5: Hotel Higashiyama

I have an extreme experience.

I was planning to go to a haunted spot with my friends from the circle just because it was summer. There was a deserted hotel called Hotel Higashiyama. According to the internet, many people had seen ghosts in the hotel. I decided to go there. Some people said they had seen it in burned boiler room. But especially, the fact that the rumors were concentrated on the third floor attracted my interest.  For example, "We heard someone's voice on the third floor," or "Nothing happened and when we were about to go out, we saw someone at the window of the third floor,"  and so on. 

Having played a table turning to be motivated for the haunted place, we headed to the hotel in the midnight. Because we had eight people in the group, everyone seemed to be calm and composed. However, when the huge, charnel silhouette of Hotel Higashiyama came into our sight, the atmosphere had drastically changed. Since I had heard that we could enter the building ground from the back door next to a grave yard, I asked them to wear clothes that were easy to move in. But we couldn't find the grave yard. There was a similar space but it was just a huge vacant lot. "There's no grave yard," one of us said. As we stepped into the vacant lot, holding flashlights up, there was a strange shaped pillar and a stepped alter.

"Hey, something's written here." As one of the members said, I lit up something like a monument. It read 'Cenotaph for the victims of their duty'. Oh, my god...

―― So-and-so    Assistant police inspector 193x-197x

Dozen of  lines like that were written on the cenotaph. Either the appearance of the cenotaph or the deserted hotel scared half of the girls out to cry. Also, guys said, "So dangerous here, seriously." But we had come there all the way. I coaxed them to go and finally, we all crossed a stream in the bottom of the vacant lot and sneaked into the building ground from the back door. There was a window that had been opened. As we got into the building from the window, we saw a broken telephone, trush cans and other various  garbages scattered in the room. Even though the bathtub and the toilet were muddy, they hadn't been broken. We went out of the room and into the hallway. The wall paper had peeled off and the carpet had rolled up. It literally made it a deserted building.  Since we had only two flashlights, we walked as closer to each other as we could, taking photos of each room, toilets and particularly the kitchen where we found all the kitchen tools and account books left as they were at that time. This is just a rumor though, this hotel had folded since the owner went insane.

Having finished searching the first floor, we took courage and began to go up the stairs to the second floor. When we arrived at the second floor and discussed if we should go up straight to the third floor, suddenly, a phone began to go off in the scilence.  It sounded from the third floor. As a girl screamed, restlessness propagated to evereone and some of them rushed down the stares. "Calm down, calm down." In the worst case, their panic could cause an accident.

――Di-li-li-li-li....

While I was hesitating if I should go up or go down, the sound of a phone kept ringing ominously. "Don't rush. Go down slowly." Despite of me saying, they had already gone down. The darkness fell on me and I ran down as they did, feeling creepy. Everyone got together at a lobby in the first floor. As soon as I got there, the phone stopped ringing. "I wanna go home." A girl was even crying. That was awkward. Guys looked pale as well. Then, the oldest guy opened his mouth. It was Master.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm so sorry," said Master, taking a cellphone out from the pocket. "I've never imagined you guys would go panic like that. Sorry, guys." He said he had hidden his cellphon on the third floor during the daytime to surprise us. Then, when we were close to the point, he rang it up with his another phone. ―― What an idiot! That was too much!

As we were bored, we dicided to go home. Wen I was about to go, Master said. "That building is seriously hounted. No jokes." I was almost saying "You are a joke, though," but didn't and listened to him instead. "While we were looking at the cenotaph, there were some people at the window, right?" I didn't see them. I didn't even think of looking at the hotel. "At first, I thought they were bad boys hanging around, but as soon as I entered, I realized they weren't. There were more than 10 on the upper floor."

"What do you mean... ?"

"Do you think I can afford to get another phone just for a joke?"

Ok. I got what he meant.

"That was the hotel's phone. You heard that sound went like 'Dililili'. And how does a cellphone go?"

Yup. A cellphon doesn't go like that.

After sending everyone to their home, an absurd idea came out of Master. "Okay then, we are going back to the hotel." As I said "No way," he released me and went there alone.

A few days later, I asked him how it went.  "The phone went off again," he said with a straight face that was hard to read. "I picked it up and that 'Dililili" sound came out of the receiver. I shouted 'You are no fun!', then every phones in the hotel began to go off. I ran away as it was too dangerous."