Room 306

The Desert Pine Motel sat on the side of a forgotten highway, its neon sign flickering between red and dead. Travelers only stopped there when they had no choice—when their cars broke down or the night stretched too long and empty. The rooms were cheap, the paint chipped, and the silence too heavy.

When David checked in, he didn’t plan to stay long. He was driving cross-country after quitting his job, trying to outrun the kind of quiet that followed you no matter how far you drove. The clerk at the front desk, a gray-haired man with nicotine-stained fingers, didn’t ask questions.

“Just one night,” David said, handing over his ID.

The man gave a slow nod. “You’ll be in 306. Top floor. Elevator’s busted, so take the stairs.”

David signed the register, noticing something odd—there were no entries for Room 306 in months. Every other room had neat signatures. 304, 305, 307—all occupied recently. But under 306, the space was blank.

He shrugged it off. Maybe the room needed cleaning until now. Maybe it had been closed for repairs.

The key was an old brass one, heavy and cold in his hand.

The stairwell smelled of damp carpet and mildew. When he reached the third floor, the hallway lights flickered weakly. The numbers on the doors were faded, except for his—306 gleamed freshly painted, as if waiting just for him.

Inside, the room looked ordinary enough. Beige wallpaper, a queen-sized bed, a small television on a wooden dresser. The air was still, thick with the faint scent of lemon cleaner.

He tossed his bag onto the bed and exhaled. “Just one night.”

He showered, changed into a T-shirt, and flipped on the TV. Static. He adjusted the antenna. A fuzzy picture appeared—news anchors mouthing silent words. Then, for a brief second, the screen flickered to an image of the hallway outside his room.

He froze.

The footage was live—he could see the door marked 306. Someone was standing just outside it, their face obscured by the camera’s grain. They were motionless, staring at the door.

David’s chest tightened. He muted the TV. Silence.

Then—three slow knocks on the door.

He turned off the TV completely and went to the peephole. Nothing. The hallway was empty.

“Okay,” he whispered. “You’re tired. You’re seeing things.”

He locked the deadbolt and climbed into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. The air felt wrong, heavy, like someone was watching from the corners of the room. Every time he closed his eyes, he swore he could hear faint whispers.

At some point, he drifted into uneasy sleep.

When he woke, sunlight leaked through the blinds. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes. For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. The room looked… different.

The wallpaper was now green, not beige. The dresser was on the opposite wall. The bedspread had changed pattern.

David frowned. “What the hell?”

He checked the door number outside. 306. Same room.

He went back inside, staring at the rearranged furniture. Maybe he was misremembering. Maybe the room had always looked this way. But deep inside, something told him it hadn’t.

He packed his bag quickly. He didn’t want to stay another night.

At the front desk, the clerk looked surprised. “Checking out already?”

David nodded. “Yeah. Just passing through.”

The man smiled faintly. “You only just checked in.”

David blinked. “What do you mean?”

“It’s the same night, sir.”

David frowned and pulled out his phone. The date hadn’t changed. It was still Tuesday. But he’d slept. He’d seen daylight.

“Must be a glitch,” the clerk said, almost too casually. “You’d be surprised how time gets strange around here.”

David forced a laugh. “Right.”

He left, but when he stepped into the parking lot, the desert sun was gone. It was night again. The same inky darkness as when he arrived. His car headlights reflected off the dusty sign: Desert Pine Motel – Vacancy.

He turned back toward the building. The lights in the windows shimmered faintly, as though the air itself were warping. His key—still in his pocket—felt hot.

He unlocked his car, but the ignition wouldn’t turn. Dead. No sound. No dashboard light.

The clerk was gone when he went back inside. The lobby was dark except for the soft buzz of the vending machine.

The key in his pocket felt heavier now. Something inside him knew that he wasn’t done with Room 306.

He walked back upstairs, each step echoing longer than it should have. The hallway looked stretched, distorted. The wallpaper pattern moved when he wasn’t looking directly at it.

When he reached his door, it was already open.

The room looked exactly as it had before—beige wallpaper, bed by the window, TV off.

He stepped inside slowly. His bag was still on the bed. Only now, it was covered in a thin layer of dust.

The air felt colder.

On the TV screen, static crackled again. Against his better judgment, David turned it on.

The screen flickered—images flashing too fast to understand. Faces. The motel hallway. The number 306 over and over. Then a shot of himself, standing in the room, watching the TV.

He stumbled backward, knocking into the chair.

His reflection appeared on the screen again, but this time, it didn’t move when he did. It smiled instead.

David’s heart hammered. “Who are you?”

The reflection tilted its head. “You checked in,” it said. “That means you stay.”

The voice was his own.

He turned off the TV and ran for the door—but when he opened it, the hallway wasn’t there. Instead, there was another room.

Identical.

Same furniture, same window, same bed.

He backed away, slammed the door, and pressed himself against it. He turned to face the window. The blinds swayed slightly. Outside was not the desert—but another corridor, dimly lit, stretching endlessly.

He blinked hard, trembling. “This isn’t real.”

The phone on the nightstand rang.

He stared at it, frozen. It rang again. He picked it up slowly, pressing it to his ear.

“Hello?”

A voice, soft and calm, answered. “You shouldn’t have left.”

David’s throat went dry. “Who is this?”

The voice laughed—a hollow, distorted echo of his own. “You’re back where you belong.”

The line went dead.

He dropped the receiver. The air in the room shifted. He turned toward the bed—and froze.

Someone was lying there.

It was him.

His own body, eyes closed, face pale. He stumbled backward, shaking his head. “No, no, no…”

The version of himself on the bed opened its eyes. “You never checked out,” it whispered.

David screamed. He tried the door again, but it opened into yet another version of the room.

The next, and the next.

Each one slightly different—the color of the walls, the pattern on the bedspread, the sound of breathing behind him. The air warped around him, stretching, folding, swallowing light.

He ran, bursting through door after door, but every exit led only to another 306.

In one room, the clock read 12:06. In another, 3:06. In the next, the hands didn’t move at all.

He could hear voices now—murmuring behind the walls, overlapping whispers: “Stay. Stay. Stay.”

Finally, he collapsed, gasping for air. He turned to see his reflection in a cracked mirror above the dresser. His face looked older, hollowed, eyes sunken deep.

“How long have I been here?” he asked, voice trembling.

His reflection smiled faintly. “You just arrived.”

He threw a lamp at the mirror, shattering it. Behind the cracks, for a brief moment, he saw other people—faces twisted in silent screams, pressing against the glass as though trapped behind it.

Then darkness swallowed everything.

When light returned, the room was neat again. Clean. Untouched.

The door creaked open, and the motel clerk stepped inside, holding a clipboard.

Another guest followed—a woman in her thirties, tired from travel.

“Room 306,” the clerk said kindly, handing her the key.

She smiled. “Thanks. Just one night.”

He nodded, his expression unreadable. “Of course.”

As she walked inside, the door shut behind her with a soft click.

The keyhole glowed faintly red.

From inside the room came the faint sound of static, then a voice—soft, distorted, almost human.

“Welcome back.”

And somewhere within the walls of the Desert Pine Motel, in the endless maze of mirrors and rooms, David was still running, opening door after door, each one leading him deeper into Room 306—where time folds, and no one ever really checks out.