"It's amazing!" agreed her Kyrii companion. "Hey Claire, look at these nice plush seats!" she said, settling down on the soft red fabric of the reception area.

"I can't believe our owners actually shelled out the Neopoints to lodge us at The Royal Neopian! It's a dream come true," she sighed, admiring the astonishing marble-work.

A bellhop soon approached them, taking their bags. "You room is ready; one of our very best suites." Lucy and Claire flashed excited smiles at each other, and then, resuming the proper composure for such a fancy hotel, followed the bellhop to their room.

"Your room," the bellhop said with a flourish of his arm. Claire tipped him, and gasped as she set eyes on the gorgeous room. It was absolutely magnificent!

An exquisite rug ran along the marble entryway, leading into the roomy suite, where they found two beds on dais, surrounded by deep red satin curtains.

"The room has a beautiful view. However, the curtains have already been drawn, to retain the room's warmth for tonight. Therefore, I don't suggest opening them until morning," said the bellhop, smiling before closing the door on his way out.

The two girls went to explore the room further. Lucy checked out the bathroom that had silverwork inlaid with gold on all the faucets, while Claire squealed in delight about the walk-in closet space.

"Hey Claire, let's go downstairs and check out the restaurants, after all, we DO have full-"

"EXTRAS!" they squealed together. It was going to be wonderful. They had full access to restaurants, the pool, tennis courts... everything. Their owners had spared no expense to keep them happy for the week they would be gone.

As the elevator doors opened on the reception level, the two friends stepped out, still chatting gleefully, until Claire stopped. Lucy nearly ran into her. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Isn't it kinda dim in here? It was well lit earlier," she said, looking at the half-lit chandelier lights.

"Well, I guess so. It is getting rather late though; maybe they turn the lights down at night?"

Lucy grimaced. "I've never heard of hotels doing that. Let's go ask at the reception desk. Maybe there was a blackout and they are using emergency generators?" Claire wondered briefly why the elevator was working fine, if there had been a power problem.

"Hello? Anyone here?" Claire called, leaning over the reception desk. No one answered. Looking around, she noticed that not only was the reception staff missing, there really wasn't anyone around. No bellhops, or other guests. It was only 8:00PM... surely the reception and restaurant level would still have activity.

"Um, maybe they evacuated, and we didn't hear?" suggested Lucy, with fear creeping into her voice. Claire nodded.

"Maybe we should go outside and see if they are out there." The two friends went through the elegant revolving door with tinted glass... and found themselves back in the hotel. The friends exchanged startled glances, then tried again to leave. Each time the door led them back into the hotel.

"Okay, this is REALLY beginning to freak me out," Lucy said, shaking.

"Uh... there must be an emergency exit or window somewhere. T-t-the door's just broken, that's all. Let's go find another way out."

The Usul and Kyrii explored the first floor. Every restaurant was empty, and all the sitting areas as well. Strangely, no windows or exits could be found. Just elegant tapestries and paintings decorated the walls of the dimly lit corridors.

The two friends, nearly panicked, racked their brains for a way to escape...

"Of course it's not. This is real for me, too." Claire muttered, rolling her eyes. They continued wandering around the hotel unsure of where to go.

"I know! The staff's playing a really cruel joke on us." The Kyrii said, coming up with another useless idea.

"Sure, that would explain why the doors won't let us out. They wouldn't break them on purpose, just so they could trick us." Lucy nodded her agreement reluctantly; nothing was going to explain this. And this was supposed to be the best time that they ever had! "C'mon, let's go to our room. There's no use just standing around here with nothing to do." Once again the Kyrii nodded her agreement and they headed for the elevators.

They pressed the up button, and waited impatiently for the door to open. "What's taking it so long?" Claire complained as she watched the doors stand idle.

"Look, it's coming from the top floor, so it's going to take a while. It's got six more to go..." Lucy stopped as a thought occurred to her.

