The Dripping Ceiling

Duncan stiffened at Gideon's harsh warning. "But..."

"Here, when it is time to rest at night, you cannot turn on the lights. You do not need to know why. I said no, and that is final." Gideon kept his voice in a low, sharp hiss.

Gideon had never spoken to him with such firm authority before. His refusal to explain the rule only worsened Duncan's panic. The fear of the unknown clawed at his chest, making it hard to breathe. Duncan remembered he had switched off the porch light before stepping inside the room. But why did he feel this overwhelming dread? He stared at the faint, eerie glow creeping through the door crack from the outside. That same electrifying terror washed over his skin, raising the hairs on his arms.

Seeking comfort in the oppressive darkness, Duncan asked to share Gideon's bed. "I am not scared. Your room is just cold and smells awful."

Gideon inhaled through his nose. The foul stench in his own room had indeed grown stronger over the past few hours. Blessed with a sensitive sense of smell, moving away from the source seemed like a smart choice. He allowed Duncan to crawl into the small bed. The two of them squeezed onto the mattress, lying back to back. Sleep remained an impossible task after the horrors of the night. They stayed silent, leaning on each other for warmth and reassurance, listening to the rain outside. They waited until a pale grey light finally touched the window. It was dawn.

Duncan forced his bloodshot eyes open. He squinted at the sky outside to guess the hour, but the storm raged on, painting the world in a dreary, wet gray.

Gideon pushed himself up from the mattress and checked his wristwatch. The metal hands were frozen in place. He had pieced the pattern together. Time flowed normally only within the safety of the hotel. The moment they entered these mechanical, twisted task worlds, every clock stopped ticking. The supernatural enforcement of the rules meant time did not pass here. They were trapped in a stagnant nightmare. It was a bizarre, unnatural reality.

Shaking his head to clear the lingering exhaustion, Gideon marched into his room. He needed to investigate the strange dripping sound from the previous night. Using the dim morning light spilling from the windowsill, he crouched next to the dark puddle on the floorboards. He swiped two fingers across the thick substance and brought them close to his nose.

The sickening stench of a rotting corpse hit him.

His brows knotted together, and his stomach lurched. Duncan trailed behind him and leaned in to sniff the puddle out of morbid curiosity.

"Ugh!"

The pungent smell of decay hit Duncan like a physical blow. He stumbled into the bathroom, fell to his knees, and threw up into the toilet bowl.

He gasped for air, his chest heaving, and retched again until nothing but sour bile came out. "Fuck! It is corpse oil. Why the hell is there corpse oil in here!"

"You can tell?" Gideon raised an eyebrow.

"There are plenty of corpses rotting in the woods back home, but I always kept my nose covered. This direct hit is way too much." Duncan groaned, wrapping his arms around the cold porcelain bowl.

Gideon stood up and studied the ceiling. The seepage mark, which had been a narrow line yesterday, had bloomed into a wide, dark cloud the size of a basketball. The foul liquid dripping into their room was human corpse oil. What horror was waiting for them on the floor above?

Just as Gideon scrubbed his hands raw in the bathroom sink, a piercing scream shattered the quiet morning. It came from upstairs.

Something had gone wrong.

Both men sprinted out of the room and took the stairs two at a time. The moment their boots hit the wooden steps of the second floor, a metallic, nauseating scent of blood assaulted them. The smell thickened and turned suffocating with every step they took toward the upper floor.

At the top of the landing, a massive, dark red pool stained the floorboards.

Three girls huddled together in the corner, shaking and crying. Edgar leaned against his own doorframe, his face pale and exhausted.

"What happened?" Gideon demanded.

The four of them looked up, their eyes wide with unadulterated terror, as if they had witnessed hell itself. Haley raised a trembling hand. Tears and sweat streamed down her cheeks as she pointed a shaking finger toward Chloe's bedroom.

Gideon lowered his gaze. A thick, gruesome trail of blood oozed from beneath Chloe's door, creeping into the hallway and feeding the massive pool at their feet.

He stepped forward, his heart pounding in his chest, and reached out to grab the brass handle. He needed to discover what lay inside.

A hand clamped down on his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. Gideon looked up and locked eyes with Edgar.

"Are you sure you want to open the door?" Edgar asked, his voice dead and chilling.