Chapter 3 - The Broken Tile
The shift started like any other, but the air felt heavy, charged with an unspoken tension. Clara was assigned to clean the old staff locker rooms in the deep basement—a damp, decaying labyrinth of concrete corridors that had been largely abandoned since the new wing was built. The lighting here was poor, flickering violently and casting long, dancing shadows on the cracked white tiles.
As she scrubbed the grimy walls of a disused shower stall, Clara noticed a hairline fracture in one of the tiles. It was wider than the others, oozing a dark, viscous substance that did not smell like rust or muddy water. It smelled metallic.
It smelled like fresh blood.
Her heart hammering against her ribs, Clara reached out with her gloved hand. She was wearing her bright yellow rubber cleaning gloves, the synthetic scent of latex filling her nostrils. She tapped the tile. It was loose.
With trembling fingers, she wedged her fingernails into the crack and pried the tile forward. It broke away with a sharp crack, crumbling into dusty fragments on the wet floor.
Behind the tile, nestled in a hollowed-out cavity in the concrete wall, was a tightly crumpled, blood-stained piece of white paper.
Clara's breath caught in her throat. She looked over her shoulder, her eyes darting to the dark doorway of the bathroom. The basement was silent save for the rhythmic, echoing drip of a leaky faucet.
Slowly, carefully, she pulled the paper out. She unfolded it, her yellow-gloved hands shaking so violently she nearly dropped it.
Written in desperate, erratic print, smeared with dark, dried blood, were the words:
I'm in Room 304. Help me!
May you like
Clara gasped, dropping the broken tile fragments. Her eyes stared at the handwriting. It was frantic, but the sweeping curves of the letters were hauntingly familiar. It was the handwriting of Sarah—a young receptionist who had vanished from the hotel three weeks ago, whom Julian had claimed resigned suddenly to move back to her home country.
She hadn't resigned. She was still here. Trapped.