Claire gave her friend a questioning look as she stood there with a smile on her face. "If we're the only guests in this hotel, why is the elevator at the top?" she said with a smile. Just then the doors chimed and opened. They gave each other a knowing look, that only two very close friends would understand, then raced onto the elevator.

They hurriedly pressed the button for the top floor and waited eagerly as the doors closed. "We're not the only ones here!" Claire said with a delighted laugh. They began giggling with relief. Then the smile slipped off of Lucy's face.

"What is it now?" Claire said with concern.

"What if..." The Usul let out a sigh as she heard her friend start up with ideas again. "What if the person on the top floor is really an axe murderer or something? What if they're really evil, and they're gonna cast a spell on us? What if..." she said with a frightened gulp. "What if they want to hurt us? That would explain all the things that are happening around here." Claire felt the smile slip off her own face as her friend spoke each frightening word.

"Lucy, stop it! You're scaring me..." she screamed angrily. The Kyrii put a paw over her mouth to try and keep her quiet. "Shhh! You want them to know we're here?"

Just then the elevator came to a stop. It let out a beep, just before the doors began to slowly slide open. They could hear their own hearts pounding in their ears. The doors opened into a wide enough gape for them to see through. Lucy leaned forward, looking through the widening entrance, while Claire hung on to her hand. The Kyrii let out a strangled scream...

..."Claire! Claire! Hurry, push the down button, NOW!" The Kyrii spun around to see her friend with a look of terror frozen on her face. Thinking fast, Lucy jumped over towards the panel with buttons, and punched the first one that came in contact with her fist. She frantically waited for the doors to close, pulling herself further and further against the back wall. Finally there was a jolt, and the elevator started to move down again.

"L-Lu-Lucy?" Lucille looked up to see that Claire had somewhat recovered. Her voice still stuttered and her eyes were wild with fear, but after taking a deep breath, she was able to regain some composure. "Wha... What was that th-thing?" The Usul forced the words out of her mouth, letting them spill upon her friend in a jumbled manner.

"I'm not sure, Claire." The Kyrii shook her head, trying to make some sense come out of the situation. "All I know is that we should get somewhere safe..." Lucy thought for a second, then walking back over to the button panel, hit their floor number. "Our room is the only place I can think of, unless you have a suggestion."

Claire hurriedly shook her head as the elevator stopped at their floor. She felt shivers run up and down her spine as the doors opened once more. She was terrified. That's when she felt Lucy grab her by the hand and pull her out into the hallway, dashing madly for their suite. The next thing she saw clearly was the door slamming behind them, as the bright lights of their room greeted them...

"LIGHTS!" Lucy and Claire yelled at the same time.

"We have lights!" Lucy continued. "How is that possible? The whole hotel is either dark or dimmed!" Lucy reached for the switch on the wall, hoping that they weren't just going a little crazy. She flipped it down; nothing happened. The Kyrii started to click the switch at an alarming pace, but the light in the room never changed.

"Wait! I have an idea on how to get out of here!" the Usul exclaimed. Confusing Lucy even more, Claire walked over to the curtains that closed the room off from the night. "Look! We still have a window behind these curtains!"

Lucy saw her companion reach to open the curtains. "STOP!" the Kyrii yelled, "You heard what the bellhop said! If we open that, we'll freeze tonight..."

"Don't you see, Lucy?" was all that the Usul replied before she ripped down a panel of red satin curtains. "We'll just tie these curtains together to make a rope..." Her voice drifted off as she started started to tear the curtains into long strips, then tying them together in rope fashion, one after the other.

"U-uh, Claire," stammered the Kyrii, "look what's behind the curtains..."

"Why, why, why? We'll never get out of here, never!"

"No, no! Stop, don't cry. Just... be quiet," the Kyrii told her friend, but it was to no avail. That's when the door's handle began to turn and shake. This stopped Claire's crying almost instantly.

"Good thing door is locked," the pair whispered in perfect unison. A mad growling came from outside the door, as it began to shake. The companions didn't dare to exhale. Seconds passed like hours as they waited for the beast to leave. Eventually it grew quiet, and the girls breathed a sigh of relief. What was out there? Was it really gone?

