The Last Room
Subtitle: Some doors should never be opened.
---
The hallway stretched on longer than it should have. Ahmad felt it the moment he stepped into the corridor—an unnatural stillness, like the air had been holding its breath for years. He was only supposed to inspect the old dormitory building before it was demolished. A favor for his uncle, who ran the property firm handling the clearance. Simple. Quick. In and out.
He didn't expect to feel watched.
Dust clung to the air like cobwebs, disturbed only by the soft creak of his footsteps on the warped wooden floor. The rooms on either side of him were empty—he’d checked them all. Room 201 through 218. All identical. All decaying.
Except one.
Room 219. The last room.
It wasn’t on the blueprint. Ahmad had checked twice. The hallway was supposed to end at 218, but here stood another door. Older than the others, with paint that had long since peeled away, revealing raw, splintered wood beneath. The number “219” was scrawled in uneven handwriting above the peephole.
Ahmad frowned. “What the hell?”
He reached for the knob. Cold. Unnaturally cold. The kind of cold that doesn’t come from bad insulation but from something deeper—like the chill of standing over an open grave. He hesitated. Then turned it.
The door creaked open with a groan, revealing a room that shouldn’t exist.
It was small—barely more than a closet—but unlike the other rooms, this one was clean. Untouched. No dust, no decay. A single bed was tucked against the wall, made perfectly. A desk sat beneath the window, with a chair neatly pushed in. Everything in place, like someone had just stepped out for a moment and would return any second.
Ahmad stepped inside. The air changed the moment he crossed the threshold. Heavy. Oppressive. His ears popped, and the silence that followed was absolute. No wind. No creaking floorboards. Not even the distant hum of the city. Just... nothing.
He turned to leave.
The door was gone.
Panic surged. Ahmad spun around. The walls were still there. The bed. The desk. But where the door had been, there was only more wall—seamless and solid.
He banged his fists against it. “Hello?! Anybody?!”
Silence answered.
And then, the whispers began.
They came from the corners of the room, soft and slithering, like silk sliding across his skin. At first, he thought they were in his head. But they grew louder, more distinct, until he could make out words.
“...He opened it...”
“...the last one...”
“...he shouldn’t be here...”
Ahmad backed away, heart hammering. “What is this? What is this place?”
The whispers quieted. And then, a knock—three slow, deliberate raps on the far wall.
He stared at it. There was no door there. No window. Just cracked plaster. But the knocking came again. And then the wall began to bleed.
A thin line of red leaked down from the ceiling, forming a vertical crack. Ahmad stumbled back as it spread, widening into a jagged split. The wall peeled open like skin, revealing darkness beyond.
A shape moved inside.
He couldn’t make out its form—only that it was tall, impossibly tall, and wrong in every proportion. Limbs where they shouldn’t be. Eyes that didn’t blink. It stepped forward, and the room dimmed, shadows trembling like leaves in a storm.
Ahmad turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. The room had no corners now, no ceiling—just endless, shifting walls that pulsed like living flesh.
The creature spoke—not in sound, but in thought. Its voice pressed into his skull, ancient and cold.
“You opened the last door. You broke the seal.”
“I didn’t know!” Ahmad shouted. “I was just looking—I didn’t mean to—”
“Every choice has a price.”
The room was spinning, bending inward. Ahmad felt himself being pulled toward the center, the walls collapsing like a closing eye. He screamed, clutching at the air, at the floor, at anything—
And then, silence.
---
They found the building empty two days later. No sign of Ahmad. No trace he’d ever entered. The cameras had gone dead at exactly 3:19 p.m.—the moment he’d walked into the last hallway.
They demolished the dormitory the next week.
Room 219 was never found.
But sometimes, just sometimes, late at night, a flicker appears on the blueprint. A room that wasn’t there before.
The last room.
And a whisper that says:
“He opened it...”
“Some doors should never be opened.”
About the Creator
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