The clock ticked with a hollow echo inside Room Number 7. It was 3:07 AM. A quiet, cold hour when even ghosts hesitate to roam. But not tonight.
Detective Nolan sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the wall where the number 7 had been etched in crimson. It hadn't been there the night before.
He hadn't planned to return to this cursed place. No sane man would. But something — no, someone — had pulled him back.
He lit a cigarette with a shaking hand, exhaled slowly, and tried to ignore the soft creak coming from the hallway. The room was supposed to be empty. The hotel itself had been shut down since the last investigation — the missing girl, the blood trail, the whispers behind the walls.
And yet… there it was again.
Creak.
Step.
Silence.
Step.
He grabbed his flashlight, reached for his old revolver — still cold from the night air — and moved to the door. Slowly. Quietly. The hallway outside was cloaked in shadows, stretching endlessly in both directions like a dream that refused to end.
But Room Number 7 wasn't in a dream. It was a nightmare trying to wake up.
Then he saw her.
At the far end of the hallway stood a woman, barefoot, soaked in rainwater despite the dry weather. Her head was tilted unnaturally to one side, long black hair clinging to her cheeks, and her eyes... her eyes glowed faintly. Not from reflection. From within.
Nolan froze. His pulse quickened. His brain screamed to run, but his body stood rooted in place.
The woman raised one trembling hand and pointed toward Room 7. She didn't speak. She just... smiled.
He blinked.
She was gone.
The hallway returned to silence, broken only by the distant hum of power still running in a building that should have been dead.
Back in the room, the walls had changed.
The wallpaper had peeled in long vertical lines, exposing cryptic symbols beneath — ancient markings that hadn't been there before. Nolan ran his hand along the largest one. A circle within a triangle. Inside the circle was an eye.
He had seen that symbol before.
Back in 1999. During the ritual killings on the South Pier. The same symbol carved into the victims' palms. The same hour — 3:07 AM. The hour when the veil was thin.
He turned to grab his notebook. But something had been written on the wall in his absence.
"You were never supposed to leave."
His flashlight flickered. The door slammed shut.
The room felt smaller. The walls closer. The light colder.
Then came the knock.
Not from the hallway.
From inside the wardrobe.