I didn't want to believe it. But now that he had said it, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
They stood there for a moment, both staring at her as if she might suddenly reveal her intentions if we looked at her long enough. The silence in the room shifted. It no longer felt like a vacation. It was like a pause before some unpleasant event was discovered.
I grabbed my phone and took a picture. My hands were more stable than I thought they would be, but inside, I felt uneasy.
So I did what everyone does in times of uncertainty: I searched.
At first, nothing matched. I tried phrases like "hotel with earthen column wall," "strange cocoon-shaped interior structure," and "dry nest on the hotel wall." The results were useless, filled with unrelated images and vague explanations.
My husband started joking around to lighten the mood.
"Perhaps it's modern art," he said. "You know, hotel aesthetics. Minimalist horror."
I glanced at it, but I confess I laughed nervously. It relieved me a little. For a few seconds, it was nothing more than a strange object, and no longer something unknown and perhaps alive.
But that feeling hasn't completely disappeared.
We decided to inspect the rest of the room. That's when things got worse, not dramatically, but insidiously. The kind of "empire" you only notice when fear sharpens your attention.
Similar, smaller marks could be found in other areas. Almost like the earlier versions of the same structure. Some were barely visible unless you were looking for them.
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