If you ever hear about a hotel in the Appalachians that doesn’t show up on GPS, run. If you’re lucky, it’ll just vanish behind you. If you’re unlucky… well, that’s what happened to the last two search-and-rescue teams before we got the call.

Morizumi and I arrived just as twilight swallowed the mountains. The building looked normal at first glance—Victorian, isolated, with a faint golden glow spilling from the windows. A brass sign read “Doppeler Hotel”, swinging gently despite the lack of wind.

The moment we stepped onto the porch, I felt it. A pressure in the air, as if the hotel itself were breathing around us. The door creaked open before Morizumi touched it.

“They’re waiting,” he said softly.

And I understood immediately. The Doppeler Hotel wasn’t run by humans. It had always been a trap—a structure maintained by extradimensional entities that existed just beyond perception. Their goal was simple: lure the living in, make them stay, and never let them leave.

The lobby looked inviting: polished wood, chandeliers, a fire crackling in the hearth. But something was… off. Reflections in the mirrors didn’t match reality. Chairs shifted subtly when we weren’t looking. Even the ticking of the grandfather clock was uneven, stuttering like a heartbeat out of sync.

The first guest we encountered was real enough—a man at the front desk. Polite, smiling—but when Morizumi greeted him, the man’s eyes flickered, just for a second, like a glitch. And then… they were gone. He wasn’t human.

“Don’t interact too much,” Morizumi whispered. “They want you to relax. That’s how the trap works.”

We moved through the hallways, noting rooms that appeared and disappeared as we walked. The air shimmered with faint heat ripples, like a mirage. When I peeked into Room 7, I saw someone sleeping—but when I looked again, the bed was empty, and the room stretched impossibly wide, walls bending at angles that made no sense.

“You feel it?” I asked, voice tight. “Like the hotel is… alive?”

Morizumi nodded. “It watches. It remembers. It wants to add us to its collection.”

We reached the grand staircase when the first attack began. Doors slammed open along the hallway, shadows flitting through them, solid and sharp. The chandelier above us shook violently, then stopped mid-air, frozen as if gravity itself were optional inside the hotel.

Morizumi raised a hand. The shadows recoiled like they’d just realized they were being seen. The entities hissed, a sound that pierced bone and psyche alike. Then, with barely a whisper, Morizumi walked forward and touched the bannister. The staircase groaned, twisting, and the hallway seemed to straighten itself.

“They remember now,” he said. “They fear me.”

But fear wasn’t enough. The Doppeler Hotel still tried to trap us. Hallways doubled back on themselves. Windows opened to impossible heights. I caught glimpses of other trapped travelers—ghostly echoes of people who had stayed too long—eyes hollow, mouths open in silent screams.

Morizumi moved calmly, weaving through the distortions, chanting softly under his breath. The entities lunged at us, stretching limbs through walls, but his aura seemed to burn them away. I followed, heart hammering.

By the time we reached the front door, the sun was rising. The hotel’s glow dimmed, the warped architecture sagged back into something ordinary, almost human. We stepped outside. The building, for the first time in centuries, looked abandoned and inert, just a creaking old structure in the mountains.

Morizumi didn’t celebrate. He never does. He just turned to me and said, quietly:

“Never underestimate a place that exists between dimensions. They remember. They wait. But they fear me… for now.”

And I realized: the Doppeler Hotel isn’t gone. It’s just waiting for the next guest brave—or foolish—enough to check in.