M.A. Kleen

Please enjoy this horror short, part of a series experimenting with artificial intelligence. I fed a location, plot, characters, scenario, and mood into ChatGPT and asked it to craft a story, then used Stable Diffusion XL to create an illustration. How did it turn out? Well, you be the judge.

When Sam and Jessie stop at a desolate roadside motel, they soon discover themselves trapped in a maze of shifting realities. But in a place where time is broken, can anyone truly escape?

The neon sign flickered in the distance, half of the letters burned out, casting an eerie glow across the empty highway. “E O L MO EL” it read. Sam squinted through the rain-splattered windshield, trying to make out the rest of the words, but it didn’t matter. The motel stood alone on the barren stretch of road, and after hours of driving, it was their only option for the night.

“I told you we should’ve stopped earlier,” Jessie muttered from the passenger seat, arms crossed over her chest. Her phone had lost service hours ago, and the dark, oppressive landscape was doing nothing to calm her nerves.

Sam sighed, keeping his eyes on the narrow road. “It’s fine. We’ll stay here for the night and head out first thing in the morning. Just a quick stop.”

The headlights bounced off the cracked pavement of the motel’s parking lot as they pulled in. A single light flickered above the office door, casting long shadows over the rain-soaked ground. The rest of the place was deathly quiet, its peeling paint and broken windows evidence that it had seen better days.

“I don’t like this,” Jessie whispered as they got out of the car, clutching her jacket tightly around her. “It feels… wrong.”

“It’s just a rundown motel. I bet it was popular back in the day. Come on, let’s check in.”

Inside, the lobby was dim, lit by a flickering desk lamp. The room smelled musty, like damp wood and stale cigarettes. Behind the counter, a tall, gaunt man with slicked-back hair sat in silence, his face pale and expressionless. His eyes—deep, hollow pits—fixed on Sam as he approached the counter.

“Can we get a room for the night?” Sam asked, his voice breaking the uncomfortable silence.

The man didn’t respond immediately. He reached under the counter and slid a worn, yellowed guestbook toward them, along with a single key.

“No names needed,” the man said, his voice flat and cold. “Room 6.”

Sam hesitated but nodded. He scribbled something illegible in the book, paid, took the key, and turned to Jessie. “Let’s go.”

Room 6 was worse than they expected. The wallpaper peeled in long strips, and the smell of mold clung to the air. A single lamp flickered weakly on the nightstand, casting a sickly yellow glow over the room’s worn, threadbare furniture.

“This place is disgusting,” Jessie said, wrinkling her nose. “We’re not staying here. We can sleep in the car.”

“We’re already here,” Sam replied, tossing his bag on the bed. “It’s just for the night. We’ll be out of here by morning.”

Jessie didn’t argue further. She sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the door as if she were waiting for something. The air felt thick, almost suffocating, and there was a strange hum that seemed to come from the walls, barely audible but persistent.

As Sam unpacked, the door creaked open slightly, as if a draft had pushed it. Jessie jumped.

“Did you see that?” she asked, her voice sharp.

“It’s just the wind,” Sam said, but even he felt uneasy. “Let’s just try to sleep. We’ve got a long drive ahead tomorrow.”

They lay in bed, neither of them speaking. The room felt colder, and the hum grew louder, vibrating through the floorboards. Sam shut his eyes, but his thoughts were restless. Time seemed to stretch, the minutes dragging into what felt like hours. Every time he glanced at the clock, it showed the same time: 2:47 a.m.

Something wasn’t right.

Suddenly, a knock came at the door—three sharp raps that echoed through the room.

Jessie bolted upright. “Who’s that?”

Sam threw off the blanket and approached the door cautiously. “Hello?” he called, peeking through the peephole. There was no one there.

He opened the door slightly, but the hallway outside was empty. Only the dim glow of the flickering motel sign reflected off the wet pavement.

“Nobody’s there,” Sam said, closing the door again. “It’s probably some prank.”

Jessie didn’t look convinced. “We need to leave, Sam. Something’s off about this place.”

“Relax, Jess. It’s just a bad night. We’ll leave in the morning.”

When they woke, the sunlight was weak, filtering through the broken blinds in dusty shafts. Sam groaned and rolled over to check the time—2:47 a.m.

“What the hell?” He shook his phone, tapping the screen. “My phone’s frozen.”

Jessie sat up and grabbed her own phone. “It’s stuck too. Sam… we need to get out of here.”

Sam nodded, suddenly uneasy. He quickly threw on his jacket and grabbed their bags. Jessie was already at the door, her hand hovering over the handle, when a sound stopped them both in their tracks.

