He opened his eyes to find himself in a room of sheer splendor.
Elias Rune: "Where am I? I don't remember anything… and who am I?"
A lady approached him gracefully.
Madam Rose: "Welcome to the Hotel of Memories, also known as the Memory Hotel. Look at you—you've just awoken from a sleep, and you seem quite weary. Perhaps you'll need a room of your own. Please, choose one."
Elias walked to the reception desk. Madam Rose selected a key and handed it to him.
Madam Rose: "Ah, it seems today might be a lucky day for you. Our hotel currently has a special offer—your room is free. No payment necessary."
Elias ascended the staircase, searching for the hallway with his room number. Suddenly, he felt a strange, shadowy aura enveloping the peculiar hotel. The corridor twisted with countless passages, each leading to nowhere.
Finally, he entered his room. It was modest in size, everything seemed ordinary enough—except for one painting hung above the headboard that immediately drew his attention. It depicted a solitary, leafless tree, stark and haunting against its backdrop.
Before he could finish taking in the room, a knock echoed from the door.
"Hello, I'm room service. It's lunchtime, and we invite you to join the banquet."
The attendant led him toward the kitchen as if giving a short tour—and then suddenly vanished. A kitchen assistant stepped forward and handed him an apron.
"Well now, we've got plenty of guests here and not enough hands to serve them. Could you help us out a little?"
Elias took the utensils and stepped into the kitchen. He had no memory of ever knowing how to cook—but then his movements, his gestures, the way his arms held the tools, all became fluid and skillful. He selected ingredients instinctively and prepared a pot of soup with natural precision, guided entirely by feeling. Even he was astonished at himself, as though he had been a seasoned chef for years without ever realizing it.
The dishes were arranged in the banquet hall. Elias was invited to take a seat—no longer a kitchen helper.
"Well now, what a delightful soup we have here," a guest at his table remarked.
The banquet steward introduced the dish as one prepared by Elias himself.
"Oh, so we finally have a real chef among us—or rather, a sous-chef, I suppose. Hopefully the head chef will notice you."
The woman beside him spoke cheerfully, then introduced herself as Evelyn, the supervisor of the hotel's sewing room.
Elias: "Thank you for the compliment, but… do you happen to know the way out of this hotel? I need to get outside."
Evelyn: "Outside? What could possibly be so interesting out there?"
Elias: "Um… I'm not sure. I don't remember anything, and I don't know why I'm here. I need to go outside to figure things out."
Evelyn: "In that case, enjoy this banquet to the very last moment. Afterward, I'll show you something."
And true to her word, after the feast, Evelyn guided Elias to the sewing room—though it looked more like a storage hall filled with mechanical devices. Shelves were stacked with gears from sewing machines and strange contraptions; rows of tables held sewing machines, and the staff worked silently in dim yellow light.
Evelyn handed Elias a circular gear.
Evelyn: "This is what you need. You may call it a time wheel, or whatever you like. Didn't you want to find a way out? Take this and search for your Memory Room."
Elias: "Where can I find that room?"
Evelyn: "Oh please… don't ask me. I have no idea."
Elias stepped out of the sewing room—but strangely, the place he entered was not the same one he had come from. The door had led him somewhere else entirely: a vast library filled with books and towering shelves.
"Ah, there you are. I've been waiting for you," the librarian said as he appeared, handing Elias a stack of books and asking him to help sort them onto the shelves.
Elias placed each book in order, one by one, until he reached the last one—a book whose cover bore the image of a leafless tree. He opened it. The pages were blank except for the first one, which held a set of cryptic verses:
A bare tree stands in the emptiness,
its bone-like branches reaching in three trembling directions.
A small shadow bows low,
moonlight slipping through a narrow crack, spilling across the floor.
A creak of metal echoes out,
and an old rhythm in the room stirs awake.
A burst of laughter echoed nearby.
"Oh, look who's reading books and poetry. Seems you're quite the romantic, aren't you? Have you found your Memory Room yet?"
It was Evelyn, her voice dripping with playful sarcasm.
Elias: "A room? All I found was a poem… and why are we here?"
Evelyn: "I was planning to take you to another room, but you walked ahead faster than I expected. You're quite the art lover, aren't you?"
Evelyn guided Elias through another passage branching out from the library—a corridor that opened into an art gallery. Inside were statues and bizarre photographs, but the most noticeable piece was a massive painting: the same tree again, the solitary, leafless tree.
