The Alluring Charm

Alex’s old car sputtered slowly along the dusty road that night. The twilight sky gave way to a dark blue night, all but lit by pale moonlight. There was a large structure with golden lights in the desert ahead. Before it, a neon sign that said “Hotel California” flickered.

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Tiredness and curiosity took him there. The heavy wooden door swung of its own accord, revealing a sumptuous chamber awash in candlelight. In the air resonated a soft tune. A woman in a full-length black dress welcomed him with a beatific smile.

“Welcome to Hotel California,” she said gently. “This place is a home for people who are searching for something.”

Alex smiled. He was comfortable, too comfortable.” The guests strolled along, cracking jokes and dancing, as if time had ceased to exist. But there was something off, something he couldn’t explain.

Halfway through the night Alex started feeling restless. “When can I leave here?” he asked an elderly man in a corner of the room.

The man laughed, his laughter an echo. “Leave? Nobody ever leaves here, young man.”

Alex felt his chest tighten. In the long, infinite hallway, he opened the doors, one after the other, only to return to the starting point. The guests’ faces were now shadows, their eyes meaningless yet meaningful.

“I got to get out,” he muttered.

But the voice of the woman echoed in his mind again. “You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Alex froze, his body trembling in the darkened hall, breath ripping out of his lungs in short bursts. Each step he took was like walking on quicksand, heavier, deeper. With the music playing and laughter of guests ringing far and wide,

At the hallway's end was a great wooden door with a shining golden handle. He ran to it in desperation. He fumbled with open it, as though the doorknob was cold and stubbornly not moving. Over the door was a delicately-carved inscription:

“Only those who are willing to see their own shadows can walk outside.”

Alex read the words, closing his eyes, trying to grasp their meaning. What shadows did they mean? What fears would he gi to have to face?

Just then, another footfall echoed behind him. When he turned, he saw himself, or rather, a version of himself with an angry face and burning eyes. It was walking towards him, a large mirror trailing on its hands.

“Look at yourself,” the figure whispered, javelin-like.

“Oh,” Alex said, and stared into the mirror. He saw his reflection, full of the choices he wished he hadn’t made, the convictions he had chosen to dismiss, the dreams he had not pursued.

“I’m not even me!” Alex yelled.

The figure smiled faintly. “This is the real you. You’ve got to accept it all in order to get out of this place.”

Alex’s face was streaked with tears. He didn’t want to recognize the reflection, yet he knew there was no escape from it. Shaking his hands, the mirror was heading, he was looking at himself longer, deeper. Then gradually, it began to fade, replaced with a more peaceful image of himself.

The door behind him creaked open, a bright white light spilling out into the darkened hallway. Alex didn’t hesitate as he walked into the light.

Alex opened his eyes and the first thing he noticed was that he was in the driver seat of his car. It was pale moonlight under endless desert road, quiet like a secret whisper. The Hotel California was gone, no neon sign casting its gleaming beauty out into the night, no beautiful song, no evidence of the fever dream that had put the whole damned thing in my head.

At first, Alex thought it might be a dream. But the heaviness of his chest, the darkness behind his eyes and the remaining smudges of roses in the air told another.

He drove on, the purr of his engine the sole sound in the silence. The man who had entered the hotel was no more. Whatever stayed in its halls, he had shoved something in much greater, a piece of himself forever fused to the voices of scene.

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And with the road stretching out in front of him, Alex said to the night, “You can leave any time you like, but you can never leave.”

He was devoured by the horizon. The story, like the desert wind, now belonged to him.

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