Bloody Ceiling

The inn was old—older than the crooked sign swinging above its warped doorway suggested. Paint peeled from the shutters, and ivy strangled the stone walls. But the price was cheap, and after a day of driving through the rain, Hal Draycott didn’t care about peeling paint or creaking stairs. He cared about a bed and a roof.

The innkeeper hesitated when he asked for a room.

“Only one left,” she said, fumbling with the brass key. “Room six.”

Her eyes darted away, as if she had spoken something forbidden.

---

The room was small, smelling faintly of damp wood and mildew. A single bed sat pushed against the wall, its quilt patched and faded. A lamp with a yellow bulb buzzed when switched on.

He put his belongings on the floor and fell right on the bed.

Then Hal noticed the ceiling.

Brown stains bloomed across the plaster like veins, twisting outward in unnatural patterns. In the center, the discoloration darkened, almost black, as if something had soaked through again and again.

Water damage, probably. Still, the mark unsettled him. It wasn’t just a stain—it looked like something had pressed against the ceiling from above, leaving a shadow of its form.

He unpacked his bag and tried to ignore it.

---

Rain lashed at the windows all evening, the storm rattling the glass. Hal wrote in his notebook, then switched off the lamp and lay back. Sleep came quickly—until the first drip woke him.

'Plink.'
It hit the bedspread near his feet. He sat up, listening. Another drop followed, then another, landing with heavy finality. He reached for the lamp.

The ceiling wept.

Dark liquid gathered in fat beads before falling, spattering the quilt in wet blotches. The smell hit him first: coppery, sharp, unmistakable. His stomach tightened.

Blood.

His rational mind protested. Rust in the pipes. Contaminated water. Some old tank leaking overhead. He touched the damp spot on the bed. It smeared across his fingers, warm and sticky.

Blood.

---

Hal scrambled for his bag. He should leave—storm or no storm. But when he pulled the door, it resisted, stuck as though the swollen wood had warped. He tugged harder. The knob rattled but would not turn.

Behind him, the dripping quickened. 'Plink. Plink-plink-plink.'

He turned.

The stain on the ceiling pulsed. Slowly, impossibly, it expanded, dark veins spreading outward like an infection. Drops fell in a steady rhythm now, spattering across the quilt, the floorboards, his shoes.

Then something moved behind the plaster.

A bulge pressed downward, the ceiling sagging as though fingers pushed from the other side. Hal watched in frozen horror as indentations spread—a handprint, then another, clawing blindly against the thin barrier of plaster.

“God…”

The pressure built until cracks splintered the surface. A line split open with a wet sound. More blood poured through, splattering the floor in streams.

And through that opening came a face.

It pressed against the fissure, mouth open in a silent scream, features smeared and shifting like wax melting under heat. Empty sockets wept black liquid. Its lips worked soundlessly, but the ceiling carried the sound for it—groaning wood, grinding plaster, a terrible wet whisper that filled the room:

Hungry.

---

Hal stumbled backward, tripping over the bed. The blood was everywhere now, soaking the quilt, dripping into his hair. The stench choked him. He tried the window, slamming his shoulder against the swollen frame. It didn’t budge.

Behind him, the ceiling split wider. A hand forced its way through—a human hand, gray and thin, skin sloughing off in strips. Another followed. They clawed at the air, reaching for him.

He screamed.

---

The innkeeper was the first to find the room in the morning. The key trembled in her hand as she forced the swollen door open.

The bed was drenched, sheets sodden and dark. Blood streaked the floorboards, spattered the walls, ran in rivulets down the bedframe. The air reeked of copper.

But there was no body.

Only Hal’s notebook lay open on the nightstand. His last words were jagged, smeared, barely legible:

'The bloody hunger got me too.'


---

They closed Room Six after that. Boarded the door, painted over the frame. Guests whispered, staff avoided the topic, but the stains kept returning, seeping through fresh paint like an old wound reopening.

And sometimes, on storm-heavy nights, the ceiling drips again.

If you’re unlucky enough to sleep beneath it, the house might remember you.

And when it remembers, it feeds.

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