Knees shaking, the two friends stood up. Scared out of her wits, and eyes brimming with tears, Claire turned to Lucy. "Now what are we going to do?..."

..."A phone!" exclaimed Lucy. "We'll use a phone to call for help!"

Claire stopped sobbing only long enough to point out a problem in her friend's plan. "B-b-but the only phone is d-d-downstairs in the lobby. And wh-wh-what about that creature outside?"

However, the Kyrii wasn't listening; she was rummaging through her travel bag. "Found them!" Lucy said, holding two identical purple invisihats. "If we wear these, that thing won't see us!" said the Kyrii grinning.

Three minutes later, the two friends were creeping out of their bright, luxury suite into the dim hallway of the sixteenth floor. "Hey Lucy, can you see me?"

"No, but I can hear you!" Lucy hissed. "Be quiet... you don't want that beast to hear us, do you?"

They got to the elevator in seconds, but for the two freaked out friends, it felt like an eternity. Claire pushed the button marked "L" and the elevator started to move. When they hit the thirteenth floor, though, the elevator stopped and the lights went out. Lucy let out a terrified squeak that Claire quickly muffled by stepping on her friend's foot. Then the doors opened. The thirteenth floor was pitch black. Claire began pushing the "L" button frantically, and the doors closed, but opened again immediately. In front of them was the lobby. However, the soft glow of the elevator buttons still said they were on the 13th floor. Claire tried the buttons again, but to no avail. The elevator would not move.

"L-Lucy," whispered Claire, "I was under the impression that tall buildings didn't HAVE 13th floors. I-it's considered unlucky. They just skip from t-twelve to f-fourteen."

"T-that's what I thought, too..." the Kyrii said, confirming her friend's knowledge.

It had become very cold all of a sudden, and although both girls wanted to scream, they knew that if anything was nearby, a scream would be a death sentence.

After several tense seconds, the two friends made a mad dash towards the front desk. "There's the phone," whispered Claire.

"Okay, you stand guard and I'll call the cops," said Lucy, her voice so quiet that Claire had to strain her ears to hear.

Lucy began dialing he number, but there was a gust of cold air... and then the phone went dead. "Claire, the phone is dead... Claire. Claire. Claire!" Lucy turned around to see her friend frozen with terror, her eyes wide with fear and the colour drained from beneath her fur. Her invisihat had fallen to the ground. "Claire! What's wrong?" Lucy didn't have to wait long to find out. Another gust of cold air behind her told Lucy that she and the Usul were not alone. Lucy slowly turned her head and saw something--something not fooled by invisihats, that made her blood run cold...

Lucy stood perfectly still, and tried to fold in on herself. Maybe if she was small and quiet enough... it wouldn't see her, wouldn't hear her, would pass by her.

Then the phone slipped out of her numbed paws.

It clattered onto the marble floor with impossible loudness, and the beast raised its huge head. Lucy saw pure white eyes, and realized it was blind.

A most horrible snuffling, snarling, sniffing noise was coming from it. It swung its head left and right, its awful maw opening wide as a black tongue poked out, as if trying to taste the air. It paused, one paw raised, and the beast's tattered ears tilted towards her. It then stood up, suddenly, and looked straight at her.

The creature's teeth showed, as if it was smiling.

Lucy couldn't hold back her scream. She spun around and tore off towards the elevator, but the beast took off too, impossibly fast, too fast, too fast for her. Claire screamed her name from the elevator she had taken cover in, but Lucy didn't hear. She was a creature of panic, frantic. Must... away... RUN!

Wind swept through the lobby and swirled around the elevator doors, pushing them together. Claire scrambled vainly, pressing the buttons, crying, trying to push the doors back open, but they swished closed just as Lucy reached them.

A howl sounded behind the Kyrii, one that was icy cold, blazing hot, and fearsome all at the same time. It was a howl of hunger, triumph, and fury. Inescapable, unstoppable rage.

