After returning to the ground floor for a quick round of cheap coffee — they didn’t talk during it, Emil obviously not being keen on establishing any connection with a person on a trial period — they moved on with the walk-through.

  Half of the fourth floor was under reconstruction, and as they walked the kid noticed the walls somewhere were still lacking that gentle curve which was required to be present. ‘Because the non-Euclidean geometry will help keeping the infection out,’ as the IHCD always said in their official statements, backed up by solemnly nodding politicians.

  Fifth floor was nothing peculiar. Walking it, he almost believed they were living a normal life and doing a normal job, not counting shadows or checking whether walls were breathing.

  The elevator doors slid open with a soft, soundless drag.

  Sixth floor.

  Soft yellow lamps mounted at identical heights, each casting the same careful oval of light. The floor tiles reflected just enough to make the ceiling feel lower than it was, and the corridor too still to appear occupied. It felt held.

  This floor felt like a hush with walls — not quiet, but silent, and not because of vacancy. Even the carpet felt softer here, chosen to absorb sound more completely than anywhere else in the building.

  On the website, the floor was listed as the one with fewer rooms, all executive. Larger. Quieter. The kind of rooms people booked to feel important, and then rarely left. The doors were newer, sleeker, their dark wood unmarred by scratches or personality. Identical handles, identical brass numbers.

  And yet, something tugged at his eyes.

  At first glance, it looked like a normal floor, almost aggressively so. The kind of hallway designed to reassure people who hated hotels.

  Some doors sat a fraction deeper in its frame. The shadow beneath it was thicker. The handle felt heavier, even at a distance. The others were perfect. Too perfect. Flat in a way his eyes didn’t quite want to settle on.

  Emil didn’t say anything for a few steps until finally giving a brief comment: “Sixth are all executive, as you might know. Most guests don’t touch it.”

  “Too expensive?” the kid watched his back, having fallen a couple steps back because he paused to watch a dark painting of the Prague Castle — completely out of place, but kept anyway.

  “You could say that,” Emil shrugged.

  He walked without slowing for anyone’s sake, key-ring swaying with a subtle rhythm. The kid followed, notebook now half-open in one hand as if ready for further notes, but he was barely looking at it.

  Instead, his eyes were fixed on the hallway, on that minimal spacing between the strange doors, on lack of signs or scuff marks.

  "Aren't executive rooms supposed to be big?"

  "They are," Emil barely spared him a glance over the shoulder.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Then, as if correcting a misstep rather than explaining a rule, he tapped the wall beside the nearest door with his knuckles. The sound was wrong — too shallow.

  "Each third door is real. The rest are... structural."

  "Structural what?"

  "Suggestions. They keep the hallway honest."

  Now that he was looking for it, he noticed the pattern.

  “People don’t notice,” Emil went on. “They remember how many doors there should be, not how many there are.”

  “And if they open the wrong one?”

  Emil shrugged. “Usually nothing. Sometimes the handle comes off. Sometimes the corridor gets longer when they turn around.”

  Despite the obvious don't improvise your actions hanging in the air, the kid reached for one of the doors, trying the handle.

  It opened.

  Not into a room, though — just a wall. Clean plaster, cool and close, like the suggestion of space rather than space itself. Noticing Emil's gaze turning murderous, he closed it quickly.

  "Sorry."

  Looking away to avoid the glare, he noticed the housekeeping cart missing at its designated station. Emil sighed and went on.

  The silence here was bigger.

  The last door sat centered, larger than the rest, framed by two lamps instead of one. It wasn’t marked like the others. No room number at eye level. Just a small brass plaque set lower, as if meant to be read only after you’d already stopped.

  606.

  Precise. Too precise.

  The kind of symmetry that bent light when no one was looking.

  It felt like it was waiting for something. Or someone.

  The Protagonist felt it before Emil said anything. A slight pressure behind the eyes. The sense that the hallway had been arranged to deliver him here.

  "This one's real," the detective said. "Always."

  “That’s the one, right?” the kid almost whispered. “From earlier? The one that might call?”

  Emil didn’t look at him, stopping beside the door. He eyed it briefly, listened only to hear no sounds inside; no echo of movements.

  The kid, leaning closer, didn’t catch even breathing. But he heard the idea of it.

  “If it calls, you answer,” Emil repeated the rule he had already voiced back in the security room.

  “Right, but… is someone staying there, or…?”

  The kid didn’t finish the question but the implication was very clear. Emil tapped the number plague — once, just to make a contact, not to knock.

  “Room’s paid up. Six months, no complaints. Suite works, door locks. No drafts, no echoes.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” the kid frowned softly. “It’s just a… room? A normal one?”

  “Could be. Could be the room’s spiraled. Could be the guest. Could be the hallway’s off,” Emil turned and started walking back, “and the door’s what holding it together.”

  The kid lingered a second longer than he should have, feeling a strange pull in his stomach — an uncomfortable sense that the corridor and this perfectly centered door had framed him on purpose.

  “Don’t knock,” Emil tossed to him over the shoulder, “Don’t linger. Don’t stare.”

  He nodded even if no one was looking. The overhead lights above him flickered once; a small window on the right side looked over the rooftops, the pale and still city visible below because the blinds weren’t pulled down. The only ones in the whole building.

  The kid didn’t flinch at the flicker — his head tilted... and not towards the light.

  Towards the door.

  Like he heard something through it.

  Emil turned in that exact moment to check why the kid didn’t move to follow.

  “What did you just do.” Emil asked quietly.

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  The kid looked at the door again, his gaze suddenly softening along with his voice, like he was being scolded for sneaking sweets before lunch. “I just— I wanted to know if it would flicker again if I held my breath.”

  Emil stared at him for a long moment before turning and walking again. “I change my mind.”

  The kid tensed up before suddenly taking off after him, jogging to catch up. “About the job?” He almost tripped trying to circle Emil and look him in the eyes.

  “About you lasting a week,” the detective didn’t look at him despite all the attempts. “You might make it to ten days.”

  The kid breathed out a sigh of relief, following him — but not before giving the Suite 606’s door one last glance.

  The door didn’t do anything, of course. But it definitely didn’t not do something either.