Many years ago, when I first started living in Tokyo, I met a couple who were visiting from France. Their names were Elliot and Camille. Camille and Elliot had made plans at some point of their trip to meet the friend of Elliot’s dad, who happened to live in Kyoto. While looking at a hotel booking website, they were able to find a place to stay in Kyoto at an extremely low price, so they jumped at the chance to get this great deal. They traveled to Kyoto and made plans to meet the friend in Kyoto at nighttime. Upon checking into the lodging, they were greeted by a young receptionist. The receptionist informed them that after about 8pm she would no longer be around, so if they needed any help they would essentially be on their own and to not lose the key to get back into the lodging.
Elliot and Camille then went to check out their room. The room was a standard-looking Japanese room with tatami flooring and wooden beams that went all the way up to the roof. The room also had a wardrobe dresser for hanging your clothes inside. The bed was a standard bed with a nightstand on both sides. The wardrobe dresser was on the opposite side of the bed. The only thing that was unusual was the fact there was no window in the room but as the booking was found at such a great price, both Camille and Elliot didn’t mind.
They quickly dropped off their things and left to meet their friend for drinks and food. When they returned to the place, they were quite drunk so they decided to just jump straight into bed and go to sleep. During the night Camille was woken by the sound of something in the room like some kind of animal. She told Elliot to go check, but he chalked it up to Camille being drunk. What eventually got Elliot out of bed was the fact that he kept on hearing the sound of a water bottle sliding up and down on the floor. However, he realized there was a water bottle, but it was on the nightstand and not moving at all. When he worked out that the sound was coming from the dresser wardrobe Elliot mustered up the courage to get up and open the dresser to see what was inside. Upon opening the door, Camile and Elliot saw some kind of strange shadow jump out of the dresser drawer and then crawl on the ground like the girl in the movie the Exorcist. The room was dark, and the light wasn’t on so it looked like a moving shadow on the floor. Elliot managed to open the door to the room and whatever it was ran out of the room. For the rest of the night Camille and Elliot could not sleep but kept on hearing noises of what sounded like a family upstairs for the rest of the night.
When they woke up the next day, the two decided to give up what they had paid for the room and just bite the bullet and go somewhere else as they were too frightened to stay another night at their current lodging. When they saw the receptionist in the morning, the receptionist told them that they were actually the only people staying in the whole place the night before. To this day neither Camille nor Elliot knows who was making the sounds in the room above where they were staying and what the thing that jumped out of the dresser was.
Luckily, it did not sully the rest of their time in Japan, and they are happily living great lives in the west of France.
Norman
essentially (adverb) - when you think about the true, important or basic nature of something; fundamentally, basically
chalk up (phrasal verb) – to explain the reason or hypothesize the cause behind something
muster (verb) – to find as much support, courage, etc. as you can
bite the bullet (exp) – to start to deal with an unpleasant or difficult situation which cannot be avoided
sully (verb) - to damage or reduce the value of something
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