The Vanishing Room

Checking In

Traveling alone had never bothered Michael. He enjoyed the freedom of moving at his own pace, picking routes no one else would take. On one such road trip across the Midwest, he stopped in a sleepy town where the only inn looked as though it hadn’t been updated since the 1950s.

The sign above the door flickered faintly: “The Pines Motel.”

Inside, the lobby smelled faintly of mildew. A tired clerk gave Michael a key attached to a heavy brass fob with the number Room 6 etched into it.

Nothing seemed unusual. Yet something about the clerk’s stare made Michael uneasy -- like he had been waiting for him.

Room 6

The room itself was plain. Beige wallpaper, a single bed, a nightstand, and a lamp that buzzed faintly. The curtains were too long, brushing the floor. Michael dropped his bag, showered, and laid down to rest.

At some point during the night, he woke suddenly. The room felt… wrong. The air was heavy. The buzzing of the lamp had stopped. And then he noticed -- the numbers on his room key, sitting on the nightstand, had changed.

No longer “6.” Now, it read: “Room 9.”

The Stranger

In the morning, confused but brushing it off as exhaustion, Michael walked to the front desk to ask about it.

The clerk stared at him coldly.

“There is no Room 9.”

Michael held out the fob to prove it, but the clerk’s eyes widened in shock. Then, without another word, he snatched the key from Michael’s hand and muttered, “You shouldn’t have seen that.”

When Michael tried to press for more answers, the clerk turned his back.

The Discovery

Later, while wandering the hallway, Michael counted the doors. One through eight. No nine. No six, either. Just seven doors in total. His own door from the night before… was gone.

Panicked, he retraced his steps. The hallway twisted strangely, as if longer than it should have been. He tried every handle, every door -- until finally, he found it.

At the end of the hall, where there shouldn’t have been a door at all, was Room 9.

Inside the Room

The room was identical to the one he remembered: the beige wallpaper, the buzzing lamp. But there was something else now. The curtains swayed gently, though the window was shut tight.

On the bed lay a leather-bound book. The pages were filled with names and dates -- each with a note scrawled beside them:

• Didn’t leave
• Taken in the night
• Returned but changed

At the very end of the list was a space, blank, waiting for a name.

His name.

The Escape

Terrified, Michael fled. He sprinted down the hall, burst through the lobby, and jumped into his car. As he drove away, he glanced in the rearview mirror.

The Pines Motel wasn’t there anymore.

Just an empty stretch of road, grass growing where the building should have stood.

The Aftermath

Years later, Michael still avoids roadside motels. When he tells the story, people laugh it off as a dream or the result of too little sleep. But he knows what he saw. He knows about Room 9.

And sometimes, when he’s unpacking in a new hotel room, he swears he hears the faint buzzing of that lamp again.