Hey,
I stole this phone off some random dark elf guy. Now,I'm being chased by something. I'm hiding right now, shaking like a cheap knife in my room. It's not fair. I just wanted to be seen. Remembered. Maybe even teach a few couples that relationships are stupid and love gets you killed. I only work as a lower-tier slasher here at the hotel, and I need help—because I think we let the wrong guests book into our lovely safe haven.
Normally, we get your standard meat-socket types. Easy prey. Dumb. I once pissed in some guy's eye hole while his partner sobbed and begged me to stop. Classic. But ever since I swiped this dark elf guy's phone, I've been getting these chills that don't go away. Like something is watching me. Breathing down my neck. I think I saw eyes in the vent. They blinked. Then vanished.
This morning, I noticed a bruise on my neck—deep, dark, and shaped like a thumbprint. I don't remember anyone touching me. I tried to laugh it off until I looked in the mirror. My reflection was laughing too. Except... I wasn't. My mouth didn't move. But the one in the mirror grinned wider and wider like it knew something I didn't. Then it started breathing on the glass—fogging it up—and scrawled a name with one long, foggy finger: Nicky is coming.
Who the hell is Nicky?
I tried drowning out the fear by blasting music through my skullphones, but that didn't help. The static started singing my name—my real name. Then a whisper cut through, sweet and childlike: "Hush-a-bye slasher, blood on the sill, Eyes in the hallway, hands never still. Doorways are breathing, walls start to moan, Sleep if you dare—but not alone."
Every time I skip the track, the voice comes back, softer, closer. Then, just when I think it's done—something scratches down my leg. Sharp. Slow. Like a fingernail dipped in ice. And I swear I heard it hiss, right in my ear, "Bitch, you're mine."
We just got four new guests checked in—who will make the best meat-sockets. I am so jealous that the top rulers get to hunt them down.
I started to take out take pictures of the guests and started to put them in my scrape book. I wish I had pictures to show you it. The first is Abena, the influencer chick always posing with a dagger like it's part of her skincare routine. Then there's Valentín, her moody boyfriend who looks like he eats secret societies for breakfast. Mi Young, with crow feathers braided into her sleeves and a camera she keeps whispering to. And last? Michael. Big guy, looked like he wrestled tectonic plates for fun and maybe won. Just another influencer couple bringing their dumb college friends to our sacred hunting grounds. Ugh. I love college students.
But still... it couldn't be them doing this. Right? They just look dumb, loud, and oblivious. The usual clueless guests. It's not possible they're behind the voices, the dreams, the scratches. It couldn't be them. Especially not this fast. It's only been one day—barely enough time to unpack—and this has never happened before. Not like this. Not to me.
They have no clue what kind of place this is. None of them do. That's the best part. This hotel? It's not even a building—it's a virus. A rotting dimension seed we keep planting in random worlds. One night it's a mountain lodge. The next, it's a luxury penthouse behind an arcade prize counter. We've slipped it into back alleys, dark forests, abandoned malls—always feeding, always hunting.
And no one's the wiser. Especially not the Sonsters. Those glorified watch-dogs can barely keep up with their own pocket realms, let alone track us. Their whole 'universal scan grid' costs 60 blackholes to run and still can't tell when we're hosting a blood party in the break room. Losers.
Plus, the Sonsters? Tree-hugging, forest-sniffing, exotic-pet-hating hypocrites. They're so obsessed with balance and nature that they can't stand the idea of us repurposing their little beasts. We didn't even do much—just trained a few to clean up after guests, fetch knives, and if we get bored? Make them eat their own babies while we watch. What, are we not allowed to have entertainment during the off-season?
But it's the Hashers you gotta watch out for. Yeah. Those. The ones with glowy tattoos and dead eyes. They ruin our fun every damn time. I'm honestly shocked we've stayed under their radar this long. We made a few mistakes—like the race car incident. Got a little too literal with the phrase 'getting under people's skin.' The bosses covered that one up quick.
We were just trying to see if we could push the guests far enough—see how much pain, how much distance, it takes before they snap. Turns out? Not much. But the Hashers? They still didn't notice, and the news chopped it up as magical suicide. Our bosses must have pulled some strings for this family.
Anyway, I keep hearing whispers in the drywall. Clicking behind the outlets. My closet door? It keeps opening. Not swinging open. Just... slow. Inch by inch. Like something inside wants to see how long I'll pretend not to notice. I tried stacking chairs against it. They're gone now. Just vanished.
And I keep thinking—what if this "Nicky" is some new ghost the bosses brought in? I wanted to say something, I really did—but no one's listening to me anymore. I thought about calling the Ghost Talker, but we killed the last one after he tried setting a few spirits free. His tongue kept wiggling for hours after we chopped it out. We left it in the vending machine as a joke.