Lucy turned around, pressing herself flat against the elevator doors. Through them she could feel Claire yelling, screaming and hammering away at the doors... but it was no use.

I'm going to die, thought Lucy. She felt perfectly calm.

The thing had stopped a yard from her. It was so close that the Kyrii could smell its rank hair, its wheezing breath that smelled like rotting meat. The beast stared at her with its awful eyes... staring... and staring. The tension was sufforcating. Lucy screamed inwardly. Before squeezing her eyes shut, Lucy caught a glimpse of those eyes again. She was sure they would be the last things she would ever see ...

Quite suddenly, the elevator doors opened. Claire pulled in Lucy and shut the door right before the beast came rushing in. As Claire was pressing the button for their floor, they heard the snarl and growl of the beast, trying to get in. The elevator went up, and they finally got to the room, scared and out of breath. When they saw their room, they gasped in shock. The room was trashed; the television was broken, the beds were unmade, and even the ceiling was cracked. They stood there in shock, until finally noticing the hole in the ceiling.

"Uh, Claire?" said Lucy.

"What? What is it?" Claire asked.

"Did you notice there's a hole in the ceiling?"

"Yeah, but I'm not surprised... everything in here is destroyed," replied Claire.

"Don't you see? It's a way out! We can climb up to the top floor and get out of here!!!"

Claire smiled, but then frowned again. "But how would we get out? We would have to jump off, and remember, I'm afraid of heights!"

Lucy had that dull face, the kind you get when you're really angry at someone who has the answer is right in front of their nose. "Which is worse, climbing down a building, or being eaten alive by a ferocious beast?"

"Oh, I guess you're right... but, don't you remember what we saw, on the top floor when the elevator opened?" asked Claire.

Her friend grimaced and nodded thoughtfully. "Hey, but if we climb up, then we'll be safe in a room! And maybe it has windows! Or a phone!"

"Well, I guess we don't have much of a choice. We can't stick around here anymore." The two friends pushed a table under the hole in the ceiling, and hoisted themselves onto the next floor...

They ended up in another suite, much like their own. The girls looked around intently for any windows or phones.

Until... "A phone!" shouted Lucy excitedly, "Over there on the side table, next to the bed."

"Wait a minute... the phone downstairs didn't work, so why would this one?" asked Claire.

Lucy looked up at her friend while dialing a number and answered, "Well, it IS a hotel, I hope they have more than one line." she said with an obvious tone in her voice.

Claire slumped over onto the bed, blushing until her cheeks matched the light crimson color of the comforter. Lucy lifted the phone to her ear, tapping her foot on the floor.

"Yes, is this the Neopian Police Department?" she asked sweetly.

A growling reply was so loud that Claire could hear it from the bed. Lucy cringed. "H-he-hello, wh-who is t-this?" she asked, shuddering while speaking.

She heard a deep, menacing voice reply, "What room are you in?" Lucy glanced at the room number listed on the phone. Room 1366. Room numbers always start with the floor number you're on, Lucy thought, then slammed the phone the phone onto its cradle, shaking.

"Wh-what was t-that?!" Claire asked, "C-could it b-b-be the thing we saw on this f-f-floor before?!? Didn't you dial the Neopian Police Department's number, Lucy?"

"I-I thought so," replied Lucy, glancing at the list of numbers. "Oh no! I think I dialed the front desk by accident."

"Hurry, try the police again! If it knows where we are, then it might come after us... HURRY Lucy, HURRY!!!"

Before the girls had time to do anything, they heard loud stomps coming up the hallway, which got louder and louder until...

...they stopped outside the door. Lucy leapt across the bed with an energy that would have astounded her battle instructor. She clicked the lock shut and secured the chain, even before the beast touched the door.

However, it did more than touch the door. Lucy stepped back in horror as the door began to violently shake; whatever was on the other side was incredibly strong.

