The Keyhole of Room 666

The Keyhole of Room 666

The hotel waited in the dark like it had been holding its breath for years. The corridors smelled of dust and old wood, and the boards groaned under each step Harris took. He had worked the night shift long enough to know which doors to ignore, which ones to pass quickly. Room 666 was one of them. Everyone whispered about it, even the cleaning staff. No one stayed there, no one went near it after the sun went down. Harris had never believed it, until tonight.

A sound drew him near. A soft cry, thin and breaking. It came from the far end of the hall, from the direction of Room 666. He paused, frozen, listening. Was it the wind? Or something else? The air smelled faintly of iron and damp wood. His stomach twisted. He had never felt the hall like this before. The silence pressed at his ears, filling them with faint echoes of footsteps that weren’t his own.

He walked slowly, each step careful. The corridor seemed longer in the dark. The wallpaper bulged in patches, the paint flaking like dry skin. The lights flickered above, and he thought he saw shadows stretch along the walls, curling toward him, retreating, always just at the edge of vision. He pressed the key to his chest, feeling its cold weight, and wondered if he should turn and leave. His instincts screamed it, but something drew him forward.

He knelt before the door, the brass keyhole catching a sliver of the weak overhead light. He pressed his eye to it. The room was dark. Then a flicker moved. A child sat on the floor, his hair damp, his back rounded, a ragged doll in his hands. He rocked slightly, murmuring something Harris could not hear. Harris swallowed. He whispered softly, “Who’s there?” The child lifted his head. One eye met his through the tiny circle, pale, hollow, waiting.

Harris stumbled back, his chest tight. He leaned forward again. The child pointed to the floor. Harris didn’t move, unsure if he wanted to see or turn away. The torch he held shook in his hand. It slipped, fell, rolling along the corridor carpet. Its light spilled under the door and caught a dark stain that had always looked like shadow. Not shadow. He froze. The handle twitched as if someone inside had touched it.

The corridor felt alive. Every door seemed to breathe, every shadow shifting just out of reach. Harris could hear a faint scraping, the sound of tiny nails on the wood, soft enough to be imagined. He tried to convince himself to leave. To turn and forget what he had seen. The hall was quiet again, the wind nothing more than wind.

He went back to the desk and forced himself to look at the hotel register. The pages smelled of old paper, yellowed and soft. Room 666 had one entry, nearly a hundred years old. Mr and Mrs Lowe, and a child named Samuel. A note beside it: Closed for cleaning. That was it.

He found an old newspaper folded in the ledger. The headline said it all. Mother dead of consumption. The father was broken, speaking to shadows, unable to face what he had done. Child missing. Body never found. Harris felt a cold knot in his stomach. It was the same child, the same room. He had seen him.

The cries came again. Closer now, sharper. He walked the hall slowly, the key to 666 heavy in his hand. His breath came fast. Every step echoed like a drumbeat. The corridor seemed longer than before, twisting in ways it had not in daylight. The wallpaper now seemed alive, curling, the air thickening with something sour and iron-like. He swallowed, tasting fear in his mouth.

When he reached the door, he looked through the keyhole again. The child sat cross-legged, rocking the doll. The lips moved, silent words. Then the eyes met his. Empty eyes, patient, sad. One small hand lifted and pointed to the floor. Harris’s stomach twisted. The handle moved again.

He tried to pull back. The torch clattered along the corridor carpet, spilling its weak light under the door. The stain gleamed like dark water. The child stood slowly, the doll dangling from one hand. The room seemed to breathe around him, the walls pulsing with something old, something waiting. Harris’s throat tightened, and he took a step back, feeling the floorboards shift under him like breathing skin.

He watched the child slowly move to the cradle in the corner, rocking it gently. The doll’s eyes glinted faintly in the torchlight. Harris wanted to run, to call out, to leave the building forever. His knees felt heavy, locked in place. A faint whisper filled the corridor, almost carried by the wind, almost a voice: “Stay… stay…”Harris’s heart thumped. He backed away, looked again through the keyhole. The boy reached toward him, mouth opening soundlessly. Harris froze. Then the door swung inward, just a crack, and the corridor swallowed him. No scream. No struggle. Only silence. The torch rolled to a stop.

Inside the keyhole, a faint chill lingered, a smell like old iron and something sweeter, something rotten and familiar. Harris’s fingers, his breath, his very presence had been taken, drawn into the small circle where the child waited. The doll lay on the floor, its eyes glinting faintly. The room exhaled and seemed empty.

The next day the cleaning staff found nothing. No sign of Harris. No sign of the child. The hotel smelled the same, dust and old wood. Room 666 remained shut, the door locked as always. They whispered among themselves, but no one dared open it. The keyhole looked like any other, small and brass, but some swore they saw a pale eye staring out, waiting, patient, lonely.

And sometimes, at night, when the hall is still, a child’s voice calls softly through the keyhole. It asks if anyone can see him. If anyone remembers him. And no one answers. Harris was never found. The child still haunts room 666.