Hotel

Jan K. opened his eyes and looked around; he immediately realized he was in a dingy, stinking room. The walls, once covered in wallpaper, now stripped bare, glowed in the morning sun. The floor—wooden boards eaten away by woodworm and littered with various debris—also caught the scent of human feces; it was unclear where they came from, but a person can always tell if feces were human or animal. In any case, Jan, though slightly disoriented, quickly located the excrement: it was lying in the corner of the room, covered with an old issue of "Polityka." A reflexive distaste spread across Jan K.'s face, twisting his lips in a way he himself would never have consciously done. He choked, also reflexively. The windows were boarded up, probably with boards from the floor. Only the aforementioned rays of sunlight filtered through the large cracks. "But where the hell is the door?" Jan K. wondered. His gaze drifted to the mattress leaning against the wall, which had probably fed a whole army of moths in the past. It was upright, so it made sense what lay behind it. The man grabbed the mattress with his right hand and tossed it aside. The door, or rather a common hole in the wall, led to the hallway. There, the floor was in the same condition as the room, but less stable, inviting Jan K. to explore the house. Jan K. didn't let such suggestions slip, taking his steps carefully, one by one. The floor creaked under his leather shoes, his designer suit fit his shoulders slightly.

The hallway was about fifteen meters long and curved to the left (from the hero's perspective). The rooms were evenly spaced, like a hotel. "Maybe this used to be a hotel," Jan K. thought. Each room looked the same: full of trash, windows boarded up with boards "borrowed" from the floor. Oddly enough, each room contained feces. Always covered by the "Polityka" number…

Jan K. counted a total of twelve rooms. He also found a staircase, rickety, treacherous, but unique. Jan K.'s conclusion was based on the conclusion that he was on the first floor. The ground floor, or rather the stairs leading there, was the first and almost last escape route. The stairs, wooden and twisted with long-rusted screws, creaked with even the lightest step. There was no light in the corridor, let alone on the stairs, no "light at the end of the tunnel." Jan K. had to rely on his own instincts and intuition. He stumbled twice, once heard and felt a step (or part of it) break off and fall down. Finally, he reached the bottom, but there were no light sources there either; he had already noticed this on the stairs; so he reached out and touched the wall. He felt a brick wall.

Taking risks and carefully planning each step, he moved like a blind man, tracing the wall with his hand, searching for windows, doors, or even a hole in the wall. Unfortunately, he only felt certain depressions in the wall, certain alcoves.The feel was different there; as if the walls had been recently added at those points.

The ground floor consisted of a large hall and a small room (according to Jan K., it was the reception desk). There was no exit, no descent to the basement, although such hotels usually had basements.

"But what does the phrase 'such hotels' mean?" Jan K. asked himself

. "I don't even know if this is a hotel!" he said aloud.

He climbed the rickety stairs, again by feel, into the stench of the shit left there, but also into the light that always helped Jan think.

Once he felt the gentle warmth of the sun on his face, his mind returned to a state that allowed for logic and sobriety.

Unfortunately, even now Jan K. was unable to understand anything. Nothing but the numbing thought that someone, no one knew who, had walled Jan K. up in some old building.

Jan K. put aside the question of who this psychopath was and what his goal was for the time being. Now, rightly, he was thinking about escaping this gloomy place.

He peered through a gap between the boards. The sun blinded him. He squinted and tried to see what was below. But the sun was gaining strength, heading toward its midday zenith.

Jan K. stuck his fingers into the crack, gripped the board as tightly as he could, and pulled. The board tilted slightly but didn't fall off. The nails, though rusted, still served their purpose. Jan K. didn't give up, however. He tugged twice more, and the board gave way. Impatiently, he tossed it aside, pressed his face against the enlarged opening, and surveyed the situation. It looked even higher than the first floor, but he still didn't know what lay directly below. Beyond, however, he saw a dense forest. Through the blinding light, he saw leaves and branches fluttering in the wind.

"More boards..."

He began tearing away more sections of the floor; on the fourth board, a large splinter lodged in his thumb. He grimaced slightly and quickly, absentmindedly, removed the stick from his finger. After a few more minutes, a pile of boards had formed near the window. Jan K. stood in the frame and looked down. He saw a surface that had probably once been called a lawn. Now it was barren earth, further slashed with sticks. From this height, the man couldn't make out what it was. He looked to the side. Mysterious pillars stretched the entire width of the building. Suddenly, Jan realized he was at the height of the second floor. Apparently, the "reception" was on the first floor. Never mind. "I have to get down," he thought frantically. "

I'm like Robinson Crusoe. Except he was trapped on a normal island. My island is concrete."

Suddenly, he felt a touch on his back. He quickly turned his head, but he didn't have time to see what, or who, had touched him. A split second later, all he saw was a figure, or rather, its outline. It was now standing where he had been a moment ago. Jan K., on the other hand, was falling. He was falling down. Right into those mysterious sticks.

He felt a searing pain around his liver. Then in his lungs, but then he hit the ground. He still felt that. He opened his eyes and saw a modest, black cross standing right next to him. His left side burned with blinding pain. Or perhaps the sun was still doing its thing? He experienced an epiphany: the right arm of the cross had dug into his side. Now that he knew what had happened, the pain seemed to intensify. From that moment on, a terrible flood of thoughts began to flood his mind. One was the conviction that he was about to expire. The other, that he was in a cemetery. He also noticed that no shortcuts from his life flashed before his eyes. He forced himself to recall them. A happy childhood in his family home, meeting Kamila while studying economics, his first successes at work, starting his own company, the first signs of boredom with life and his wife in particular, meeting Angela, the attractive secretary from his own office (what a cliché), a passionate romance, and a quest for Kamila. And so a short film titled "Jan K. 53 Years of Triviality" appeared before his eyes. I'm dying. Nothing else is left. Where is the regret? Where is the sadness?

His body was undergoing a slow, final paralysis, but he forced himself to look at the deadly cross; at the small metal plaque. It bore a small, white inscription: "Kazimierz M., grateful for the gift of fate, which is death." "

Oh God…

Now he understood the last, yet most important thing in his life: he would die, killed by his own sins, and rest among his kind. Too bad.