (Jonathan was beginning to become convinced that they were actually blood instead of just looking like blood).

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Chapter written by Michael Hall (@MichaelHallWritting)