The room

The man with his trembling hands clutching the test strip, monitored the line with a mixture of hope and despair. His fervent prayers seemed futile as the line remained defiantly visible. The verdict was in, and it was a merciless one. The positive test result confirmed his worst fears. A sinking sensation had gripped his heart earlier when the insidious symptoms first reared their ugly heads.

The verdict was clear, and he resigned himself to a night of solitary confinement in the dreaded sanctuary known as THE ROOM.

From the very first moment he had set foot inside it, an overwhelming discomfort had settled in the pit of his stomach. The estate agent’s swift ushering, her evident unease, had only heightened his suspicion. THE ROOM exuded an unnatural chill, casting ominous and unexplainable shadows. His paranoia, never confronted, was further fuelled by the fleeting glimpses of discomfort on the faces of contractors who had dared to enter. None, including himself, had spent more than a mere ten minutes alone in that dreadful room.

The room itself was modest in size, barely large enough for a camp bed and a small side table. Yet, it wasn’t the dimensions that elicited such profound unease; it was something far more sinister that gnawed at his very core.

With the sun’s descent, the room was shrouded in eerie moonlight, the sole source of illumination emanating from an aged lamp on the side table. He tried to distract himself with a book, but his feverish mind resisted the words on the page. Setting the book aside, he extinguished the light, allowing strange, unnatural shadows to dance upon the walls. The man reluctantly closed his eyes, seeking refuge from the malevolent spectres that seemed to lurk in every corner.

As he attempted to drift into sleep, peculiar thoughts swirled within his fevered mind. A disconcerting scratching sound pierced his consciousness. Was it real or a manifestation of his fevered dreams? The sound persisted, emanating from the door. Trembling, he fumbled for the bedside light and approached the door, apprehension tightening his chest. Upon opening it, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the cat darting into the darkness under the stairs. The guttural, primal fear in the cat’s cries chilled him to the bone. He strained to convince himself that something other than the room had triggered such a reaction, though his own doubts loomed large as he reluctantly pushed the door shut.

Resettling into bed, he battled the tension coursing through his veins and slipped into fitful slumber. Nightmares of schoolboys and grotesque headmasters intruded upon his restless rest, punctuated by eerie whispers and the sound of hurried footsteps. The clatter of small shoes on wooden floorboards sent shivers down his spine.

Enough was enough. The man approached the exit with determination. Panic surged as he grappled with the doorknob, futilely attempting to escape. It was as if an unseen force held the door fast, pulling it closed from the other side.

The whispers of children had transitioned from playful chatter to anguished cries, and the footsteps grew heavier, more ominous. An invisible force pulled him down onto the bed and held him there, as the sounds of tormented children filled the room. The colossal footsteps circled the bed and halted behind him. Trembling, he mustered the courage to turn and confront his tormentor. What he witnessed surpassed any horror he had ever imagined. A scream welled up within him, yet no sound escaped his lips. The shadowy spectre had accomplished its sinister task, and with an ominous creak, the door to THE ROOM slowly creaked open.

The following morning, the wife descended with breakfast in hand. Her piercing screams echoed through the street, a harbinger of the gruesome scene she had stumbled upon. Officially, the man’s demise was attributed to the virus, but had anyone examined his agonised, terror-stricken countenance more closely, they might have considered the far more sinister forces at play in his untimely demise.