The following morning, a young man walked through the corridors of the hotel where he worked.
" Ha~ what was the room number again? Oh! Yea, twenty-three!" He looked around, finally finding the room at the very end of the long corridor.
He made his way to the door and began lightly knocking. "Hey, mister! It's time for check out, wanna renew your stay? Or are you gonna pack up?"
He stood in front of the door, silently waiting for the room owner to open the door. Yet, no one came to the door. He knocked again, only to receive the same result. Lucky for the young man, this wasn't the first time someone had slept during checkout or had left early without notifying anyone, after all this place wasn't great. He himself wouldn't be working here if he didn't desperately need the money.
He used the spare key provided to him by his superior, to open up the door.
"Sorry for intruding." He said softly.
Instantly, a horrendous stench filled his nose as he stood in the doorway. It smelt like a mix of alcohol, metal, and a sharp musky smell. All of these combined formed a new, yet still very vile smell.
"Does this place smell worse than usual?" The young man exclaimed, walking through the small corridor of the room, as he used his shirt to cover his nose.
Finally, after reaching the center of the room. He saw where the smell originated from.
"Wha—" He instantly fell to the floor, completely perplexed as to what he was seeing...
Blood sprayed everywhere as if it were done by an amateur artist. On the desk, on the walls, everywhere you looked blood would meet your eyes, and on the cold wooden floor was a man, dead in a pool of his blood.
The dead young man seemed to have let himself go, but if he had cleaned up, he would be most girls' ideal man. A perfect jawline, long black hair with emerald green eyes. Followed by his smooth, caramel-like skin, one would say he was a treat to the eyes if he were still alive. However, the most recognizable feature the man had would be the giant bullet hole in his head... still somehow leaking blood.
In a panic frenzy, the young man started to run out of the room, his face reflecting the horrors he had seen.
In a short while, he had arrived at the hotel lobby.
"JASMINE! JASMINE!" he yelled as he clutched his heaving chest, he had to rush down several flights of stairs, completely forgetting that his workplace had working elevators (albeit an old one).
Jasmine, the young man's manager, got off her phone, which she used to browse random videos on the Internet, and weirdly stared at the young man.
"What are you even talking about, Kane? Are you serious?" she retorted, a look of confusion washing over her face as she stared at Kane.
" I'm telling the truth! There's a dead body in the room. Please believe me!" Said Kane, trying his best to persuade Jasmine. In a last-ditch attempt, Kane grabbed Jasmine's arm pulling her, trying to somehow convince her. "Believe me..." He said.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming, but this better not be some sort of weird twisted joke." This inn belonged to Jasmine's father, once a booming business due to tourist attractions. Now nothing but a shell of its former glory. The only reason it's still active is that Jasmine's dad believes it'll regain its lost glory someday. But that "someday" wasn't looking like it was going to arrive anytime soon. And with now the possibility of a death on the premises, they might get even fewer customers.
They made their way to the second floor, to room twenty-three. After climbing a few stairs, they were right in front of the open door of the room.
As Jasmine started making her way inside she suddenly turned around to face Kane, feeling he wasn't following behind her, and asked, "You're not coming?"
"You go in, I'll stay out here... I don't wanna see that... Again." Kane replied, a slight tremble being seen as he spoke.
"Okay..." She slowly made her way Inside, her heartbeat steadily rising in anticipation of what she might see.
A few seconds later, Kane could hear a violent scream that shook his eardrums.
"OH SHIT! A RAT!"
On instinct, Kane quickly made his way inside, when he suddenly heard Jasmine scream, only to regret his decision a few seconds later.
"Jasmi— Oh god!" Kane could feel the need to throw up swelling from deep within, lucky he stopped himself, covering his mouth with his right hand.
Before them still laid the body of the man, but now multiple rodents and flies were squirming about, eating bits of flesh.
Unable to linger in the room any longer, they both hurriedly made their way out.
They went back to the lobby, where Jasmine had used her phone to call the police. Not long after the hotel was surrounded by the sound of sirens and footsteps of cops moved up and down the hotel.
Soon someone began to walk up to the pair. "I'm Detective Harmon." The man said showing his badge. "Can you possibly give me any information on what might of happened or who this person might be?" He continued looking at the pair intently.
It was Jasmine who responded, "I… I remember him, he had come in like a week ago. He was wearing a hoodie and had on a face mask, didn't think much of it, it's the pandemic. He always paid on time.. so I never asked any more questions. That's all I can remember."
The detective nodded in response, he started to put away his small notebook which he had used to take notes on what Jasmine had said. When he stopped moving, in fact, everyone in the hotel had stopped moving.
As outside the hotel. They heard a large explosion, accompanied by the screams of people.
They all ran outside, confused as to what was going on.
What they saw were several cars in the street, damaged and rammed into each other. But each and every owner of these vehicles seemed to care very little about the damage, as they all looked up to the sky, something they all had in common.
"Hahahaha, it's the end of the world! Hahaha!" Said a random in the street as he fell to his knees, tears and snot running down his face as he looked up.
Everyone who came out looked up, and what they all saw was what looked to be another planet, one way larger than Earth. It was a red and white planet with two purple rings around it, one on its vertical axis and the other on its horizontal axis, and this said planet was currently on the trajectory of Earth. Inching closer with each passing second that passed.
"Lord, have mercy on our souls." one of the officers behind Harmon muttered.