I had always liked to stay at nice hotels
and now I had the chance to do it often do to my job. I paraded around the
globe trying to sell them these products and in exchange I got to stay in great
cities and beautiful hotels every so often. Of course, there were not five star
hotels and were rather aimed at pleasing businessmen and not film stars or
something, but I really liked them.
One time, for example, I was sent to a rather
small town but they put me in a big hotel with all the amenities possible. It
was five stories high, had a nice view of the airport and even had a pool. So
the first thing I thought, even during my meetings with various people that
day, was when and how to get into that pool. I had planned to get to the hotel
by six in the afternoon and just run to the pool as it closed at seven o’clock.
However,
when I was picking up my things n my room, a hotel towel and so on, I got a
phone call. It was someone from work but I decided to pretend I was busy or a
heavy sleeper and not answered. Actually, I deliberately left my phone in the
room as I left it for the pool, which was amazing. The water’s temperature was
perfect and I had all for myself. Possibly that was because the hotel was
nowhere near top capacity but I didn’t really care. I just enjoyed the moment
and swam across the pool multiple times until I decided it had being too much.
Strangely, no one had come to tell me to get out of the pool and I was sure it
was eight o’clock, at least.
I went back to my room and the phone was ringing
again. I decided to pick up and realized no one answered. The number that
appeared on the screen was from one of my bosses but no one spoken when I
answered. I hung up and just lay down in bed about to turn on the TV but
somehow I got very sleepy in a second and I fell asleep right there. I had a
dreamless night and when I woke up I was slightly startled. I thought I had
overslept but it was still two hours until I had to wake up to leave for my
flight back home. But I couldn’t get back to sleep so I decided to check on the
news. Nothing interesting.
I decided to shower and use all the little
soaps and shampoos I could and those I couldn’t I would put them in my luggage.
Again, the water was perfect and I spent more than enough time in the shower
but because I suddenly felt sleepy again. I had to close the water and lean
against the wall to recover. I grabbed a towel but when I did the world had
started spinning and I just fell hard to the ground. I did not pass out
instantly. My eyesight was blurry and I could feel a presence and some
distorted sounds. Just before I feel into a deep slumber, again, I thought I
saw something and smelled a very particular scent.
When I woke up, I wasn’t in my hotel bedroom.
I was in another hotel bedroom, more likely a motel. The walls had stains on
them, there was a smell of rotten food or something and I realized it was pitch
black outside. I concluded I had been kidnapped and, of course, I had missed my
flight. People would already be looking for me, as they knew at what time I
supposed to be home. I hoped they were looking because that place really felt
off. Something was not right and then I smelled the same scent I smelled before
I feel asleep naked on the ground of the hotel bathroom. I realized I was now
wearing some kind of robe. I checked it and realized it had the emblem of the
hotel I had been staying in. Then, the door of the room opened and that smell
invaded the small space.
The door was close and there he was. A tall
man, wearing a black hat and a coat. I had never seen him before but he had
this look, like what someone would look like after escaping a mental
institution. I decided not to say a word and just wait for him to day or do
something. But he stayed there, standing up by the door just looking at him.
When I tried to move, I realized one of my wrists and one of my ankles, were
tied tightly to the bed. I was tied to them with rope. And I was very week
suddenly so I decided not to fight against anything. Was this a crazy guy that
kidnapped people and killed them far away or was he going to torture me in some
gruesome manner that I couldn’t even understand? The thought made me tremble.
And it was then that he moved, towards me. I
saw his eyes more clearly and they are very red, as if he had never been asleep
in his life. He was older than I had thought at first and, to be honest; he
didn’t seem as deranged as I had thought he was. Still, he didn’t say a word.
However it was me who started asking for him to release. The time for waiting
for him to act had passed and now I needed to make him understand that maybe I
was the wrong target or maybe I could convince him not to kill me. But he
didn’t seem to care about what I said. He just looked at me with those red eyes
and it was uncomfortable and I just started to get very desperate. I was weak
but I pulled and cried from impotence.
This
seemed to work on him because he blinked a lot, as if he had been woken up from
hypnosis or something. I took advantage of his apparent confusion and started
to beg him. I asked him to release me and I swore I would never tell anyone
what had happened in that room and what he looked like. I told him I didn’t
know who he was or what he was trying to do but that I respected him and wanted
him to know I wanted to be respectful of him. All of this came like a waterfall
of ideas that just ran out of my mouth as I thought about them. I was desperate
but said anything in a very controlled way in order not to seem as crazy as I
thought he was. Then, he turned his head and walked towards a table I had not
seen before.
From the table, he took something and took his
time doing something to it. I thought that he was going to start torturing me
for sure but then he turned around and I realized he held a needle in his hand.
Before I could even think anything, he jabbed it on my leg and, once again, I
fell into a deep slumber and only felt him go away, maybe out of the room and
the scent of rotten food fill the space in my mind. This time I did dream. It
was about my childhood and the first boy I had ever kissed. My mind kept
repeating the memory like a damaged DVD player or something. I felt anxious and
then I woke up and I happened to be back but not in my hotel room but in my
home. The first thing I did, after I realized I was still wearing the hotel
robe, was to call the police.
Sure enough, I had disappeared for a whole
week. I almost fainted again when they told me. Apparently, I just remembered
one day out of seven he had me in his custody. I told everything I could to the
police, all bout the guy’s look, the smells, what I could remember about the
motel and about the syringe he had jabbed in my leg. They made me go through
several medical tests and so on in order to know more about he had injected in
me. It apparently was a very strong liquid that made anyone go limp in a
heartbeat. So they thought he might be a doctor of some kind, maybe even a
veterinarian. But I had never met either, not close at least.
My mind was just so full of things, of cut
memories and of fear. Because I knew he could’ve done so much more to me than
he did. He didn’t kill me, torture me and the rape tests came out negative. I
had been kidnapped for some reason and the person responsible had done nothing
to me. The police did their job, I can’t complain about that, and they found
absolutely nothing. They just couldn’t get anywhere with what I knew and with
the other few evidence they had. Not even security cameras had registered him
into my room and no one anywhere had apparently seen such a man. I got fed up
with it all when a psychologist insinuated that maybe I had imagined all of it.
Never trusts shrinks, am I right?
I decided to go back to my work, my home, my
life. I was very scared to be alone at home so I bought a dog and a cat and
just tried to get by, without ever thinking about what had happened that day.
My trips are less frequent now and I just have fun the few times I leave for
business. However, I never sleep well in hotels and I tend to spend a lot of
time in the bar area. I drink so I can sleep faster and just make the night go
more smoothly for me. Since what happened, I can’t stop thinking that maybe I
knew him from something, maybe I had met him once and now I didn’t know. But a hypnotherapist
didn’t help, as I thought. I’m just never going to know what exactly happened
and why and maybe that’s the worst part of it.
