The Hostage in Room 309

The phone was ringing at 3:17 a.m. My phone (cell) not the dusty, crusty landline phone that hadn t rung in years. It lay on the old peeling reception desk of the hotel, I ran, half with love and half with stubbornness. "Hello?" I responded in a muddled sleep-half-woke-kind of way. Silence. Then, a voice. Calm. Cold. In Room 309 there is a girl. We are not able to get out of her. Neither could you. There was a dead line. I stood staring at the receiver where I stood like a statue. My blood pounded away in my heart like a talking drum. I would like to think it was a practical joke. But there was something in me that could tell me this was actually happening, perhaps it was the way the voice was devoid of any emotion. I am Mofe. I am thirty four. My father on his part ran a hotel where I have inherited his legacy of believing in walls and locks more than the people. I spent the vast majority of my life in this building and more or less looking through the windows at the folks who entered and exited and had tales they will never share. And nothing was ready to such a call. No one had reserved a room in 2 weeks back in 309. This was something that was to be empty. I took a torchlight and went up the stairs. The corridor sent up an aroma of rain-trapped weathered wood. As I reached the door of Room 309 with my hand it trembled as I knocked.  [Image Source](https://pixabay.com/photos/hotel-room-new-product-door-1330850/) No response. I knocked the knob. Locked. Afterwards I heard it. Weeping inside. "Hello?" I whispered. All right? There was no crying anymore. Then a voice, Very faint and hesitating. Please...Hear me. He told them not to open to anybody." "Who? Who been locking you up? But she made no reply. Down to the master key I ran. My throat was tight in my throat by the time I opened the door. A girl. About 15 or 16. Thin. Hair scattered. Red eyes that indicated the lack of sleep in days. On the bed she sat hunched up with her knees, drawn to her chest. He warned me that when I attempt to escape he would beat my mum. He’s watching. Eyeing them always." Who is this he? Whither goes your mother?" Shaking her head she went on: I cannot tell. I ventured in through the door very quietly, as I was entering a lion den. I glanced about. No cameras. No evidence forced entry. Nobody lurking in the shade. I tell you it was just this girl, frightened into her wits. What you name? "Ada." Safe, Ada. Nobody shall ever harm you. She did not believe me however. I might read it in her eyes. Ada remained in Room 309 over the next three days. She would not come out. Each time I would attempt to move her she would scream, shake, cry. She told me he saw. Well, he would know that. That her mother would pass on. The second day I called the police. They visited and inspected and questioned her. She did little talking. They answered the effect that, without showing any crime, they could do nothing. The land line rang that night once more. You would have been better off not to get into her business. You violated the rules. Well you will both pay now." I called out on the phone, but it was dead. I passed no sleep that night. The following morning I discovered a photograph underneath the front door. Ada it was. Sleeping. Up in room 309. My face got weak. Who was it that had taken that photograph? When? How? I bounded up-stairs. Had been scanned over literally inch by inch in the room. There are no secret cameras. Nothing to indicate entry. But Ada was sitting on the bed, and gazed at the wall. "He never goes away," she said, in a whisper. You simply can not see him."  [Image Source](https://pixabay.com/photos/bedroom-cupboard-bed-room-sofa-1872196/) During the fourth evening power cut occurred. The tempest uttered thunder. It was raining hard as though it were battering the windows. I put on candles. I was out inspecting Ada. She was no longer there. In Room 309 there was no one. My heart dropped my feet. I looked in all nooks and crannies--hallways, bathrooms, kitchen, in the locked storage, too. Not any sign of her. I shouted her call till my strings were on fire. There is when I saw it. It was the old elevator, which had been out of commission years--the door ajar. I tore it open, and scrambled into it. So there she was. Hunched in the corner as a discarded doll. He told me it is his time. He told me I must go back." No, I pulled her out. You are going nowhere. She came huddling up to me, and sobbed. I carried her. Tight. As I might smash the stuff that possessed her brain. I sat with her that night and she fell asleep. I never slept. I watched idly. Guarded. This was followed by the landline sounding again at 3:17 a.m. You do not realize. It is not she who is the hostage. You already are." Click. I looked into the phone. It was not only Ada. And I had lived in this life of hotels my entire life. Mired in mourning. Caged with fear. Coming under debt. Avoiding actuality behind the castles of some world I no longer believed in since my mother vanished mysteriously, when I was 10. I noticed Ada sleeping. And something jelled. The manner in which she would fasten on to me. How she looked into my eyes in search of something she never mentioned. Not just a girl. She was me. The same fear. The same nothingness. The same unfailed questions. Maybe not in name, or face. Whatever in soul. I decided something. We left next day. I closed up the hotel doors. For good. I sold the building. I sent Ada to a Therapist. Then to safe house. Then is school. It took months. But she laughed again. And me? Then I was breathing again. The last time that land line rang I let it ring. Then i turned it off. They say hostages are people held by force. But sometimes, you’re a hostage to your past. To your fears. To the silence you never broke. Freeing someone else can sometimes be the only way to free yourself. And that is how we both escaped Room 309.