The watcher in the room217

It began with a phone call.

Detective Clara Reed was just finishing her second cup of bitter station coffee when the phone on her desk rang. She answered, half expecting another petty theft case. Instead, it was the manager of the old Wescott Hotel, a place with more stories than guests these days.

“We have a situation,” the manager whispered. “Something strange is happening in Room 217.”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “Strange how?”

“There’s a guest in the room. He checked in two days ago. But the maid says… he never eats, never sleeps, and he never leaves the room. And now she swears someone else is in there with him, even though he checked in alone.”

Clara sighed. Urban legends and ghost stories weren’t her specialty, but there had been a missing persons report filed just a few blocks from the hotel. A young woman named Lily Hart disappeared three days ago, last seen near the Wescott.

She grabbed her coat and keys. The Wescott might not be haunted, but it certainly had secrets.

---

The hotel stood like a relic from another time. Its art deco exterior was peeling, and the once-elegant chandeliers now flickered with dying lightbulbs. The air smelled faintly of old linen and mold.

Clara met the manager in the lobby—a thin, pale man named Harold who looked more corpse than concierge.

“She was cleaning the hallway when she heard something—crying, she says. From inside 217. But when she knocked, the man told her to go away.”

“Name?”

“Julian Crane. Paid in cash. No ID required—we don’t usually ask, not with our clientele.”

Clara gave him a hard look. “Well, tonight you’re getting a background check.”

She made her way up the creaky stairs. The hallway was dim and cold. The carpet muffled her footsteps as she approached Room 217. A breeze brushed the back of her neck—despite there being no open windows.

She knocked.

Silence.

“Mr. Crane, this is Detective Clara Reed. I need to ask you a few questions.”

A long pause. Then, a voice—calm, deep, almost too polite.

“I’m not receiving visitors.”

“I’m not a visitor. Open the door.”

Another pause. The lock clicked. The door opened two inches. A pale, sharp-featured man with shadowed eyes peered through the gap.

“You’re investigating something,” he said. Not a question.

Clara pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The room was dark, curtains drawn tight. The air was stale, the faint smell of mildew and something sweeter—perfume?

Julian closed the door behind her. “I don’t appreciate being disturbed.”

Clara looked around. The bed was neatly made, untouched. No luggage. No food. Just a small table, a chair, and a mirror facing the bed.

“Do you live here?” she asked.

“I exist here. Temporarily.”

“Alone?”

He didn’t answer.

Clara moved toward the bathroom. The door was shut. She touched the handle.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Julian said sharply.

She opened it anyway.

Empty.

But the mirror above the sink was cracked—five deep fractures radiating out like spiderwebs.

“You’re sure you’re alone, Mr. Crane?”

He gave her a slow smile. “Aren’t we all, Detective?”

---

Clara left the room unsettled. Everything about Julian Crane was wrong. Too calm. Too vague. Too still.

She asked the front desk for security footage. The night Julian checked in, he arrived alone. No luggage. No conversation. Just a single glance toward the camera before disappearing into the elevator.

But last night—there was movement.

At 3:17 a.m., the elevator rose to the second floor. The doors opened.

Nothing stepped out.

The hallway camera caught it: the door to 217 creaked open slowly—on its own. A moment later, the lights in the hallway flickered, and Room 217 slammed shut.

Clara’s spine tingled.

---

That night, she returned to the Wescott.

Julian wasn’t in his room.

The door was unlocked.

Clara stepped inside.

Everything was just as before—except the mirror. Now, it was different. The surface shimmered faintly, like heat on asphalt. As she drew closer, she saw something that made her blood run cold.

A message, written in the foggy glass:

"HELP ME."

And below it, a fingerprint. Small. Delicate. Not Julian’s.

She called for backup.

The forensics team swept the room. There were signs someone else had been there—a hair, long and blond. A piece of a torn blouse caught under the bedframe.

It matched the description of Lily Hart.

A mirror in a sealed room… showing messages that no one alive could write.

---

Julian Crane was found the next day, walking barefoot down a stretch of road outside town. When they picked him up, he was muttering to himself, hands trembling.

“They never let her go,” he whispered. “The mirror watches. The mirror wants.”

He was taken into custody, but refused to speak further.

Clara returned to the hotel one final time.

Room 217 had been locked, sealed with crime scene tape.

But that night, the manager called again.

“Detective, it’s happening again,” he said, voice shaking. “Different room. 309. Another guest. Same thing.”

Clara arrived with her partner this time.

The room was empty. The guest was gone.

But the mirror?

The same message. The same fingerprint.

This time, Clara didn’t hesitate. She ordered every mirror in the Wescott removed. Cracked, covered, or destroyed.

Still, the disappearances continued.

One every month.

Always the same.

Always a different room.

Clara dug deeper into the building’s past. Decades ago, before it was a hotel, it had been a sanitarium. Patients were kept in isolation, often confined to their rooms with mirrors positioned to observe them. Records mentioned one patient—a woman—who vanished during an electrical storm. Her room? 217.

The last entry in her file was chilling.

"She won’t stop screaming at the mirror."

---

They closed the Wescott Hotel six months later.

It sits boarded up now, windows broken, a monument to unanswered questions.

But sometimes, late at night, people say they see light in the windows.

Not electric light.

A flickering silver glow.

Like glass catching moonlight.

And if you stand close enough, they say…

You might hear a voice from behind the boarded doors.

A whisper.

"Help me."

And once you hear it…

You’re next.

---

[The End]

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