"Rosewood Inn," by Grace Teixeira

9:47 pm. Tuesday night. I check in at Rosewood Inn, alone. As I walk in, I feel watched, yet no one's around. The receptionist creeps up from behind me and goes behind the desk. She smiles warmly but something feels off. She asks what she can do for me and I respond “May I get a room please.” She hands me a key card “Room 19”, she says calmly. I hand her 80 dollars and walk away with my suitcase following after me. I look behind me while walking away and she's vanished. 

I head into the old elevator, the old ones with the metal sliding gate doors. I press floor 2 and close the gate. The gate slowly and I feel a creak and hum while going up. I go on my phone and notice I have no service but don't worry too much about it. I get to my floor and open the gate. I take a left and follow the numbers leading up to 19. I think about how I haven't seen one person except the odd receptionist. The hallway is covered in a rug that's a deep gray color with a rough texture with stains all over it. 

All I hear is silence. I am almost in room 19 until I hear a high pitched voice whispering my name.  “Ashley.” I look around me and see nothing. I get freaked out so I walk faster to my room and remember I threw the key card in my purse because I was in a rush to get out of that conversation with the weird receptionist so now I have to search for it. I frantically look for my key card and 3 minutes pass. I finally find the key card. I open the door and get a huge whiff of an awful scent I've never smelled before. I close the door behind me and put all the locks on. I walk past the closet and bathroom and look straight at the bed. Suddenly the smell is gone, I look at the freshly made sheets and freshly fluffed pillows, I unfold them and find tiny blood stains and find dark spots of spilled coffee. I try to find replacement sheets in the closet but can't find them anywhere. I go towards the phone and press the front desk. Ring…Ring…Ring… Someone picks up, not the same receptionist, but I recognize the voice. 

I request a new room explaining how the bed is filthy and how the room smells rotten when you walk in. There is silence until the person chuckles lightly. They say “There is one more room left, room 4. Come back down to get your key.” I answer “Okay thank you, I'll be down in a few minutes.” I grab my stuff while still plugging my nose from the awful smell and walk out of the room as fast as I can. I go down the long hallway and I question why he laughed when I said the room was horrible. I get in the elevator and close the gate. I realize that when I'm halfway down to floor 1, it jolts and just stops. I don't worry too much because I know it's old so I jump as my first instinct. Bad decision. 

I try to go on Google and search up their hotel website to find a number I could call but nothing shows. I start worrying a little bit since the elevator is tiny and stuck and I can't find the website. I believe it's just bad service. I remember the emergency call button so I press it and wait a few seconds, then I get a hold of the receptionist, she says “I will send someone over, don't worry this happens often.” I wait 5 minutes and hear someone helping the door open and I thank them while walking out of the elevator rolling my suitcase. I get to the front desk again and explain that I need a new room and I talked to someone through the phone in Room 19. We exchanged keys and I walked away. I decide to take the stairs 2 flights up to the second floor and when I'm finally up there, I walked right and saw room 4. I swipe my key card and open the door to the room smelling perfectly and everything is in order. I put my purse and suitcase down and head toward the bathroom to brush my teeth. 

Next morning, my checkout is at 11 am so I wake up at 8:45 am to go downstairs to get some complimentary breakfast and while I'm heading downstairs, I finally see a mother and two children. I felt relieved since I hadn’t seen anyone but it was around 10 pm when I checked in so I'm sure nobody was up. I eat a small waffle and some bacon. It was kind of gross but It’s better than nothing since I hadn’t eaten since 4 pm yesterday. I throw out my empty plate and go back upstairs to change my clothes and catch my flight at 2:30 pm.

After I finished getting myself ready, it was around 10:55 am so I rolled my suitcase down the stairs because I didn't want to take that creepy broken elevator again. It's 10:59 now so I have just enough time to catch my flight. I return my key at the front desk and sit on a chair inside waiting for my 121.80 dollar uber. After leaving the hotel and arriving at the airport, I board my plane with no difficulties and while sitting down in my aisle seat, the person makes conversation with me, “visiting?” she asks, I respond “Yeah I was visiting, I was selling my family’s old house and nobody in my family had time to look over it so here I am.” She smiles at me while I speak and asks where I stayed. “It's pretty far from here but I stayed at Rosewood Inn” I say. She responds with “I know Kentucky front and back, Rosewood Inn isn't in Kentucky? Are you sure you stayed there?” I thought to myself how this is possible if I stayed there? I responded to the lady saying “Maybe I'm thinking of a different place..” I stop answering her and the rest of the flight back to New York is silent. If Rosewood Inn isn't real, where did I stay last night?