So, another day, another laughably poor attempt at emulating Jessie Diaz? Great.

The first step to perpetuating such an illusion is to put myself in the right place; exactly where she would be at a time like this, a few days before her next scheduled appearance on XWF television. So, that explains why I’m currently waiting at the front desk of some run down motel in the middle of scenic fucking nowhere and to a lesser, partial extent it’s why I’m also high as a fucking kite right now. That, and the fact that while high I’m both much more rational and much more batshit insane.

“Ah, yes. Your room is eight, at the end of the hall,” says the shifty looking man behind the counter. His skin’s a pale gray, looking like he hasn’t gotten out in the sun this century and as he slides the key across the desk towards me I can see his hand shaking something awful. As his eyes glance lazily over to mine, I can see that they’re some pale blue/gray cross, glossed over with isolation induced madness. How I’m able to guess that is a shock to me too, and without making too much effort to think on that revelation any further than I already have, I snatch the key away and shove it into my jacket pocket, muttering something unintelligible under my breath.

As I turn to leave however, the man grabs me by the arm and clamps his hand around my elbow.

“Ma’am, if I may make a suggestion,” he starts with near breathlessness as I try to pull my arm away and stare daggers into his corneas.

“Go right ahead,” I hiss back at him, breaking eye contact for split seconds at a time only to blink. His hand loosens and I pull my arm so close to my side that I threaten elbowing my ribs in half and puncturing my lungs with them.

“Please, don’t open your closet.”

“Why not?” I ask, not because I’m not too broken up over being told not to use something I wasn’t going to use anyway but because if I wake up with a fucking cockroach on my face, I’m going to gut this fucking guy his disgusting, yellow fingernails. Or something a little more practical, like the knives Diaz isn’t normally allowed within a fifty foot radius of.

“You ever hear the story of Pandora’s Box, hun?”

“Yes. And don’t call me hun, you sound like a pedophile which wouldn’t come as a shock.”

“Anyway, it’s like that. Once you open it, you won’t be able to close everything back off and I can guarantee that you won’t like what you see.”


So, creepy old man spouting off prophetic conspiracy theories about something totally innocuous. Something so innocuous and indeed uninteresting that I would probably spend my entire stay at the hotel and not even know it exists. All of that gone now due to this lunatic’s ranting. Glorious. I turn away from the desk again, half expecting him to grab me by the arm again and make sure to really drive the point home which thankfully he doesn’t do. Because my exit attempt wasn’t cut short I take off down the hall, keeping in a perpetual squint as I pass by the series of doors extending from the hall beyond the desk. The flickering light from the fluorescent bulbs hanging overhead doesn’t do much to help as it hinders my eyes from being able to properly adjust to either darkness or faint light.

Finally, I make it to the end of the hall and run headfirst into the wood paneled wall that signified it. Holding my head, I turn slowly on one heel until I’m facing the tattered, formerly off white but now stained with a yellow not unlike the one on both the receptionist’s teeth and nails. Through the faint light and my squinting, I make out the metal 8 hanging on the door has fallen from its original position, resembling an infinity symbol more than the number it is. Shakily, I pull the key out of my jacket pocket and jam it into the lock, fidgeting with it to get it to unlock the plaque stained mass of wood and rusted over metal. Finally, I turn the key all the way, and grabbing the cold door handle, turn it and push it open with my shoulder, stumbling over the threshold and almost falling face first on the carpetless, wooden floor in front of me.

“You won’t like what you see.”

That one little bit of the receptionist’s rant plays again in my head as I take a long, unblinking scan of the room in front of me. A horrid square monstrosity coated with tacky yellow wallpaper depicting some argyle pattern that was almost enough to make my pupils vomit. The sheets on the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room, have the same type of pattern though of a different color and sure enough in the corner of the room was a door that led into what I presumed to be the closet.

Now, not like a normal hotel where the door to the closet would either be some mirror, sliding door combination or double doors. No, just a regular old door, just like the one leading into the room.

I yawn, covering my mouth with my hand. What little desire I had to get my stuff out of my car is dashed completely by the sudden bout of intense tiredness washing over me. With another yawn, I stumble blinking over to the back-center of the room where the bed is, tripping over my own feet more than a handful of times. The last one; I fall onto the bed and pull the covers up over my body. Within seconds thereafter, I drift off into the land of sleep peacefully, not once thinking or giving credibility to the closet.

That is until I’m woken by the whispering, pleading voices coming from behind the walls.

“Help...me...please...please...help...me…”

Over and over again, repeating until it finally snaps me out of some dream where I’m not being forced to impersonate a whackjob professional wrestler to appease someone who’s wrecked my life. Sighing and muttering every profanity under the sun, I throw the covers off me and pull myself out of the bed, rubbing my eyes. The voice, coming from the side of the wall that just so happened to be the one that the closet is on. Perfect.

“Help...me…”

“Alright, alright just shut up already!” I scream at the nigh top of my lungs, or at least I would if it weren’t for the whatever caught in my throat that instead forces me to say it in a warbly mess of groaning nonsense.

And silence. Silence following me telling the source of the noise to shut up. I wish this would happen more often.

Half awake and struggling to keep myself just coordinated enough to not fall and break my everything on the floor but still uncoordinated enough so that I don’t actually end up looking too competent to actually be Diaz because obviously someone’s watching me stumble around a pitch black room, I start to make my way over to the closet door. On any normal day when I’m supposed to be any normal person, I wouldn’t even think to appease the whispering voice from beyond the plane of visibility but right now I’m not only just thinking about it, I’m doing it without question.

Whatever advice I was given by the receptionist be damned! What could possibly be behind there that’s so terrifying and horrible that it should never be released lest all mankind be turned to dust with fright in its presence.

Feeling my way along the wall, I stop just as the tips of fingers collide with the doorframe of the closet. With a deep breath, and some wild, spastic flails of my arm later, I grab onto the door handle and pull it open slowly.

Now, what do I see on the other side? What was the huge, monstrous secret that this hotel had?

On the other side of the door, is my room.

Room 8.

Or, as it looked on the door:

Room ∞.