The Key: Theory Two

“Okay well that story is all well and good but the idea of a politician getting caught doing something dirty on their spare time isn’t very realistic. I on the other hand have an idea of what genuinely may happen if we are to discover the true nature of this key.

                “Firstly we go and return it to the local hotel. We go up to the front desk and say, we may have found a key for a room 401 and we would like to return it so the person renting the room can access it once more. But as it turns out because as we all know the hotel is particularly big, so they tell us that there isn’t actually a room 401 and that maybe it’s a key to a different hotel. They seem genuine about what they say but there just a hint of something off in their voice so we do the next best thing and explore for ourselves.

                “We make our way up the various floors checking every room number and making sure that there isn’t a matching door for the key. And naturally, as we may have inferred from what the receptionist said, our search comes up empty and we only find as high as room 320. We begin to walk back toward the elevator until one of us notices a piece of artwork on the wall. A photo. It’s a photograph of the hotel’s original opening which is dated back to February 1943. And there is something about that year that hits a sudden inspiration with us.

                “If the hotel was opened in February 1943, then it would have been constructed with certain precautions because of world war two. At that sort of time it was very possible that the German’s could have extended over the whole of Europe and bombs could have been dropped in this country. In which case there would have been bomb shelter’s under the hotel and maybe this key was for one of the shelters.

                “The idea sounds solid and we’re excited to let the search continue but when we arrive in the elevator we discover that the numbers only go down as far as the hotel lobby and no further. There is an initial disheartening but then we figure that there must be some form of service elevator that goes down into the basement or at the very least some stairwell access. The hunt is still on and the mystery is still afoot.

                “Since there is no other elevators visible, then we check the staircase. As it turns out from the bottom floor there is no other staircase. Some of us are ready to give up but it would seem that I have the foresight to check around and underneath the staircase where there is a door with a do not enter sign. So clearly we are going in the right direction.

                “We creep our way down the staircase, the further we go, the darker it gets. It would be pitch black but we just use our phones to light the way. We can tell from the cold stony aesthetic of the building that this area did used to be a bomb shelter. From the bottom of the stairs there is one long hallway, and the first door at the top of the hallway is labelled, 401. It’s a large steel door that looks like it could definitely withstand a blast.

                “As well as being dark and dank, since it’s down in the basement, there is an eerie feeling to the hallway because it seems unusually clean. These bomb shelters have had no use for over seventy years but at this moment it looks like the hallway has only been abandoned for a few months. There’s a few cobwebs and a thin layer of dust. Not the kind of state you would imagine an untouched for seventy years kind of hallway.

                “But we figure, in for a penny, in for a pound. We came all the way down here so we may as well find what is hidden inside of this room. The lock is a little tough and takes a decent amount of force to get the turn to key. And in a similar fashion the weight of the door means that opening it is no easy feat. But once it is open we discover the true horrors that lie inside.

                “As soon as we shine the light in the doorway, we immediately see tiny bodies hanging from the roof. Our first thought is that they are dead babies but we’re quick to notice that these are actually dolls. Not much better in terms of creepiness. Once again we agree that we are in this for the long run so we cautiously enter the room. The air is thick and musty, with an awfully pungent stink coming from somewhere in the room. The feel of little plastic limbs brushing off of our heads is incredibly uncomfortable. So when no less than a minute has past we decide that enough is enough and we need to leave. But just as we turn to go, the door shuts.

                “Red lights crop up in pairs, the eyes of the dolls illuminating their unfeeling, inhuman faces. There is no breeze or draught but the dolls begin to sway. With each passing second their movement becoming more and more deliberate until they are all turning counter-clockwise in full rotations. There is a deafening bang from the centre of the room and all the dolls freeze immediately in their place, completely disregarding any sign of physics.

                “The ones we can see, from where they froze they all seem to be pointing in the same direction, toward the middle of the room where there was a bang. All of us are horrified beyond belief at this point. Our bodies are so paralyzed that we can’t move, we can barely even breathe. The fact that we are still conscious is only from our evolutionary need to stay alive. But despite all this we feel a pull. A power that’s beyond us that forces our bodies to turn and face the same direction as the dolls. It is there we see the true face of evil. None of make it out alive.”