Claire crept to the table and dragged a chair with her over to the door. She was shaking all over, but was determined to face this beast. As the door began to splinter, Claire grasped the back of the chair and lifted it. Lucy moaned and collapsed beside her friend.

One more shuddering blow and the door finally yielded. Before the creature could even step inside, Claire shouted and swung the chair with all her strength at its head. Without a sound it toppled to the floor; the Usul's blow left it dazed, and nearly unconscious.

"You did it, Claire!" Lucy yelled as she looked at the beast on the floor. Lucy could hardly take her eyes off the enormous bulk of flesh. "But we have to get out of here NOW!"

But as the girls jumped over the beast, and dashed out the door, a cold growl stopped them in their tracks. The beast was slowly rising to its feet once again.

Claire shoved Lucy into the dark elevator across the hallway, and slammed her fist against the buttons. The closed shut, and the two friends sank into the corner. Holding each other and crying. When would this nightmare end? They could not escape the 13th floor. Clair opened her eyes as she heard a beep. She glanced at her watch. It read 12:01. The elevator came to a halt, and the metal doors slid open, flooding the comparment with light...

"The lobby!" squealed Lucy, jumping up and down. "We're not on the 13th floor anymore! We're in the Lobby!"

Claire hopped up and danced a victory dance in the elevator. "But--how?" Lucy asked in disbelief. "How did we get off the 13th floor?"

"Maybe--" Claire began, but was cut off by another voice.

"Hello, may I help you?" a smiling secretary asked, sitting behind the front desk. "How is everything going during your stay at the The Royal Neopian?" Claire looked at Lucy. Lucy looked at Claire.

"Uh... just fine, going just g-great!" stammered Claire, forcing a smile onto her face.

"You might want to take a look at the 13th floor, though," added Lucy, nodding at the elevator.

The secretary wrinkled her nose. "We don't even HAVE a thirteenth floor..." she explained. "Unless--"

"Unless what?" both girls said, leaning closer to the secretary.

"Well, about 150 years ago, this hotel DID have a 13th floor, and it was haunted by a monster of the worst kind. He ate Neopets, and terrorized everyone." The secretary shuddered, then continued.

"One night, a brave Jetsam warrior, whose name is unknown, put an end to the creature's reign of terror. Afterwards, the hotel's construction workers destroyed the thirteenth floor. But every year, on one random day, the ghost of the monster comes back to haunt this hotel. Then, the thirteenth floor exists again, while everything else does not. Horrible stories, some even worse than the ones heard when the monster was still alive, were told about the poor Neopets in the hotel when the beast came back. Horrible, just horrible." The secretary paused, and let the story hang in the air awhile before smiling brightly at the two awestruck friends.

"So, girls, can I get you anything? A drink? Room service? Towels for the pool?"

"N-no, we'll be just f-fine, t-thanks," stuttered Lucy. "Come on, Claire, let's go to our room for awhile."

"But thing's still up--oh, right. Let's go upstairs," said Claire, catching on.

The two friends headed into the elevator, and pushed the button for their floor. As the elevator started to move upwards, Claire turned to her friend.

"Can you believe it?" she asked. "We were actually part of a ghost story!"

"Yeah," replied Lucy. "And I didn't enjoy it one bit. Not at all."

"Neither did I," agreed Claire, remembering the fear, the tense moments huddled in the elevator and the panic she had felt when she was locked in the elevator and her best friend was about to be eaten.

"So..." Lucy said.

"So...?" Claire echoed.

Lucy winked at her friend. "Next time we stay at a hotel, I guess we'll have to really read up on some history books, won't we? After all, we wouldn't want to be caught up in some ghost tale from 150 years ago again, right?"

"Right!" agreed Claire. "And we wouldn't want to be caught in a hotel without full extras, either, for that matter!"

Laughing and talking again, with their hearts floating light as air, the two friends headed up towards their room, knowing that there would be a warm bed, a comforting shower, and room service at the touch of a paw, waiting right there just for them, a few minutes away.

The End