Canvas

Hotel Diablos

The Golden Canvas Expo. The pinnacle of artistic achievement. The place where great work was recognized. Aric gripped the invitation tightly, his pulse raced with excitement. Nine years... nine years waiting for this chance. "It's my turn now. My masterpiece will be the talk of the exhibition. No more rejection. No more failure.”

He strode down the street, the world around him buzzing with anticipation, the sun dipping below the horizon. “Find the hotel... Check-in, settle in, and prepare.” The name gleamed in his mind like a beacon: Hotel Diablos. It was known to have been an exclusive retreat for Golden Era Hollywood Stars and Celebrity Artists. A hotel for the elite.

Aric knew he did not look like someone who ran in elite circles. His clothes clung to his body, damp with sweat. His shoes were worn and scuffed, mismatched even, but that did not matter. The others would not care. Not when they see what I will make. He had not felt this excited in years. “I am ready. This time, I will show them.”

The hotel was in the California mountains, Aric had arrived early evening just as the sun was setting. The exterior façade reminded him of The Addams Family home. A gothic exterior that even in the setting sun, every intricate detail of the spires and gargoyles painstakingly crafted, could still be seen clearly. The iron-framed windows gleamed, reflecting the soft glow of the street lamps.

The hotel’s name, engraved above the entrance, was polished to a shine, the gold lettering catching the light like a beacon in the dark. The entire building exuded elegance and timeless grandeur, inviting him in with an air of sophistication.

Aric headed inside. The grand lobby sprawled out before him, furnished with pristine, burgundy velvet chairs and dark mahogany tables, gleaming as if freshly polished. A magnificent crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting a warm, golden glow across the floor. The air was clean, and carried a faint hint of perfume, like fresh flowers set in an elegant vase somewhere nearby. Rotary phones sat on the reception desk, their brass gleamed as though they had just been wiped down, waiting to ring. The wallpaper was exquisite, with rich patterns that looked new, unfaded by time, and the wood-panelled walls were free from cracks or wear.

Room 88

As he reached the reception desk, a lady appeared out of a side room. She had a key in her hand already. “Good evening, Mr. Holloway. Your room is ready for you, third floor, room 88.” The lady placed the key down onto the desk and stood back.

Aric looked at her, a puzzled expression on his face. “I’m sorry, how did you know it was me?”

The Lady did not look at him when she replied. “You are the only one checking in today, Mr Holloway, you will find the stairs behind you to the right. The room has been set up according to your wishes.” With that, she disappeared back into the side room. Aric went to say something but decided against it, he picked up the key and headed for the stairs.

As he walked down the hall towards room 88, he noticed the floorboards did not creak, but rather whispered softly beneath his steps. Brass wall sconces lit the hallway evenly, illuminating the framed portraits of distinguished guests from different eras. Every door was adorned with polished brass numbers, their intricate designs adding to the hotel’s air of exclusivity and refinement. Everything appeared immaculate, well-preserved, and welcoming—exactly as a hotel of this prestige should be.

As Aric turned the key in the lock, the click as it unlocked seemed to echo around the hallway. He pushed the door open, the door gliding open as if it was waiting to receive him. Aric stepped into the room, pausing to admire its elegance. The floorboards gleamed as if freshly polished, reflecting the soft, warm glow from the sconces along the walls. In the centre of the room stood a grand antique easel, its mahogany frame shining under the light, as though waiting for him to begin. The paintings hung in neat rows along the walls, each one carefully covered with pristine white sheets that gave them an air of mystery. The room felt alive, humming with creative energy, as if centuries of artistic genius had seeped into its very walls.

Across from the easel stood a large, intricately framed mirror, its brass details catching the light and sparkling with a kind of timeless beauty. The reflection it cast showed a room in perfect order—no dust, no wear, everything in its place. In the corner, a rotary phone rested on a small table, its brass dial polished to a high sheen. The whole space felt like a haven for an artist, a sanctuary removed from time and the world outside.

Aric could feel a wave of excitement and anticipation building in his chest. This was it—this was the moment he had been waiting for. The room was immaculate, yet there was something... someone...missing.

The Unseen Hand

He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of his urge to create something monumental. He moved closer to the easel, his fingers brushing against the smooth wood. Then, with a steadying breath, he spoke softly into the still air.

"Are you there?” Aric said, his voice filled with expectation. "It is time."

Silence greeted him, but it did not bother him. He knew it was there, waiting. He had felt its presence for days, guiding his thoughts, urging him toward this moment. The air grew cooler, and he felt a shiver run down his spine.

"The Unseen Hand" he murmured, his eyes searched the room, "I’m ready to paint my masterpiece."

Aric turned around; the silence of the room was beginning to scratch at his eardrums. He found himself drawn to the mirror. Aric had not paid much attention to it before, but now, the mirror’s surface began to ripple, like water disturbed by an unseen force.

A dark figure pushed through the glass as though stepping through a veil. It was tall, unnaturally thin, its limbs elongated and draped in tattered, shadowy cloth. The figure’s face was obscured by a hood, save for two dim, ember-like eyes glowing beneath it. Its movements were fluid, unnerving, as it glided from the mirror toward Aric, the room growing colder with each step.

