Page 10 - CAS- Book 1 - Autumn, Winter

Infinity Madness

Brian Lo
It was supposed to be a stupid bet.

Just a stupid bet.

People say that doing the same thing over and over again, and expec ng
different results is the defini on of insanity. The people who say that have
the right concept, but they are ul mately wrong.

I entered the building on a bet. An allegedly haunted hotel, where no one
could reach the 45th floor. I was broke, and this seemed an easy way to get
some money, right? Fi y dollars was enough to en ce me to hike off to‐
wards the building.
The rules were simple enough.

Get to the top, shine his flashlight from a window and the money was his.

The abandoned hotel stood on the hill, silent and isolated from the rest of
the town. It felt incredibly... alone. The oldest residents of that building
were the spiders. Genera ons of the ny creatures had laced the walls with
delicate pa erns of intricate beauty, though now most lay in dusty rags. It
must have been at least three decades since a human footstep had echoed
within those walls, since the dust had been disturbed and the ghosts awok‐
en. The only furniture in the recep on was an an que pedestal table carved
of oak. The hotel was old and rickety, which meant the escalator was out of
the ques on. The fire escape was liable to create an accident, rather than
escape from one, which only le the stairwell.
The rules were simple enough.

So up the stairs I went.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
The brass plaques announcing each floor number gli ered as my small flash‐
light glanced upon them, layered in thick dust. I heard more than one ny
set of scrabbling claws in response to my light and footsteps.
Up I went.

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