#HauntedHotel Entry 14 - Penance (Room101C)
So you woke up and the walls were transparent.The room was pitch black; none of its opulence could be seen except the walls, and they were transparent. So you reached out and touched them, trying to make sense of this impossibility, and they were solid. You remember thinking it felt like a mirror, except the image
it was reflecting was nothing like your surroundings.
The women of the mirror were all naked, pregnant and dancing, with long hair that reached their waists. And when you looked closer you saw it was not hair but multiples trips of koboko. There were cries and shrieks and the collective effect was so horrific, you tried to shut your ears but you couldn't. You didn't realize this was because you were meant to hear it. Their hips gyrated as they stepped out of the walls into your room, and when they dragged you from your bed to the floor, you peed on yourself like a little boy. They laughed at you, and you saw they had blood dripping from seemingly poisonous fangs instead of teeth; you noticed their bloodshot eyes and freaked out at their breasts without nipples.
That's when you remembered Alli and his tale that you dismissed as myth, and you knew it was time for your penance.
They started chanting words that sounded like 'repent' and when you kept quiet, they flogged you with their whip-like hair till you were brought to a state of near-madness and surprisingly, sexual ecstasy. It was a weird kind of pain you felt that night. For while you could feel your flesh being destroyed with gashes that went in deep, your penis became hard as a rock, and you stared with sexual delight. These were not attractive women; these women seemed like they came from hell to destroy your life, but at that moment you were consumed by an uncontrollable lust. And you knew this lust would destroy you because they were looking at you and laughing.
'Repent!',the first of them screamed as she straddled you and rode you beyond the pinnacle of pain. You screamed so loud, you thrashed about trying to get her off you, but it was like pushing a mountain. And when she stared at you with her bloodshot eyes, you felt the hopelessness of your situation. These women wanted blood and they would get it.
When she was done and you looked at your penis, you cried and wondered how you were not dead. It had multiple perforations from which blood poured out, strangely, it was still erect .And when the second woman straddled you, you realized the women possessed metal tubes with inner spikes and not vaginas.
How ironic. All your friends used to say 'vagina would kill you'. You never believed, you were too busy playing casanova, breaking their hearts and inflicting pain.
You couldn't remember how many even though you remained conscious through all of it. Your penis had become a miserable piece of rotten flesh. Albeit you were bleeding profusely and in pain that would've killed the greatest of men, you remained alive.
'Repent! Repent! Repent!'
'I''m sorry. I'm so sorry',you wait.'I cheated on all of them.I was violent. I'm so sorry.'
'Repent !Repent! Repent!'
That was when they gouged your eyes out. They did it so you could hear, and you did.
You heard her like you did on that night many years ago, but this time it did not make you feel powerful. It was a low cry that told a tale of a man who wrecked a blind girl's life. He transformed all her imaginations of beauty to terrors.
Fatima. That man was you. Now you remember.
'You have been judged and found guilty, but first you must repent!!'.
'I'm guilty. I repent', you said.
Alli told you about this room. It was called Penance, one of the preliminary stops on the road to hell for the men who have sinned against women, but you never believed him. You drowned his voice with laughter and drink.
You should've known the place was evil. You should've turned and fled when you saw the
porter had no teeth and wouldn't look at you. Or when the music playing in the
halls sounded like an elegy, and she handed you keys to Room101C and you laughed aloud. And when you opened the door, you thought to yourself that it looked like an elegant coffin, a befitting place to die, with its white walls, furniture and fittings.
You lay on that bed with its plush pillows; you never knew it would be your final rest.
The mirror wall parted into a tiny passageway, and out came a dwarf of no ordinary kind, with two horns and a three-pronged fork. He beckoned and you
followed, ready to begin your journey of hellish horrors. And when you turned back, you saw that your body still lay in that room; bloodied, dismembered and dead.
The next time Room101 C opens its doors, there would be no corpse, only white walls and plush pillows.
- Written by Ann Osi