Room 999: Down the Drain

Content Warnings (spoilers, highlight to view): Child abuse, suicide
I don’t know how long I had been driving down the dark two-lane highway when the neon lights of the hotel’s sign finally broke through the endless fog. The digital display in my rusted-out Honda had been out for 8 months, and my phone’s battery had died about 100 miles back. I hadn’t bothered to pack my car charger in my haste to leave home. 

I pulled off the highway onto the winding gravel drive. There were only a handful of other cars in the cracked, crumbling parking lot. I squinted up through the smeared bug guts on my windshield at the sign: Hotel Non Dormiunt. Vacancy.

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