From the other side of the door came the unmistakable sound of whispering—low, hurried, and frantic. Multiple voices, all speaking at once, too fast to understand.

Jessie backed away, her eyes wide. “What is that?”

Sam grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the door. “We’re leaving.”

They opened the door and stepped into the hallway, but something was wrong. The corridor stretched unnaturally long, far longer than it had been the night before. The once flickering light was now steady, but it cast strange, shifting shadows that seemed to move on their own.

“We need to go!” Jessie said, her voice rising with panic.

They ran down the hallway, but no matter how far they went, the lobby never seemed to get closer. The door to the motel room slammed shut behind them, echoing down the endless corridor.

“This isn’t real,” Sam muttered, pulling Jessie forward. “This can’t be real.”

They finally stumbled into the lobby, breathless. The tall man behind the counter was still there, staring at them with the same lifeless expression.

“What the hell is going on here?” Sam shouted.

The man didn’t respond. He only pointed to the guestbook.

Jessie stepped closer, her eyes scanning the list of names. “Sam,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Look.”

The names went back decades, some nearly a hundred years old. But the most terrifying part was that some of the names had no checkout date.

“Sam! These people never left!”

A door behind the counter creaked open, and out stepped a group of people—silent, pale, with empty expressions. Their eyes were hollow, their skin translucent, as if they had faded into something less than human. They moved slowly, deliberately, surrounding Sam and Jessie.

Jessie screamed and grabbed Sam’s arm. “We have to get out of here! Now!”

They turned and ran for the front door, but it wouldn’t budge. Sam kicked at it, but the door seemed to be fused to the frame, as if the motel itself was alive, keeping them trapped inside.

The pale figures stepped closer, their whispering voices filling the room, merging into one deafening chorus of confusion and pain. Sam’s head spun, and he collapsed to the floor, his mind unable to process the cacophony of voices.

Jessie pulled him up, tears streaming down her face. “We need to find another way out!”

They ran down the hallway, passing door after door, each one locked. The walls seemed to shift, the motel warping and twisting around them. Time didn’t exist here—there was only the endless now.

Then they saw it: at the end of the hallway, a door marked “STAFF ONLY.”

They burst through the door and into a dark room filled with old furniture and cleaning supplies. But in the center of the room stood something else—something far more sinister.

It had no face, no distinct form, just a mass of shadow that pulsed and writhed, like something that didn’t belong in this world. The entity seemed to feed on the air around it, drawing energy from the room itself, growing stronger with every passing second.

Jessie gasped, backing away. “What is that?”

The whispers returned, louder now, emanating from the entity itself. It wasn’t speaking to them—it was inside their heads, warping their thoughts, distorting their sense of reality.

“Sam…” Jessie whispered, her voice shaky. “We’re not going to get out of here, are we?”

Sam’s mind raced. His vision blurred, and his thoughts felt disconnected, as if the entity was pulling him apart, piece by piece.

Then, he saw it—a gasoline canister in the corner of the room.

Without thinking, he grabbed it and splashed the liquid around the room. Jessie, realizing what he was doing, scrambled to help, her hands trembling as they soaked the walls.

Sam fumbled in his pocket for a lighter.

As the fire ignited, the flames spread quickly, licking at the walls and furniture. The entity writhed in the center of the room, its form flickering like a shadow trying to escape the light.

“Come on!” Sam shouted, pulling Jessie toward the door. The heat was overwhelming, the flames consuming everything in their path.

They ran through the smoke-filled hallways, the fire spreading rapidly behind them. The walls cracked, the ceiling bowing as the structure began to collapse. The pale figures in the lobby screamed in unison, their voices drowned by the roar of the fire.

The front door shattered under the heat, and Sam and Jessie stumbled out into the rain, coughing and gasping for air. Behind them, the motel burned, flames rising into the night sky. The faceless man and the ghostly figures were nowhere to be seen, swallowed by the inferno.

They collapsed onto the pavement, watching as the fire consumed the building. The motel groaned, the walls collapsing in on themselves, until there was nothing left but smoldering ruins.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. The rain poured down, washing away the ashes.

“Is it over?” Jessie asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Sam nodded, though he wasn’t sure. The motel was gone, but the memory of it—of the time that had twisted and trapped them—lingered in the back of his mind.

Maybe they had escaped. But time, once broken, could never truly be fixed.

A few hours later, as the first light of dawn broke over the horizon, a new sign flickered to life above the smoking ruins of the motel. The letters glowed faintly in the dim light:

“E O L MO EL.”

Time, it seemed, had a way of repeating itself.