Hotel Mortem
By: Kayla Brademeyer
The sun sliced through the blinds in the early morning. I sat up in my white linen bed and stretched my arms trying to awake my tired muscles. I reached for some slippers and went to look out my window. There was dew drops on all the rose bushes around the front of the place and the forest of trees that had once seemed eerie was now strangely beautiful.
Even though the outside was captivating, the inside seemed oddly bare. There was only two double beds with the same starch white sheets, and walls so bare they might have been sheet rock. There was a table with a simple bible to repose upon it. But the room also had something missing. Something important. My parents.
* * * The Night Before* * *
I woke up screaming, beads of sweat ran down my face. It was just a dream. It was just a dream. I heard my parents fumbling in their room to find the light, then they called out to me. “Carrie? Is everything alright?”
They found their way to my room in the dark and both sat on either side of me looking at me with concerned faces. This sort of thing has been happening to me a lot lately. So I tell them it was just a stupid dream and I'm fine. My mother scoffs and walks back to her room thanking me for waking her up again. But my dad stayed with me.
“What happened this time sweetie?” he soothed. I told him it was about a place I had never seen before. A big mansion with a tremendous gate around it. I wanted to run away but there was a crazy man chasing me with a syringe yelling me to come back. It was the same dream I had had for two weeks now. My father hugged me and told me it was going to be okay.
“But you better get some sleep now. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” he kissed my forehead and left my room. I looked at my clock to see it read one A.M. I still had about seven hours of sleep before I had to wake up and pack for our big family trip we are taking. Since I was too afraid to fall back asleep I sat awake and read my book until the morning.
When I was shook awake by my father I knew I had accidentally fallen asleep again. He took the book from my chest and sat beside me.
“So how did my little girl sleep last night?” he asked.
“Better than before,” I murmured.
“Good, It's time to get up though and pack. I'll help you if you want.” he said gesturing towards my suit case.
“Nah, that's fine dad.' I said taking the suit case and folding clothes into it. We were going on a vacation to Niagara Falls. The only down side is my mom is refusing to fly there, so we have to drive. Which means ten hours in the car with nothing to do. After I finished packing my suitcase we loaded everything into the back of our Suburban, and set off.
“Are you excited to be going on this trip, Carrie?” my mom asked.
“Totally,” I replied.
“Well you don't have to be so rude. This is a family trip you know.” After hearing her criticism I decided to put in my headphones and listen to music instead.
About a mile and a half away we had to stop for my mother to go to the bathroom, so it was just my dad and I in the car.
“You know your mother would only like some time to bond with you Carrie.” my father told me. “I think you need to be a little nicer to her, who knows maybe you too will finally get along!” he joked. Although I didn't find it that funny, but I agreed to try to be nicer to her for the sake of the trip.
After the minor pit stop we carried on in utter silence. I watched out my window as the grasslands and the amazing fields with their perfect rows of corn passed me by. The clouds looked so fluffy and white, like cotton. We went through mountains, and cities with higher buildings than anything back at home.