The ghosts we've kidnapped so far? Pathetic. Sad little leftovers clinging to bad memories and worse moans. We should've tortured them more—let them rot into real monsters. They fell for this setup like fools. Who signs up for family-friendly haunting, anyway? Maybe that's all they're good for now that we've broken them in.
Still... something's wrong.
I've started taking naps throughout the day—not because I'm tired, but because I can't stay awake without unraveling. That's when she shows up. The woman. Her face shifts each time I see her, like she's wearing skin that doesn't fit. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes bone—always staring.
Her face is never the same—sometimes soft as candlelight, sometimes hollow as bone. But the eyes… the eyes never change. They're the kind a mother uses when her child's been caught lying. Forgiving. Patient. Like she's been waiting for me to come home.
At first, she only stood in the corner, hands folded, watching. I told myself she wasn't real. That she'd fade. Instead, she began speaking in that low, coaxing voice—warm as a blanket pulled over your shoulders in the dark. She calls me sweet one. She tells me she understands. That she's proud of me. That everything I've done—the screams, the slicing, the beautiful red messes—was just me learning how to take care of people.
Now, when she leans close, I can feel her breath in my ear, damp and smelling faintly of milk gone just a little sour. She hums lullabies I've never heard but somehow know the words to.
She says my victims aren't angry. They're just lonely. They miss me. And she's going to let them in, so we can all be a family again.
She promises it won't hurt. Not much. And when I tell her ghosts can't touch me, her smile widens just enough to show a hint of bone."Oh, darling," she says, stroking my hair, "You're mine. And my children can always touch what's mine."
I told myself it wasn't real. It couldn't be. They're ghosts. We own their souls. They can't haunt us—we're the ones who made them ghosts.
But she says otherwise.
Worse, I've started seeing them—every single one.
Not just the faces I carved or burned or broke, but the exact moments I did it, replaying in the corners of my dreams like rotting film on a broken reel.
There's the man whose ribs I pried open with a corkscrew—his chest blooms over and over, each crack sounding wetter than the last. The woman I drowned in her own bathtub—her mouth spilling bathwater and teeth in slow motion, sinking, rising, sinking again. The boy who begged me to stop as I peeled the skin from his hand—he smiles now, skin folding back like it's a game we play every night.
They never blink. Not once. They just… look at me, pupils dilated until their eyes are nothing but dark holes swallowing the light. And they smile—wide, knowing, mother's proud smiles. The kind you give a child when they've done exactly what you wanted.
Each time, the loop resets. And each time, they step a little closer.
I've been trying to stay awake. Gods, I've been trying.
Lately, my eyelids feel like they've been weighted, sewn with sand. No matter how much coffee I choke down, no matter how many times I slap myself, I keep drifting. And every time I drift, I end up there.
Her place.
Warm like fever, walls breathing, floor pulsing under my feet like I'm walking on her heartbeat. She never rushes. Just stands in the corner, humming that tune that makes the air in my lungs turn heavy. She waits for me to notice her. I always do.
So I fight it. I stay awake. Or I try.
We were supposed to be working this stretch—prepping rooms, sharpening knives, checking the illusions for cracks. My coworkers joked about pulling an all-nighter, but my hands were already shaking. The lights in the hall seemed too dim, too slow. And every time I blinked, the walls looked different.
Then it happened.
One second, I'm buffing a blade beside Marlo. The next, the steel in my hand is slick with blood, and Marlo's chest is splitting open like a zipper. He doesn't scream. Just looks at me and says, "Why didn't you stop this?" I can't answer. I can't even drop the knife.
Tay's voice cuts through the air—shouting my name—until her mouth tears into a second grin, higher on her cheek, both sets of teeth chattering out my name. I try to back away, but my legs are heavy, like I'm still in bed.
She's behind me. I feel her breath at my ear, warm and damp. Her hands cover my eyes—not to hide anything, but to hold them open. She wants me to see. And I do. Every moment. Every cut. Every smile that isn't theirs.
I tell myself, Don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep. I say it out loud.
And then—her blade? her nail? her thought?—slits my throat.
I blink.
The room is clean. Everyone's alive. Marlo's laughing about something I didn't hear. Tay is bent over polishing a knife. The blood is gone.
I blink.
The room is clean. Everyone's alive. Marlo's laughing about something I didn't hear. Tay is bent over polishing a knife. The blood is gone.
Except… my hand's on the wall. I don't remember putting it there.
It's wet. Sticky. My fingertips sink in just enough to feel something shift inside—like the wall's skin is breathing under mine. When I pull back, it clings, stretching in fine, quivering threads before snapping with a faint pop.
Ectoplasm.
