Writers 
The Letter Beneath Room 17
The first time Elena saw the letter, she thought it was a mistake.
It was lying beneath the door of Room 17.
She had been working at the old Bellwood Hotel for only three days, and nobody had mentioned Room 17.
In fact, nobody had mentioned the entire third floor.
"Don't go upstairs," the manager had warned her during her first shift. "There are no guests there."
Elena had laughed.
"Why keep the rooms if nobody uses them?"
The manager's smile disappeared.
"Some rooms are better left empty."
She hadn't asked again.
Until that rainy Thursday night.
The hotel was almost empty. Elena was sitting behind the reception desk, fighting sleep, when she heard a soft sound above her.
A door closing.
She looked up.
The sound had come from the third floor.
Elena checked the clock.
11:47 p.m.
She remembered the manager's warning.
Still, curiosity won.
She took the old staircase and climbed slowly.
The hallway was darker than she expected.
Room 17 was at the very end.
Its door was covered in dust.
But there was something lying on the floor beneath it.
An envelope.
Elena picked it up.
Her name was written on the front.
ELENA HART.
She stopped breathing.
Nobody at the hotel knew her middle name.
She turned the envelope over.
There was no stamp.
No address.
Only a strange symbol drawn in black ink.
A circle with a line through the center.
Elena opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
She read the first sentence.
If you're reading this, Room 17 has finally opened again.
Her hands began to shake.
She continued.
You don't know me, but I know exactly who you are.
Your mother came here twenty-two years ago.
Elena's heart pounded.
Her mother had never mentioned Bellwood Hotel.
Not once.
The next sentence made her step backward.
She left something beneath Room 17.
Elena stared at the door.
Beneath it?
She looked down at the old wooden floor.
There was a narrow gap between the floorboards.
Something metallic was visible underneath.
She knelt and touched it.
A small key.
Before she could pick it up, she heard footsteps behind her.
Elena turned.
The hallway was empty.
Then Room 17 opened by itself.
The door creaked slowly inward.
Elena stood frozen.
Inside was darkness.
But on the wall opposite her was a photograph.
She stepped closer.
It showed a young woman standing outside Bellwood Hotel.
Elena knew the woman.
It was her mother.
But there was something else in the photograph.
A little girl stood beside her.
Elena stared at the child's face.
It was her.
Except Elena had never been to Bellwood Hotel as a child.
At least, that was what she had always believed.
A sound came from inside the room.
Three knocks.
Elena stepped backward.
Then a man's voice whispered from the darkness.
"You're late."
She couldn't move.
"Who are you?"
Silence.
Then the voice answered.
"The person your mother spent twenty-two years trying to keep you away from."
Elena looked at the photograph again.
A second person had been standing behind her mother.
Someone whose face had been scratched away.
She suddenly understood why her mother had never talked about this place.
The letter wasn't an invitation.
It was a warning.
And whatever was hidden beneath Room 17 had been waiting for Elena to come back.
