It's November 24, 2023.

It's just after 11 o'clock at night and a man named John and his wife are checking into a room at the Henderson Castle in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

They're not there for anything unusual.

It's their anniversary, and they wanted a place that felt different from a standard hotel.

Something with a little more character

and atmosphere.

They booked the Dutch room, a space defined by heavy dark wood, tall ceilings, and a large

imposing bed that immediately anchors the room.

It feels solid and enclosed in a way that's different from a modern hotel, but not

uncomfortable.

The temperature is set low, exactly how they like it.

And after settling in, John falls asleep almost immediately.

What a bore.

At exactly 3 a.m., he wakes up fully alert.

There's no gradual shift from sleep to awareness, just an immediate sense that

something is off. The room feels different. What had been comfortably cold is now noticeably warm,

and the air carries a density that makes the space feel heavier than it should. He stays still

for a moment, trying to make sense of it and then remember something that he had read earlier that evening about the house.

At 3 a.m.? It's supposed to be a time when activity is most likely to occur.

John doesn't take that seriously. He reaches for his phone, opens it and starts scrolling through Facebook,

eventually commenting

on a post his wife had made earlier in the night.

...