It should smell like rot, like mildew in a sealed coffin. But it doesn't. It smells sharp—copper-heavy, like hot iron fresh out of a vein. I can almost taste it just from breathing.
I glance at my coworkers. No one's bleeding. No cuts, no torn clothes. Marlo's still smiling, teeth too white under the kitchen light. Tay's still working, her motions calm, precise. No one notices me. No one notices the streaks it left down the wall, already sliding toward the floor like it's following gravity in slow motion.
I rub my fingers against my thigh to get it off. It only spreads, sinking into my skin until it feels like I'm wearing it under the surface. It's warm there. Comforting, almost.
And gods—I'm so tired.
My body feels heavier by the second. My head buzzes like it's filling with warm static. I keep thinking… maybe if I just close my eyes for a little while, I'll feel better. Maybe I'll get stronger if I sleep. She told me that once, didn't she? That her children are strongest after a good, deep sleep. That she could keep watch while I rest.
My eyes keep burning. My knees want to fold. I can see her in the corner of my vision now, head tilted, smiling like a mother watching her child fight to stay awake in class. She's patient. She knows I'll give in.
And maybe she's right.
Maybe I should.
But that doesn't matter.
I'm in my room now.
It's supposed to be safe. Ward-proofed. Reinforced. I paid for charms, for layers, for walls that hum with protection when you touch them. But the hum is gone. The air is still.
Maybe it's enough to save me from her.
Maybe not.
I tell myself if I just stay awake, she can't touch me. But my eyelids feel like lead plates, and every second I fight it, her voice in my head grows sweeter.
"Close your eyes, sweet one. You'll be stronger when you wake."
Wait—do you hear that? That song.
It's faint at first, like a radio buried under the floorboards.
I know you hear it.
I'm not crazy. I'm not.
I'm going to be the best slasher this place has ever seen. That's what I keep telling myself, over and over, until it doesn't sound like my voice anymore.
…Wait.
Is that our guests? The influencer couple—Abena and Valentín?
Why am I still texting? I'm lying down. I can feel the bed under me, springs pressing into my back. My head sinks deeper into the pillow. My hands, though—my hands won't stop moving. The screen glows in the dark, painting my skin bone-pale. I'm not typing. I'm watching.
And now there's a man. He rolls something into the room—a wheel taller than me, its rim studded with jagged little teeth. My coworkers' faces are pinned to each wedge like prizes at a carnival that should have been condemned. They're whispering. No, chanting. I lean in, straining to catch the words, and suddenly—
I'm in the hallway.
I didn't move. I didn't blink.
I'm safe now, right?
They make me spin the wheel. It clacks as it turns, the faces blurring, mouths stretching into shapes they shouldn't have. It stops. My wedge says LIVE. The others sigh in disappointment, the sound wet and gurgling.
They said I survived. But if I survived… why am I still here?
A figure watches me from the far end. The couple—Abena and Valentín—are there too, kissing lazily like none of this is happening.
The figure begins to move. It doesn't walk. It arrives, the space between us shortening in jerks, like a film reel winding backward. Its hands—too many, ending in stumps, hooks, twitching fingers—reach without reaching, and my skin peels in my mind before it even touches me. I can feel it, slow and crawling, stripping my nerves bare, one at a time.
I want to run. I don't. My feet don't exist here.
Then—more people come. All the ones I've ever hurt.
They replay everything I did to them—exactly—except now I'm the one on the floor. My limbs are theirs to snap. My skin is their canvas. They whisper my own words back to me—every taunt, every cruel joke—like a choir tuned to my shame.
It's not just me. My coworkers are strung up beside me, gutted and gasping. One is sewn into a slasher suit, stitched from the skin of her victims. Another kneels at a table, being fed their own fingers like hors d'oeuvres. The figure in the center pulses like a heartbeat, jerking closer and closer, folding and unfolding itself in ways the body isn't supposed to.
I try to scream but it gets lost under the sound of laughter.
Their laughter.
My laughter.
We were the best. Me and my family—we were the best.
Now she has more of us, our souls wired into carnival games. One is fused to the ring toss, each ring a loop of their own severed fingers. Another bobs in a dunk tank where the water screams in their voice every time a ball hits the target. Their mouths are sewn open, stuck in a perfect loop of laughter and begging, like toys that only know how to cry.
And me? My hands won't stop. The phone is still in them. Still glowing. Still recording. It's not me typing anymore—it's her.
She wants this kept.
She wants this known.
They can't do this. They shouldn't be able to—
I don't want to be—
Hello, dear reader…
It's Nicky again.
I'm so sorry this little slasher got hold of the posting, but I do hope you enjoyed seeing the inside of their head. Keep an eye out for Raven's post—she's been working very hard.