H★

[un1c0rnnn]

MASTERLIST!

specific, peculiar stories

the bell that never rang - when the hotel traps you.

lost in the pace - coming soon!

well-being - when you care a little too much.

film maker - coming soon!

look down - coming soon!

look up (look down #2) - coming soon!

i take requests!

[un1c0rnnn]

Well-Being

when you care a little too much.

The house pretty much lived and breathed on a schedule.

At exactly 6:42 a.m., pale gray light slipped through the blinds in thin stripes. By 6:55, the kettle got filled up. Then, right on the dot at 7:00, the pills were laid out.

This was her favorite part, really.

The organizer popped open with a quiet plastic click. Each little section was full of soft, pastel-colored pills. She carefully arranged them on a plain white plate - round ones first, then the capsules, and finally that half-tablet she had sliced earlier with a knife.

The plate sat patiently next to a glass of water.

Her dad was at the table, slumped quietly into himself, his back curved like something folded away and forgotten. His eyes were open but kind of vacant. His chest rose and fell, gentle but shallow.

She smiled at him.

“Good morning,” she said.

The narrator points out he didn’t answer.

She picked up the first pill, placing it gently on his tongue. He swallowed after a moment, slow and unsure, like his body was trying to remember how this all worked. Then water. Then another pill. And another.

She watched his neck closely every single time.

When she was done, she wiped his mouth with a napkin and kissed his forehead. Her lips lingered a bit longer than usual.

The morning rolled on.

She bathed him, humming softly. The foggy mirror blurred their reflections into nothing clear or sharp. She dried him thoroughly, making sure to get between his fingers and the hollow spot at the base of his throat. Then she dressed him in fresh clothes scented faintly of detergent and lavender.

He felt so light now.

She settled him in the armchair and flicked on the TV. A wellness show was playing - bright colors, cheerful tunes, a woman talking about how sticking to a routine is everything when taking care of someone.

“Routine is key,” the woman said.

His head flopped forward a bit.

Around noon, his breathing shifted.

It wasn’t dramatic- no sudden gasps or silence. More like the sound fading slowly on an old radio. His chest moved less each time, the pauses getting longer.

She noticed, naturally.

Kneeling before him, she smoothed his blanket. His skin was cooler than it had been that morning.

“Lunch soon,” she said.

The soup sat on the counter, cooling, untouched.

When his breathing stopped completely, the room took its time catching on. The TV kept babbling. A car rolled by outside. Dust drifted lazily in the sunshine.

She leaned in closer.

The narrator doesn’t say what her face looked like.

She waited.

Nothing.

“Oh,” she said softly.

She put two fingers to his neck. Held them there. Moved them a little. Tried again.

Then she nodded once.

“Okay,” she whispered.

She stood up and went to the kitchen.

The pill organizer sat on the counter, afternoon dose untouched. The compartments looked orderly, the same as always. Waiting.

She opened it.

The plate was clean. Still, she lined up the pills on it, neat as a pin, like presentation really mattered. Filled a glass with fresh water, wiping off a drop that dripped down the side.

She went back into the living room.

Her dad’s mouth hung open slightly.

She sat beside him, carefully lifted his chin, steadying it. Pill by pill, she placed them on his tongue and nudged them in with her fingertip. They just sat there, still.

She tipped the glass, pouring water into his mouth.

But it spilled out right away, running down his cheek and onto his shirt. She wiped it off and tried again, slower this time.

“Come on,” she murmured. “You’ve got to take these.”

Another pill. Another splash of water.

Some pills fell onto his chest. She picked them up and tucked them back in.

The narrator notices how precise she is.

His jaw didn’t close.

“That’s okay,” she said gently. “I’ll help.”

She pressed on his throat softly, massaging, trying to coax a swallow that never came. The pills slowly dissolved, leaving a chalky taste at the corner of his lips.

She kept going until the plate was empty.

Only then she finally relaxed.

Afterwards, she cleaned him up, changed his shirt, smoothed back his hair. Adjusted his body in the chair so he looked a bit more comfortable - head straight, blanket just right.

The TV switched to a segment about caregivers burning out.

She turned it off.

That evening, she wrote in the notebook.

6:00 PM - medication administered

6:15 PM - resting

The words fit neatly on the line.

Later on, as darkness settled over the house, she got the pills ready for the next day - Monday through Sunday. Refilling, fixing, making sure it was all set.

The house was quiet - really quiet.

But the routine stayed steady.

And as long as that routine stayed, everything felt... okay.

[un1c0rnnn]

The Bell That Never Rang

when the hotel traps you.

The hotel did not appear on any map.

Mara realized this only after she arrived, standing beneath a flickering sign that read THE EIDOLON HOTEL. One of the letters buzzed uncertainly, making it look like Eid0lon or Eidolon or something else entirely. The building was narrow and tall, squeezed between two structures that looked abandoned, their windows covered with dust and boards. Yet the hotel’s entrance was immaculate, with brass handles polished to a dull shine, as if someone had rubbed them with devotion instead of care.

Inside, the air smelled faintly of lavender, rust, and something sweet that had turned slightly off.

A bell sat on the reception desk. Mara rang it once.

Nothing happened.

