The Dark Forces of the Devil's Hotel

Uncanny Valley

"We did say for any reason," Ryan pointed out. "So even if you kill a bug or something, I'm counting that as you losing the bet."

"To be honest, the only person I'm thinking of shooting this thing at is you," Shane joked.

For a moment, Shane thought he saw something change in Ryan's eyes, but it was there and gone before he could try to fully understand what it was. All he could tell was that something had changed in an instant, like when Ryan had gone from stiff and disconnected back to normal a minute before.

"That'll still count," Ryan said with a smile. "So, you're going to have to tolerate my midnight rambling unless you want to lose."

"I don't know, that seems like a hard decision. I might have to think on that," Shane joked.

This conversational return to the status quo only lasted so long, as soon afterwards, it was Shane's turn in the room. He felt a great reluctance to enter, the kind of reluctance he usually only felt when there were bats or an abundance of filth inside.

When Shane entered, he thankfully found that this room contained neither of those things, and yet the feeling still persisted regardless, which was odd. Sure, the furniture was a bit gross, the lamp looked like a bit of a fire hazard, and the publication dates of the books on the shelves probably didn't reach the twentieth century, but this was all manageable. Not the most comfortable place to be, but not exactly scary either.

The door shut behind him, and Shane prepared for ten minutes of silence interspersed with him yelling at nothing.

"Hi there!" He called in a chipper tone. "My name's Shane. How's it going?"

Unsurprisingly, there was no answer.

"You know, it's a bit rude to just ignore people like that."

The silence of the room remained unchanged, and none of the furniture started to float or fall over. Shane did, however, feel the chill in the air seem to somehow creep closer to him, like the embodiment of cold itself was pressing its icy claws onto the skin of his hands and face. Shane shivered and began moving his hands to try and warm them up, deducing that the draft that seemed to permeate the hotel must be coming from this room somehow. This was strange, considering there were no windows.

"Do people just lose manners in the afterlife? Like, I get that demons are supposed to be rude, so if you're a demon and you don't answer I can understand that. But ghosts were people. You guys grew up in society with other people, but now that you're dead you just don't want to make polite conversation, apparently."

The light in the lamp flickered out of the blue, the timing of this occurrence making it seem as though it was somehow a response to Shane's ramble.

"Ooh, was that someone? Can you do it again?"

Like all of his questions thus far, that one was rhetorical, as Shane never expected any kind of response. The lamp, however, did indeed flicker again.

"Huh. Well, thanks for responding," Shane joked. "Okay, are we going to do one blink for yes, two blinks for no?"

The lamp flickered once.

"Alright. Are you a demon?"

It flickered twice.

"Ghost?"

Once.

Shane had to admit, these were the most consistent results involving light they'd ever gotten.

"Ryan told me some bad stuff allegedly happened in this room. Cult stuff. Is that true?"

One flicker.