The figure’s voice was low and dripping with malice, its words more statement than question. "I have missed you, my friend.”

Aric froze, his heart hammering in his chest. The figure circled him slowly, its presence oppressive, the weight of its gaze forcing Aric’s breath to shallow.

"You’ve tried... and failed. You believe you have bled for your art, but you have not," The Unseen Hand continued, its voice a cruel rasp. "The pain of failure... it’s only the beginning. You want to be great? To be remembered? Greatness demands more. So much more."

The entity stopped in front of Aric, towering over him, its ember eyes burning into his soul. "The world has not yet taken enough from you. But... there’s still time. You can offer it what it demands. All you must do is paint. Will you allow me to help you on your journey to immortality?”

Aric nodded “Help me, my friend.”

The entity bowed and raised his head to look at Aric, he reached out his hand in which, a paintbrush materialized, thin but heavy, gleaming as though it were a blade. "So, we shall paint your suffering. We shall pour your agony onto the canvas. Only then will you understand the true cost of greatness."

Aric’s breath caught in his throat, the words curling around his mind like a vice. His hand trembled as The Unseen Hand pressed the brush into his palm. "You’ve held back for too long. Let go. Create. Show the world the pain it has not yet seen. Only then will it be enough."

Aric nodded in agreement. The Unseen Hand smiled and spoke quietly. “Then we shall begin.”

The Lesson

The room shifted, the walls closed in tighter, and the temperature plummeted. Aric felt a sharp pang of pain in his hand and a warm trickle of liquid run down his fingers. He looked down and saw the brush in his grip had split his palm open, the wooden handle was now jagged and sharp like a sawblade. A hiss escapes his lips as the pain spreads up his arm, but he cannot let go. His hand is glued to the brush, the bristles now dripping with thick, red paint—his own blood.

"Look at you, Aric. A man who has spent his life chasing dreams that were never within your grasp. How long have you clung to this delusion that you are an artist? A creator? Pathetic. Your hands have always been too weak to carve anything of substance from the world around you. And deep down, you know it—don’t you?"

A canvas appeared before him, blank and demanding. Every muscle in his arm burned as he moved the brush, the strokes uneven and desperate. The more he painted, the more his hand burns as deep, jagged cuts form along his palm and fingers, slowly moving up towards his arms as though every stroke is demanding a piece of himself. He could sense the room pulsating with an unholy energy, feeding off his agony.

"Do you remember what your father used to say? That you would never make it, never be more than a failure? He was not wrong, was he? No. He saw the truth before you did. You do not belong in this world of brilliance and genius—you have never belonged. And yet, here you are. Struggling. Straining. Failing. Over and over."

Aric remembered the argument; his dad came home from the bar and had decided to lecture him once again on his ‘life decisions.’ He rambled on about how Aric never finished a painting. He started them sure, but always lost the motivation to continue, his dad often gleefully reminding him that was the reason he would never make it as an ‘artist.’ He did not have the drive to, did not have the intense pain or sadness in his life to draw inspiration from. He was just a washed-up slacker from Mississippi who played pretend.

Aric remembered swallowing the urge to hit him. Instead, he left and never looked back. With each stroke, memories of every rejection flood his mind. Critics’ harsh words echo, amplifying his shame, his despair. His chest tightened. He gasped for air. His lungs turning heavy, as though filling with oil paint, thick and suffocating. His pulse hammered in his ears, and finally he felt his heart straining under the weight of the anguish, as if the act of painting was tearing him apart from the inside.

The Unseen Hand moves closer to Aric and began to laugh softly. "Failure... it’s all you’ve ever known, Aric.” With those words, the white sheets fell away from the walls, revealing all of Aric’s unfinished ‘Masterpieces.”

Every brushstroke, every colour on that canvas—dripping with your inadequacy. But failure alone isn’t enough, is it? No, true greatness demands suffering. Your father understood that, though he did not think you had the strength for it. And he was right. Because you—you are nothing without the pain. Without agony, you wouldn’t even have a voice."

Aric tried to speak back but his voice no longer obeyed him. The Unseen Hand grabbed his top and ripped it off him, the cold room stung his skin. "You’ve always run from pain, Aric." the voice of The Unseen Hand whispered softly in his ear. "But true art—true greatness—can only be born from agony. Every brushstroke you have made until now has been hollow, lifeless. You lack the fire. And now, I’ll show you what it means to truly suffer!"

With deliberate slowness, the entity reached out, fingers like icy talons, and began to peel strips of Aric’s skin away. His flesh quivered, raw muscle exposed to the biting air sent daggers of pain through his nerves. Aric’s screams tore through the room, yet The Unseen Hand only laughed, its sadistic glee palpable. "This is the price of brilliance," it whispered, voice dripping with cruelty. "This is the sacrifice every artist must make. You think you have known pain? No, Aric. This is your awakening. Every scream, every shred of your being will fuel the masterpiece. Now embrace it!"

