Years ago, in the heart of a bustling city, I found myself working at the elegant Seelbach hotel, a place of history and opulence. The grandeur of the establishment reached its zenith in the uppermost floors—a realm reserved for special occasions, the top floor seldom graced by guests due to its exclusivity. It was a quiet realm, where time passed slowly, and the rooms lay dormant until called upon.
On one fateful day, the task fell upon me to freshen up the top floor, preparing it for an impending grand gathering. My steps were solitary as I moved through the ballrooms and meeting spaces, a sense of solitude accompanying me in the largely unoccupied expanse. As I went about my duties—straightening sheets, releasing spritzes of air freshener, and removing any traces of dust—I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was not truly alone. My nerves, already unsettled due to prior reprimand for watching TV in the rooms, remained on edge.
The presence of an unseen watcher pervaded my senses, like a silent observer lingering just out of sight. I half-expected to be caught by my supervisor again, this time for some perceived transgression. The aura of tension accompanied me until I reached a corner room—one that differed in layout from the others. Here, the mirror faced the hallway entrance, contrary to the usual configuration. I busied myself making the bed, the uncanny sensation of being watched growing more intense.
In that moment, as I turned to pull on the bedspread, I could feel the presence as acutely as ever. I turned my head over my shoulder, anticipating the reprimanding gaze of my superior, only to be met with emptiness. No one was there. However, as I shifted my gaze towards the mirror, a chilling sight awaited me. In its silvery depths, a woman stood in the doorway, her head visible above my shoulder. Her appearance bore an air of normalcy—fair-haired, pallid visage, and an expression free of malice. Yet, a frigid current swept through the room, and an unsettling sensation gripped me.
With a heart racing, I turned to confront the doorway directly. Empty. The woman, the phantom, had vanished. My pulse quickened as I glanced back at the mirror, a shiver coursing through me. She persisted there, present only within the reflection. A sense of dread clawed at my consciousness, propelling me to flee from the room. My skin crawled, and an icy chill persisted as I hurriedly abandoned the chamber, the sensation akin to a primal fear—flight or fight taking hold.
Stories of apparitions on the tenth floor circulated, whispers of ethereal figures treading in spaces of the living. An encounter like mine was not uncommon, an eerie dance between realms that evoked both fascination and a visceral response. The hotel’s upper echelons held secrets of the past, a history intertwined with the present, where guests unseen but felt left their echoes upon time itself. I couldn’t return to that floor that day, my shaken demeanor prompting another to finish what I had started. The encounter left me rattled, forever altered by the collision of the living and the spectral in the elegant halls of the Seelbach.