The Last Room on Ashford Street

It was raining the night Daniel Crane returned to Ashford Street.

The lane had always been narrow, but in the years since he’d last walked it, it seemed to have folded in on itself. Lamplight spilled across cracked cobblestones, illuminating patches of moss that glistened under the drizzle. The smell of wet stone and river water drifted up from the quay, just a few blocks away.

At the far end stood the boarding house. Daniel stopped. Time had warped it—paint peeled in strips, shutters hanging loose like broken wings. The place looked abandoned. All except for one window.

A faint glow behind a curtain on the top floor.

Room 6.

Fifteen years ago, he’d rented that room for two quiet weeks while studying for final exams. That was before the night the landlord, Mr. Avery, vanished. Police called it a disappearance. Daniel always suspected something else. Because that night, he’d seen something—something he never dared tell anyone.

Now, his father’s will had left him an odd note: “There is unfinished business on Ashford Street.” No explanation, no details—just that.

He stepped inside.

The door moaned open, releasing a breath of cold, stale air. The lobby was dim, shadows pooling in the corners. The reception desk sagged under years of dust, its ledger frozen mid-page. On the wall behind it, only one brass key remained: Room 6.

Daniel hesitated, the air oddly warm around the key. He took it anyway, the metal slick with condensation.

Upstairs, the hall was lined with faded wallpaper, peeling in thin curls. The boards complained under his weight, as if they remembered him. At the far end, Room 6 stood open.

He stepped inside.

The room was exactly as he remembered—the narrow bed with its stiff quilt, the heavy curtains, the single lamp casting a flickering glow. But the warmth here was thicker, almost oppressive. On the small table sat a leather-bound book, its cover cracked like old skin.

Daniel flipped it open.

To the one who finds this, the first page began.

Do not stay past midnight. The room keeps what it is owed.

The handwriting was neat, elegant, but rushed, the last words trailing as if the writer had been interrupted. The pages were filled with short entries: Voices in the walls tonight. The mirror showed a man who wasn’t here. If I leave, will it follow?

A sudden sound made him look up.

The tall mirror in the corner hadn’t been there before. Its frame was carved in a twisting pattern, almost like vines—or veins. Daniel’s reflection stared back, pale in the lamp’s light.

Then the reflection changed.

A man stood behind him.

Mr. Avery.

His face was thinner, his eyes clouded, his lips moving without sound. Then, the voice came—not from the man in the mirror, but from the walls, the ceiling, the floor.

“You came back.”

Daniel’s throat tightened. “What happened to you?”

“The room keeps what it is owed,” Avery replied in a voice that seemed both far away and too close. “You left before it could take you.”

The floorboards shivered under Daniel’s feet. The light flickered wildly. Shadows began to leak from the mirror, slow at first, then swirling faster, reaching for him like black water spilling into the room.

He lunged for the door. It slammed shut.

The shadows rose, whispering in a language that scraped at the edge of his mind. In the mirror, Avery’s form dissolved, replaced by a dark shape with no face.

Then—silence.

The door creaked open by itself.

Daniel staggered into the hallway, heart hammering. When he looked back, the lamp in Room 6 was out, the mirror gone.

Downstairs, the reception desk was bare except for the single brass key, now hanging neatly on its hook. It swayed slightly, as though someone had just placed it there.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The air was damp, quiet, almost relieved.

Daniel turned back one last time. The boarding house windows were dark.

All except for one.

Room 6 still glowed.