Thirteenth Floor, Thirteenth Victim

Detective Marla Reyes didn’t believe in curses, ghosts, or haunted hotels. She believed in patterns—blood trails, motive, and good old-fashioned footprints. But when the fourth body in two months splattered the alley behind the Ambrose Grand Hotel, the facts started getting strange. Too strange.

All four had “jumped” from the same floor: the thirteenth. Only… the Ambrose didn’t have a thirteenth floor. Or so it claimed.

The hotel was one of those century-old downtown relics—a brick-faced giant with gargoyle gutters, stained glass windows, and the smell of ancient polish embedded in the wallpaper. Its lobby reeked of old money and older secrets. Reyes stood at the front desk, flipping through the incident reports again.

“Are you certain,” she asked the concierge, a pale, aging man named Leonard, “that your elevator skips the thirteenth floor?”

He adjusted his bowtie nervously. “It does. All our elevators go straight from twelve to fourteen. Guests prefer it that way—superstition and all that.”

Reyes tapped her pen. “But that alley’s directly beneath where the thirteenth floor would be, if it existed.”

Leonard didn’t blink. “And yet, it doesn’t.”

She’d already reviewed the security footage. All four victims entered the hotel. Not one was seen leaving. The elevator logs were blank past floor twelve. But the last ping before they vanished? Always the same: Room 1301.

So Reyes did something no one expected a detective to do—she checked in.

“One night. Room 1301,” she told Leonard.

He hesitated, just for a breath. “I’m… afraid that suite is under renovation.”

“Then give me the key. I’ll inspect the quality myself.”

After a pause, he reached beneath the desk and slid over a vintage brass keycard on a leather fob. Reyes noticed something odd: the card didn’t say “1301.” It said simply, 13.

The elevator groaned as it ascended. The button panel skipped from 12 to 14, but Reyes noticed the scratched indentation of where the 13 used to be. Her fingers hovered, uncertain—then instinct guided her to press the small circular gap between 12 and 14.

To her surprise, the elevator jolted, paused, and the doors opened into a narrow hallway dimmer than the rest of the hotel.

Her phone immediately lost signal.

“Of course,” she muttered.

Room 1301—or just “13”—sat at the end of the hall. The hallway itself was wrong. It was longer than it should have been. The carpet changed texture midway. The lights above flickered, but only in her peripheral vision. When she looked up, everything stood still.

She slid the key into the lock. Click.

The room greeted her with musty air and silence. No windows. A grandfather clock ticked in the corner, though it had no hands. The bed was freshly made, but the sheets were too tightly tucked, like the body of a cadaver prepared for viewing.

She unpacked nothing. Just pulled out her notebook, her recorder, and a bottle of water.

Then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

Time moved strangely in Room 1301. The ceiling fan spun one way, then the other. When she blinked, furniture seemed subtly shifted. Reyes chalked it up to fatigue.

But at exactly 2:13 a.m., the phone rang.

She picked up. No sound. Just breathing.

“Hello?” she said.

Click.

She noted the time. Grabbed her flashlight. Walked back into the hall.

But the hallway was gone.

Instead of the corridor, she faced another room—a replica of her childhood bedroom, perfectly recreated. The blue wallpaper, the broken dollhouse, the scratch on the closet door where her brother once slammed it shut. She hadn’t seen this room in 30 years.

“What the hell…”

She stepped in. Her flashlight flickered. She aimed it at the bed.

A small figure lay curled under the blanket. Something whispered her name.

“Marla...”

The hairs on her arms stood on end. She rushed over and yanked the covers back.

The bed was empty.

She turned—and she was back in Room 1301.

The door behind her no longer had a knob.

Her breath caught.

She wasn’t scared—not exactly. She was disturbed. And determined.

Reyes opened her notebook and began writing down everything. The phantom call. The hallucination—or was it? The way her mind bent space and memory. She needed proof. Something to ground her.

She pulled out a lipstick from her bag and scrawled on the bathroom mirror:

"If you're reading this, you're not alone."

Then she peeled off the backing of a mini bug she kept for wiretaps and stuck it under the table.

Hours passed. No sleep. The shadows grew longer even though there was no sun. Then, at 4:13 a.m., a knock came at the door.

She froze.

Another knock. Louder.

“Room service,” came a hollow voice.

She hadn’t ordered anything.

“Leave it,” she called back.

The knock persisted.

Reyes grabbed her sidearm, crept to the door, and peered through the peephole.

Nothing.

She opened the door cautiously.

A tray sat outside. No server in sight.

It held a cloche-covered dish. Steam rose from underneath.

With her free hand, she lifted it.

A dead bird. Its beak opened mid-scream. Blood soaked the mashed potatoes.

She dropped the lid with a clatter.

The hallway behind her had returned. But now it was lined with open doors—and whispering.

Reyes backed into the room and slammed the door shut. Her phone still had no signal. The clock ticked, though it had no hands. Her voice recorder blinked red—recording.

She played it back.

Nothing. No voice. Just static.

Until a voice whispered:

“Thirteen floors. Thirteen victims. You’re next.”

She rewound.

Nothing.

Again.

“You can’t check out if you’re already checked in.”

She grabbed her key. Tried the door.

Still no knob.

She was trapped.

Her own face in the mirror began to age. Not in real time, but in blinks. Wrinkles deepened. Hair grayed. Eyes dimmed.

She turned away and the mirror shattered.

It wasn’t just a room. It was a ritual.

Thirteen people. Thirteen lives. Thirteen offerings. She was the thirteenth.

But what if she broke the pattern?

She searched the room again, this time with purpose. Behind the bedboard. Under the dresser. Finally, beneath a floorboard she pried up with a pen, she found a letter.

Written in shaky hand:

“If you’re reading this, don’t listen to them. Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Don’t speak. At 6:13, the door will open. Don’t miss it. Or you’ll stay forever.”

She checked her phone—dead. The clock—still handless. The room—still whispering.

She sat. Waited.

The whispers turned to screams. The walls wept black fluid. The bed breathed. But Reyes kept still, watching the wall, waiting for a door that may never come.

Then—at what she guessed must be 6:13—the door unlocked with a loud, sharp click.

She bolted.

Down the hall. Into the elevator.

No buttons. Just a dark, metal shaft.

She stepped in. The doors closed.

Darkness.

Then: light.

She awoke in the hotel lobby.

Leonard stood over her, calm as ever.

“Ma’am, are you all right?”

She blinked. “I… what time is it?”

“Just past noon. You checked out.”

“No—I was in 1301.”

He tilted his head. “We don’t have a Room 1301, ma’am.”

She looked down. In her hand—the brass key. The number 13 was gone. Just a blank circle.

Reyes returned to the precinct, shaken but intact. She reviewed the audio recorder.

Just static.

She checked her notebook.

Blank.

She opened her bag—and there, nestled beside her badge, was the dead bird.

Thirteen floors. Thirteen victims. One made it out.

But the room was still waiting.

And the elevator panel had a new button.

Marked: R.

For Reyes.

And it was glowing.