The Staircase

"You look like you've seen a ghost," said the bellhop.

I wrinkled my eyebrows and shrugged.

"You okay?"

"I guess," I said shakily. "I almost fell down these stairs. But I caught myself in time. It's fine."

The bellhop nodded knowingly. "Those experiences can be kind of scary, huh? I've seen it all. Let me tell you a story, away from the stairs."

I twisted my mouth and hesitantly followed him down the hallway.

"I've been here awhile," he started. "And there was a time a few years back when some joker thought it'd be funny to shove people down the staircase." His eyes pierced into mine. "After a couple of annoyed visitors, people started to die. We weren't sure whether it was pre-meditated or not, but we never found the culprit. They shut down the hotel for a bit, but they could only do that for so long. When it reopened, it never happened again. Some thought the last victim was actually the culprit, that he'd fallen down after the one he'd just pushed, because there were two dead people that time."

"Who was the last victim? Or rather, the culprit?"

"A bellhop." Uneasily, I turned to look at him. He was gone. Downstairs, the hotel manager insisted they hadn't had a bellhop in years. 

As I nervously went back to my room, I felt a force shove me down the marble staircase, and I knew that in a few seconds, my neck would be broken.