Elias jolted at the sudden roar of applause from beyond the gallery. He turned to see an elevated performance stage. A performer stepped onto it, introducing himself as the Miracle Magician, before beginning a series of dazzling magical acts.
The Miracle Magician introduced himself to the audience.
"The Memory Hotel is one of my favorite places to perform," he said, bowing slightly. He removed his hat—and from within it, countless shimmering, multicolored water bubbles poured out, filling the hall in a dazzling display of beauty.
Elias relaxed his mind for a moment, mesmerized by the spectacle. When he blinked, he realized Evelyn had disappeared again. He left the auditorium and resumed his search for the Memory Room.
The corridors twisted and shifted, leading him to another place—a steaming relaxation room, like a hot bath chamber, filled with thick, curling mists.
"Hey Elias, come on over. Let's relax a bit in the hot water," called the kitchen assistant from the bath, waving him to join.
Elias: "Ah… um, thank you, but I don't have time. This place is so vast, I have to find—"
A strange sound on the water cut him off. Mysterious arms emerged from the void, reaching up from the surface and dragging Elias down. He thrashed in the pool, sinking slowly, while laughter echoed from the bathers around him.
Was this a nightmare? Elias awoke to find himself no longer in the pool. His clothes were dry, as if he had never been submerged. He stood in a strange, boundless space—an endless sky above, and beneath him a transparent plane sparkling like starlight, a delicate surface that somehow supported him. In the distance, a colossal whale drifted gracefully across the sky, majestic and serene.
Suddenly, memories surfaced. He had lived near the sea—his village, his family, all close to the ocean and the whales. He had touched them once.
The whale glided slowly toward him, close enough that Elias could reach out and lay a hand on it. Then it drifted away, vanishing, leaving the calm, flat void—and in its place, a door appeared.
Elias stepped through. The path led him back to the Memory Hotel. He walked along the endless corridor lined with doors. This hallway seemed to stretch on without end. Elias ran tirelessly until he came upon a gaping hole in the middle of the floor.
He stepped back, contemplating whether to jump across or retreat. As he approached, the cracks in the floor seemed to sense his weight, splitting wider and wider, cascading like a domino effect. Elias fell into the darkness.
He awoke once more, in another strange room. This one was ancient, temple-like, with a massive pillar at its center, covered in running machine gears and intricate machinery.
Elias gazed in awe at its intricate beauty—the moonlight streaming in through a crack in the ceiling illuminated the great column, its countless mechanical parts turning softly.
"Still searching for a way out of the hotel, are you?"
Madam Rose stood nearby, her voice calm.
Madam: "Don't be surprised. I've been here for a while. This is the machine room that opens the Memory Room—the exit of the hotel. I didn't expect you to fall in here and find this place so quickly."
She stepped closer.
Madam: "You still have Evelyn's gear, and you remember what you discovered in that poem from the library, don't you?"
Elias held the gear in his hand. Suddenly he understood—the tree from the poem was this mechanical pillar. Three clustered gears formed the shape of three branches, and the "the bowing shadow" was the lower gear's position, one he had to crouch down to reach. All of these spots aligned perfectly with the areas touched by the moonlight.
Clack.
A sharp sound echoed as Elias fitted the gear into place. The gears connected, shifting orientation as they adjusted their rotation. A doorway opened on the side of the mechanical tree.
Filled with wonder and relief, Elias slowly pushed the door open.
Beyond it lay a vast green field, a gentle wind brushing through. He had finally escaped the hotel. In the distance, he could see a familiar sight—his village, perhaps his home. And past it, the shoreline where whales swam—not floating through the sky like those in the hotel's strange realm, but gliding through real ocean waters.
And there, at the center of the field, stood it again:
the leafless tree.
Elias raised both hands to his forehead as a storm of memories rushed back. He remembered now—his beautiful memories with his family, and the day his mother died protecting him. Many villagers had been killed by an army known as the Crusaders. The village had once been full of lush, vibrant trees, but the invaders burned everything to ash.
He remembered it all:
the dead villagers—machines shaped like humans.
the survivors—true humans.
his mother—a human.
But…
Elias looked at his hands as the skin peeled away, revealing thin, skeletal metal beneath.
"I remember everything now.
I… I…
am a machine."
The End