She rang it again. Still nothing, no footsteps, no voice, not even an echo. The sound seemed to vanish as soon as it occurred, swallowed by the thick carpets and the walls that leaned in just a little too close.

“I guess I’ll just… wait,” she muttered.

“You don’t have to,” said a voice behind her.

Mara jumped. The man standing there had not entered through the door—she knew that for sure. He wore a perfectly pressed suit that looked decades out of style, and his smile was polite in a way that reminded her of mannequins appearing friendly if you stared at them long enough.

“We’ve been expecting you,” he added.

She didn’t recall booking a room.

But when he slid a heavy brass key across the desk—Room 303 etched into it—she took it anyway.

The guests were already awake, no matter what time it was.

The woman in Room 101 never blinked. Mara noticed this while passing her in the hallway on her first night. The woman stood perfectly still, facing the wallpaper, her eyes wide and glassy as if she were watching something move beneath its surface.

“Good evening,” Mara said, unsure why.

The woman smiled. Her lips trembled. She did not turn around.

“He’s closer tonight,” she whispered.

“Who?” Mara asked.

But the woman had resumed staring, her reflection in the wallpaper lagging a moment behind her movements.

In the dining room, a man sat alone every night at precisely 2:17 a.m., eating soup that never had the same color twice. Once it was black. Once it shimmered like oil. Once it was unmistakably red.

He always left a tip.

The coins were warm.

Another guest—a boy no older than twelve—wandered the corridors humming tunelessly, dragging a suitcase that clearly weighed more than he did. When Mara offered to help, he shook his head vigorously.

“It screams if anyone else touches it,” he said very seriously.

“Doesn’t it scream when you touch it?” she asked.

He thought about this.

“No,” he said. “It already knows me.”

The hotel did not have mirrors.

Mara realized this on her third day, when she searched for one and found only framed paintings where reflections should have been. Each painting showed a room in the hotel, never the same one twice, and each room was empty, except for a dark figure standing just out of frame, its presence suggested rather than shown.

At night, she dreamed of corridors that rearranged themselves while she slept, doors switching places, stairs leading somewhere deeper than the building should allow. She began to wake with the feeling that someone had stood at the foot of her bed, carefully counting her breaths.

Once, she woke to find muddy footprints leading from her door to the ceiling.

They did not belong to her.

The staff were worse.

They spoke too softly, smiled too long, and never used contractions. Do not, cannot, will not. Their voices sounded rehearsed, like lines practiced in an empty room.

One maid—her name tag read Evelyn, though the letters were scratched and rewritten repeatedly—cleaned Mara’s room every day, even when Mara asked her not to.

“You moved my notebook,” Mara said once.

“I would never,” Evelyn replied gently, her eyes fixed on the wall behind Mara’s head. “The hotel only returns things to where they belong.”

“It wasn’t there before.”

Evelyn’s smile twitched.

“Then it had simply not finished moving yet.”

That night, Mara found her notebook open on the bed. Every page was filled with her handwriting.

She had not written any of it.

The last line read:

YOU ARE ADAPTING WELL.

There was a rulebook in every room. Thin, leather-bound, always placed on the bedside table.

Mara had avoided reading it.

On the seventh night, the bell rang.

It rang once. Loud. Clear. Alive.

Every sound in the hotel stopped.

The humming boy froze mid-step. The soup-eating man dropped his spoon. The woman from Room 101 screamed—a raw, animal sound that echoed through the walls and made the lights flicker violently.

A new guest had arrived.

Mara opened the rulebook.

WELCOME, GUEST.

PLEASE OBSERVE THE FOLLOWING RULES FOR YOUR SAFETY AND COMFORT:

1. Do not answer knocking after midnight.

2. If you hear your name spoken from behind you, keep walking.

3. Never sleep facing the door.

4. Should the hotel change, accept it. Resistance causes delays.

5. You may leave only when the hotel no longer needs you.

Her hands trembled.

“What does needs mean?” she whispered to the empty room.

The walls creaked softly, like old bones settling.

The new guest arrived screaming.

They dragged him past Mara’s door—three staff members and something else, something low to the ground and breathing too wetly to be human. The man begged, pleaded, promised money, favors, anything.

“I just needed somewhere to stay,” he cried.

“So did we all,” murmured the soup-eater calmly from the hallway.

The screaming stopped near the elevator.

The elevator, Mara realized, did not have buttons—only names.

Time stopped behaving after that.

Days looped. Nights stretched. The hotel grew subtly larger. New rooms appeared. Old ones vanished. Guests changed, but not really. The woman from Room 101 eventually turned around.

Her face was blank.

Smooth.

As if someone had gently erased it.

“It’s quieter now,” she said, in a voice that did not belong to her.

The boy’s suitcase began to cry at night. Long, lonely sobs seeped through the walls. Mara started crying with it, though she did not know why.

One morning, she woke behind the reception desk.

The bell was in front of her.

Her hands were on the counter.

A name tag rested nearby.

MARA, it read, the letters freshly scratched.

Footsteps approached.

A tired-looking woman stood before her, suitcase in hand, eyes darting nervously around the lobby.

“Hi,” the woman said. “Do you have any vacancies?”

Mara smiled.

The bell rang.

And somewhere deep in the hotel, something breathed in relief.

“We have been expecting you.”