The Room Above
February 26, 2026
When I first rented the old inn in Blackwood, I thought it would be quaint. A quiet getaway, a place to write, nothing more. The innkeeper, a frail woman with gray hair pulled tight into a bun, handed me the key with a nervous smile.
“Room 7,” she said. “It hasn’t been rented in years.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
She shook her head. “Some rooms… they’re… better left alone. You’ll be fine, dear. Just… stay out of the room above the staircase at night.”
I laughed. “Of course.”
The stairs were at the end of the hall, narrow and twisting. Room 7 was perfect—a little dusty, but cozy. I unpacked my things, set up my laptop, and settled in for the night.
Around midnight, I heard it. A soft creak from above. Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
I froze.
“It’s probably the old roof settling,” I muttered to myself, though my voice trembled.
The footsteps stopped. I waited. Nothing.
Then came a whisper:
“Hello…”
I spun around. The hall outside was empty. The door to Room 7 was closed. The moonlight through the curtains flickered across the floor.
I stepped toward the staircase. The whisper came again, more urgent:
“Please…”
I froze at the top of the stairs. The door above—the one the innkeeper had warned me about—was cracked open. Light spilled from inside, a pale, green glow.
“Who’s there?” I called.
No answer. Only the whisper again. “Come… see…”
I backed up. My phone was dead. The battery drained. I hadn’t even turned it on since I arrived.
The door creaked wider. A figure emerged. A man—or something like a man. He wore an old suit, faded and torn. His eyes were black voids, and his mouth stretched unnaturally wide.
“You’ve come,” he said. His voice was soft, echoing oddly, as if bouncing off walls I couldn’t see.
“I—I don’t want trouble,” I stammered.
“Trouble?” He tilted his head. “This is home. And now… so are you.”
I stumbled backward. The stairs seemed to stretch endlessly beneath me. Shadows poured from the doorway, crawling like smoke along the railing. Shapes twisted—arms too long, faces too thin, mouths screaming in silence.
I bolted for my room. The door wouldn’t latch. Behind me, the whispers grew louder, layering over one another:
“Stay… you belong… come closer…”
I slammed myself against the door. My shoulder ached. Then, a knock—slow, deliberate.
“Open up…”
A child’s voice, soft, pleading.
I hesitated. “Who’s there?”
“I want to play,” the voice said. “Just you.”
The air grew cold. My breath fogged in front of me. The whispering voices surged into a cacophony. I couldn’t hear myself think.
I looked around the room. My luggage had shifted. My notebook lay open, pages blank—except for words appearing as if written by an invisible hand:
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AWAY.
A shadow stretched across the floor. It moved against the light, climbing the walls, reaching for me. The child’s voice giggled. “Come… come to the room above…”
I bolted again, running for the stairs. Each step creaked under my weight. I could hear the man—or whatever he was—moving behind me, slow, inexorable. The whispers followed me. “You’re ours… stay… forever…”
I reached the staircase landing. The door above the staircase loomed. The green glow was brighter now. Shapes moved inside, writhing, stretching toward the cracked door. The child’s small hands pressed against the frame.
“No!” I shouted, trying to slam the door. It was useless. The door swung open on its own. The room beyond was impossible. I could see inside and yet it stretched farther than the building should allow. Endless halls, doors opening into darkness, shadows moving independently of the light.
A figure stepped forward. Not the child now. A woman, her hair hanging in wet strands, eyes hollow, mouth splitting into a wide grin. Behind her, dozens of figures moved—men, women, children—all pale, thin, frozen mid-step, all watching me.
“You came anyway,” she said softly. “And now… you will stay.”
I ran backward. The staircase had vanished. The room bent, walls curling inward, stretching upward. I stumbled, fell. Shapes swarmed me—cold, solid, impossible to push away. They wrapped around my arms, my legs, lifting me. Whispers flooded my mind:
“You belong… you’re ours… forever…”
The woman stepped closer. Her hand grazed my cheek. Cold, dead, and unyielding. “Don’t fight,” she whispered.
I struggled, but the shadows pulled me into the room above. The child giggled. The man’s black eyes stared from the far corner. The whispers crescendoed into screams, laughter, pleading.
I felt myself lifted into the center of the room. The floor vanished beneath me. I floated, weightless, surrounded by shadows, faces pressed against mine, mouths open in silent terror.
The woman held a lantern. Its green light bathed the room, illuminating hundreds of figures I hadn’t noticed before—trapped, twisted, staring at me.
“You checked in,” the child said. “And now…”
The whispers became my voice, my thoughts. “Stay… stay… stay…”
Everything collapsed. My body dissolved into shadow, into the green light. The room spun, stretching, twisting, swallowing me entirely.
I woke outside the inn at dawn. The door to the room above was closed. The innkeeper was nowhere in sight. The building looked perfectly normal now. No green light. No shadows. No whispers.
But on my hand, a faint mark burned—a small symbol, etched into my skin as if branded:
7
I knew, even then, I had not left. That room, that inn, was waiting. And when the night comes again, it would call.
And next time, I wouldn’t escape.