Chapter 5 The Desk Clerk

I didn't sleep. Not a wink.

After the Polaroid on my windshield, I couldn't. I drove aimlessly along the beachfront, headlights sweeping over empty sand and shuttered carnival rides, the sea a black void on my right. My pulse never slowed. My fingers clenched the steering wheel so tightly the plastic creaked.

When the horizon finally bruised gray with dawn, I found myself back at the Inn's parking lot, like a dog circling back to its cage.

I told myself I wouldn't go inside. I'd just sit in the car, watch, wait. But as the clock on the dashboard ticked past seven, my stomach turned.

Breakfast at seven, the desk clerk had said.

And when I glanced toward the lobby doors, the glow of light spilled out like a lure.

I don't know what possessed me to get out of the car. Maybe it was anger. Maybe it was desperation. Or maybe it was the sinking realization that I couldn't leave until I got answers.

The lobby smelled of coffee and fried eggs. A buffet had been laid out on the far wall - scrambled eggs steaming in trays, toast stacked in neat piles, orange juice sweating in glass pitchers.

And there she was. The desk clerk. Sitting behind the counter as if she hadn't moved all night. Her glasses perched perfectly on her nose, her smile ready, her eyes unreadable.

"Good morning, Ms. Hart," she said.

I froze mid-step. My voice scraped as I forced the words out. "How do you know my name?"

She tilted her head, as if the question itself amused her. "We know all our guests."

"I never checked in. Not properly. I didn't give you an ID, or a card-"

"And yet," she said smoothly, "you're in Room Seventeen."

Her calmness made me dizzy. My nails dug crescents into my palms. "I want to know what's going on. The photos. The ones left for me."

Her smile faltered - just slightly. "Ah. The photos."

"Yes, the photos!" My voice rose. "Who's taking them? How do they know where I'll be? How-how do they know when?"

For the first time, she leaned back in her chair, her hands folding neatly on the desk. Her gaze sharpened, slicing through me.

"You shouldn't have come here," she said quietly.

The words punched the air from my lungs. "Why not?"

"Because this is where the story folds back on itself. This is where things stop making sense."

I shook my head, backing a step. "What does that even mean?"

Her smile returned, brittle at the edges. "You think the photographs are a warning. Or perhaps a threat. But they are neither. They're... documentation."

My pulse hammered. "Of what?"

"Of revisions."

The word lodged in my chest like a splinter. "Revisions?"

She nodded, as if pleased I'd repeated it. "Time isn't what you think it is, Ms. Hart. It doesn't move forward in a straight line. It drafts itself. Edits. Corrects. Some moments are kept. Some are discarded. You are... in the middle of such a process."

I stared at her, nausea twisting inside me. "That's insane."

"And yet you've seen the proof." She gestured delicately toward my backpack. "Pages of your life, captured before they're lived. After they're erased. Would you like me to pretend it's a prank? A jealous lover? That would be easier to swallow, wouldn't it?"

Her eyes glinted. "But you already know better."

I swallowed hard, my throat desert-dry. "Who's doing it?"

She hesitated. For the first time, I thought I saw something human flicker across her expression - pity.

"You'll meet them soon enough."

The lobby suddenly felt airless, the sunlight through the windows too bright, too sharp. "No. No, you're going to tell me. Right now."

Her gaze softened, but her words only deepened the chill in my bones.

"You've already been told, Ms. Hart. You just don't remember."

The room swam. My hand tightened on the counter to steady myself. "What... what does that mean?"

She glanced at the clock above her head. "It means you should eat breakfast."

The words were so mundane they nearly made me laugh. I almost did - until I looked down.

And saw a Polaroid sitting on the counter between us.

It hadn't been there before. I would've sworn on my life it hadn't been there before. But now it was, the edges brushing my fingertips.

I lifted it with numb hands.

It showed me sitting at a table in the lobby, a plate of eggs and toast in front of me, my face turned toward the desk clerk in mid-conversation.

The date on the back: Tomorrow.

I dropped it like it burned. My breath hitched, ragged.

The desk clerk only smiled, serene. "See? The story is already written."

My vision blurred with panic. "I-I don't want this. I don't want any of this."

Her smile faltered again. This time, her voice was softer. Almost kind.

"No one ever does."

The room tilted. I stumbled back, clutching my backpack, my legs shaking. I had to get out before I collapsed, before I choked on the stench of coffee and eggs and inevitability.

I pushed through the doors, the sea air slamming into me like a wall. My car gleamed in the lot, but I didn't move toward it. I couldn't. My hands trembled too violently.

Across the street, the ocean heaved against the sand, endless, relentless. A sound rose in my throat - a sob or a laugh, I couldn't tell which.

The desk clerk's voice echoed in my skull: They're documentation. Revisions.

And the worst part was, some deep, hidden part of me believed her.