Aric watched through tear clouded eyes as blood ran down his arms, one ran into the brush, where it was absorbed with hunger into the stained wooden handle, feeding it so it could continue to paint Aric’s pain onto the canvas.

He looked down, to see the other stream of blood was pooling at his feet. His skin started to turn pale as his essence was drained, but the canvas still demanded more. The brush moved faster, feverishly, carving deeper into his flesh as The Unseen Hand peeled away more skin.

He tried to stop, but the room would not allow it. Every attempt to pause or pull away tightened the grip of the invisible force controlling his brush hand with the air beginning to smell of iron and turpentine.

The canvas had started to take shape—a dark, grotesque masterpiece. A figure was forming in the painting, something twisted and gnarled, staring back at him with empty, hollow eyes. It was him—but not him. The figure sneering, its face a mockery of everything Aric ever hoped to be. Blood smears the canvas, blending with the paint until the two are indistinguishable.

The Unseen Hand peeled two large strips of skin off Aric’s back, converging in a V-shape down his spine. Aric’s breath caught in his throat as the sharp pain screamed throughout his spinal nerves, his legs buckling as his eyes rolled upwards into his head.

"Yes, that’s it Aric! Embrace that pain, use it, feel ever sharp stab of anguish, let if fuel your misery! Pain is your only companion. It is all that has ever been there for you, and it is all that ever will be. There is no beauty without it, no brilliance without the torment. And now, as you suffer—not because you deserve it, but because it’s the only way you can create anything worth remembering." The Hand’s voice becomes more chilling, more final.

The Unseen Hand pointed toward the half-finished painting with one hand as he traced a long finger across Aric’s raw flesh.

“You see suffering is not just emotional; it is carved into a body, the wounds on skin a reminder of the years of torment, the endless battle to create something meaningful. Yet with every drop of blood and every ounce of pain, yet to an artist they will still be no closer to perfection.

Aric looked at the canvas, upon it is a grotesque vision of his own form, twisted by the agony he endured. Aric’s face in the painting was pallid, his skin sagging as if melting from his skull, his eyes hollow pits of despair. The figure on the canvas was trapped in perpetual torment, its own skin stripped away in jagged strips to reveal raw, pulsating flesh beneath, veins tangled like a network of suffering, mimicking Aric's own tortured body. The eyes—empty, yet full of silent screams—captured the very essence of the torment Aric now felt. His mouth was frozen open in a twisted scream that seemed to echo through the room, as if the painting itself was alive, suffering alongside its creator.

In his exhaustion and terror, Aric now understood what The Unseen Hand was teaching. "I see it now..." Aric gasped, his voice barely a rasp through the agony. "This... this is what you meant." His body trembled, each brushstroke sending shockwaves of pain coursing through him, yet his hand moved faster, driven by a twisted revelation. "It’s not about the art... It’s about the sacrifice... surviving the suffering."

He let out a ragged breath, his eyes wide with a delirious clarity. "I had to feel it… every cut, every shred of flesh... that’s where the truth is." His face twisted into a grimace, half in agony, half in sick understanding. "This is what it takes. I understand now... "

He laughed, a broken, manic sound as The Unseen Hand moved behind Aric and placed his on his shoulders. Aric turned his head upwards and whispered. "Please help me achieve immortality."

The Unseen Hand nodded slowly as his fingers pierced Aric's neck skin. "As you wish." He pulled sharply, ragged flesh coming free and unleashing a torrent of blood that cascaded down Aric's body towards the hungry brush.

Aric painted in a frenzy, blood splattering everywhere as his arm flailed around. As the last stroke is made, his hand releases its iron grips on the spiked handle and it drops to the floor, the bristle soaking in the pooled blood around his feet. Aric dropped to his knees and looks up at the painting. He forms a weak smile onto his face and he falls into unconsciousness, his brain and body finally letting go.

As the darkness takes him, Aric hears the voice of The Unseen Hand whispering in his head. "Now this... this is art. This is something eternal. You see, Aric, suffering reveals the true you."

Aric was almost gone now, but before he went, he asked The Unseen Hand. “Am immortal now?"

The Unseen Hand nodded, “Indeed you are my friend. Immortalised in Art…”

Aric smiled weakly as darkness took him.

Immortality

"... Authorities have recovered the body of a man found in an abandoned building, believed to be the notorious Hotel Diablos. The victim, identified as 34-year-old Aric Holloway, had been missing for several days after escaping from the Green Oaks Psychiatric Hospital.

Holloway, who had suffered a severe mental breakdown nine years ago, had reportedly been institutionalized after repeated episodes involving hallucinations and delusions. According to doctors, he frequently spoke of an imaginary figure he called 'The Unseen Hand'.

What investigators have uncovered at the scene is nothing short of disturbing. Holloway’s body was found severely mutilated—his skin peeled off in long strips and used in what can only be described as a grotesque self-portrait, created using both his skin and his own blood. Authorities have confirmed the cause of death as extreme blood loss, most notably from the extensive wound on his neck.

Police are now piecing together the events leading up to Holloway’s death, but given the macabre scene and the victim’s history of mental illness, foul play has been ruled out and is being described as a tragic and violent suicide.

The End.