The Charming Shop Keep

The year is 1893, you’re a single woman who's traveled to Chicago. Determined to make a new life, you chose Chicago because there is work to be found at the world's Colombian exposition, more commonly known as the Chicago World's Fair.

You arrived this morning and are exiting the train station, taking in the sights of a large city.

The streets are busier than anything you’ve ever seen.

You’re a few minutes into walking the main street, set on finding a hotel. You pass shop after shop getting lost in the intoxicating and optimistic atmosphere of your new home. You’re brought back from your dreamy wander when a handsome young man strikes up a conversation with you.

Pleasantries are exchanged, and the conversation finds its way to your recent move to Chicago. This man is charming, handsome, and inquisitive, so you become comfortable sharing that your parents have passed, and having no family back home, you’ve come to the city to find work.

You learn that he is the owner of a store which happens to have a newly built hotel attached, near the fair.

He continues the conversation, and is ever so subtle in his flirtation that he seems harmless, but clearly interested in you.

So when he offers you a room at a very reasonable rate, which he’ll let you pay after you’ve found work, it's easy for you to accept this unexpected and very generous offer.

He further answers your prayers as he says he knows some people who will be looking for help shortly. You will be introduced to them tomorrow. For now, he offers you his arm and guides you on a short tour of the sights on your way to the hotel.

Ever the gentleman, he leaves you to get situated in your wonderfully furnished room. The afternoon turns to evening and after you’ve had dinner in town, you enter your room for some rest, and are excited by the prospects of the new life you’ve found.

The hotel is astonishingly quiet for being in such a busy area. Perfectly peaceful. No outside sounds can be heard, and if you hadn’t seen other guests you’d suspect the hotel was empty.

Sleep finds you quickly. You dream longingly for all you’ve lost, and anxiously for all that's ahead of you.

Your dreams turn sour, and you suddenly wake from a coughing fit. The room is very stuffy, and you only now notice that the window can’t be opened.

things seem foggy, even blurry.

Surely you’re still struggling to wake from such a deep sleep.

Your breaths which are quickly melting into gasps, are deafening in the silence that fills the room. The perfectly peaceful quiet from before, now seems a suffocating silence. Between labored breaths, a subtle hiss can be heard. A hiss that seems to be getting further and further from you.

You have a moment of clarity and stumble for the door, but find that it's locked...from the outside. You pound on the door and walls, but even as you beat on them you know that no one will hear. With your last few gasps you sink to the bottom of the door to try to breathe through the space between it and the floor, but find that the doorway is sealed.

The last thing you ever see is the beautifully decorated room, inside the ever so charming Mr. Holmes’s hotel.