Room 313: Where the Dead Still Stay

Table of Contents

The Haunted Hotel: Check-in to Terror

The rain was relentless as Michael drove up the narrow mountain road, his windshield wipers barely keeping up. His GPS flickered uncertainly, then finally announced, “You have arrived at your destination.”

Before him stood the infamous Granger Hotel. Once a luxurious getaway in the 1920s, it had been shut down after a series of mysterious deaths. It had recently reopened under new ownership as a “historical experience.” Michael, a travel blogger specializing in paranormal tourism, was intrigued enough to check in for the weekend.

He stepped through the revolving doors. The lobby was dimly lit, with vintage chandeliers casting eerie shadows on the velvet wallpaper. A woman stood behind the front desk, pale and silent, her eyes too wide.

“Welcome to the Granger Hotel,” she said. “Checking in?”

“Yeah. Michael Thorne. I have a reservation,” he replied, wiping rain off his jacket.

She nodded, sliding a brass key across the counter. “Room 313. Please avoid the west wing after midnight.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Because…?”

“Old building. Strange noises,” she said, her tone flat. “Enjoy your stay.”

He took the key, glancing behind him as the lobby doors creaked shut on their own. With a shrug, he headed toward the creaky elevator. The ride up was silent—no music, no buzzing, just the occasional jolt.

Room 313 was colder than the hallway. The walls were painted blood-red, and the antique mirror above the dresser had a strange smear across it, almost like a handprint.

Michael set up his camera. “Alright, folks,” he said into the lens. “Spending the night in the Granger Hotel, room 313. Legend says this room was where a bride disappeared on her wedding night. Let’s see if the ghosts are real.”

As he unpacked, the lights flickered. Then came a knock at the door. He opened it to find no one. Just the dim hallway, stretching silent and empty.

He laughed nervously. “Classic haunted hotel stuff.”

Later that night, he reviewed his footage. Behind him in the mirror, a shadow had moved across the room. But he had been alone. Rewinding the tape made the figure more visible—a tall man in a suit, face obscured by static.

Suddenly, a scratching noise came from the closet.

“Hello?” Michael approached cautiously and opened it. Nothing inside but an old hotel uniform. He turned back—and froze. The mirror now reflected a different room entirely. One with bloodstained walls and a screaming woman running toward the glass.

Then the mirror shattered.

Michael jumped back, heart racing. The glass had not actually broken. It was intact. Was it a hallucination?

He grabbed his phone, but there was no signal. He stepped out into the hallway. A voice called faintly, “Help me…”

It came from the west wing.

Remembering the woman’s warning, he hesitated. Then curiosity won. He followed the voice, passing faded portraits whose eyes seemed to move. The hallway grew colder, darker. The wallpaper peeled away to reveal symbols—arcane, carved into the very wood beneath.

At the end of the corridor, a door slowly opened on its own. Inside, a ballroom, frozen in time. Ghostly figures danced in silence, unaware of his presence. Then all at once, they turned to look at him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” one of them said, a man with hollow eyes and a twisted grin.

Michael stumbled back. “What is this place?”

The man pointed to the chandelier above. “It began there. The fire. The betrayal.”

As if on cue, the chandelier ignited, flames spreading unnaturally fast across the walls. But Michael felt no heat. The flames were… spectral. Illusions. Or memories?

He turned and ran. The hallway had changed. Now it stretched endlessly, doors on either side opening and closing by themselves.

A child appeared in front of him. “They lied to you,” she said softly. “You didn’t check in. You were called.”

Michael shook his head. “No. I booked this. I came here by choice.”

The girl’s eyes darkened. “Did you?”

She disappeared. The lights went out.

In total darkness, he heard whispers: “Join us… remember… you belong…”

When the lights returned, he was no longer in the hallway. He stood in the hotel lobby again—but it was different. Dusty, cobwebbed, clearly abandoned for years.

The front desk was empty. The key to room 313 lay untouched. His car was gone. His phone was dead. The streets outside were covered in fog. And worst of all—his reflection was missing from the lobby mirror.

He turned as someone entered through the front doors. It was… him. Another Michael, dry and alert, dragging a suitcase.

“Hello?” the new Michael asked the receptionist—who now appeared behind the counter, smiling.

“Welcome to the Granger Hotel,” she said. “Room 313. Enjoy your stay.”

The original Michael screamed—but no one heard him. His voice echoed in silence. He turned and saw himself fade, becoming transparent.

Trapped.

From behind, a whisper brushed his ear: “Check-in is forever.”

Michael wandered the silent halls for what felt like days. Time stretched. Night never ended. Each door he opened revealed a different version of his own life: moments of guilt, regret, pain. A failed relationship. A brother he hadn’t visited in the hospital. Choices unmade. Words unsaid.

One room showed him crying at a funeral. Another, yelling at his mother. Another, quitting his job without warning, chasing something he couldn’t name.

In every room, the same whisper: “This is why you came.”

He began to question whether this hotel was truly haunted by others… or only by himself.

Eventually, he found the ballroom again—but this time, it was empty. At the center, a single chair facing away from him.

“Who are you?” he asked, approaching slowly.

The figure in the chair turned around. It was him. But older. Tired. Hollow-eyed.

“I stayed too long,” the other Michael said. “I kept searching for truth in illusions. Now, I’m part of it.”

“How do I get out?”

The older version gestured to a door that hadn’t been there before—black, tall, marked with a crimson X.

“If you’re ready to leave, you must remember what you tried to forget.”

Michael stared at the door. “What did I forget?”

The older version of him whispered, “That you died on the road. You never made it to the hotel.”

Everything stopped. The rooms, the echoes, the fog—all gone. He remembered the curve in the mountain road. The headlights. The flash. The crash.

He never survived the journey.

The hotel wasn’t real. It was a liminal space. A waystation for those in denial. A place for souls clinging to the idea they were still alive.

Michael wept, not from fear—but release.

He walked to the black door and placed his hand on it.

“Goodbye,” he said, both to the illusion and to the self that could not let go.

The door opened into blinding light.

And then… silence.

Back in the real world, a rescue team stood over the wreckage of a car at the bottom of the mountain. One of them glanced at the passenger seat and saw Michael’s camera, still recording. The screen flickered, showing static… then a faint image of a man walking through a glowing doorway.

“Weird,” the rescuer muttered. “Probably just a glitch.”

He turned it off.