The sound of the wind was the first thing she noticed.It wasn't a gentle wind — it moaned, rising and falling as if trapped inside the walls.
When Elena opened her eyes, she was staring up at the chandelier — the same one that had hung above her on the first night she checked into The Blackwood Hotel.Its glass pendants swayed, casting thin slivers of light that crawled across the ceiling.
She blinked once. Twice.Her heart gave no response.
The air smelled of dust and damp velvet. Somewhere, water was dripping — steady, rhythmic, unnerving.The red sofa beneath her felt real, its worn fabric scraping against her palms. But everything else felt… suspended, like she had woken up inside a photograph of the place rather than the place itself.
Elena sat up slowly, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. The same wool blanket that had covered her the night she died — or thought she did.Outside the window, rain slanted in hard lines, hammering against the glass. The city lights below flickered like dying embers.
"No," she murmured, shaking her head."I left. I left this place."
Her voice didn't echo. The room swallowed it whole.
The door to her suite was open, leading into the endless corridor.She hesitated, staring at the pale light stretching along the floor — like the hotel itself was breathing, exhaling a faint glow.
When she stepped out, the carpet muffled her steps, but she could feel a faint vibration under her soles, as if something beneath the floors was moving.
The wallpaper — gold and dark green — peeled in slow curls.The paintings lining the corridor had changed.The landscapes she remembered were now just portraits — of people she didn't know, yet whose eyes followed her with desperate recognition.
Tick.Tick.Tick.
The grandfather clock at the end of the hall was still frozen at 3:00 a.m.
"Why that hour?" she whispered. "Why always three?"
No answer. Only the soft hum of the hotel breathing.
Then, the lights flickered once… twice… and on the third time, a new door appeared at the very end of the hallway.
It was black, with a brass handle — ornate, cold, familiar.Elena's pulse surged, though she couldn't remember why.
A faint light glowed beneath the door — not warm, but white, the sterile kind of white you find in hospital rooms and morgues.
She walked toward it slowly, every step stretching the silence thinner. The air thickened; her breath came out in frost.
Her fingers hovered over the handle.
And that's when she heard it —
"Don't open it."
The voice was male. Low. Broken.It came from behind her left shoulder, close enough that she felt the air shift.
Elena spun around. The corridor was empty.
But the old mirror on the wall now reflected something wrong.Her own reflection stood still, just as she did — and then… it blinked.
No — not blinked. It moved first.
Her reflection tilted its head to one side, smiling faintly, eyes darker than they should have been.Elena felt her skin prickle.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The reflection's lips curved into something between pity and amusement.
"I'm what you left behind in this place."
The chandelier lights flared, flooding the hall in white. The portraits on the walls seemed to shift — their eyes now open, staring straight at her.
Elena stumbled backward, clutching her chest. She tried to breathe — nothing. No air filled her lungs. Panic clawed its way up her throat.
The reflection leaned closer, though the glass never broke.
"You didn't survive that night," it whispered."You're not walking out of here, Elena. You never did."
The rain outside grew louder — no, closer. She looked toward the end of the hall and saw water seeping in beneath the black door. It spread quickly across the carpet, soaking her feet with freezing wetness.
She turned and ran — but the hallway stretched infinitely, the doors repeating, each number glowing faintly in the dark: 313… 314… 315…
Her own voice echoed now — fractured, distorted, bouncing back at her:
"You left this place…""Didn't you?""Didn't you?""Didn't you…"
Her knees buckled. The floor trembled. And then, just as she was about to fall —
A hand caught her wrist.Cold, firm, unhuman.
She looked up.The man from the portrait — the one by the elevator — was standing there, his eyes glinting like wet glass.
"You shouldn't be awake yet," he said softly."It's not your time to remember."
Before she could scream, the world dissolved — the hallway stretching, melting, folding into itself —and Elena felt herself being pulled backward, down into darkness.
Back into the room.Back into her body.
And the clock began to tick again.
3:01 a.m.