ghost story: the love hotel and the woman on the ceiling

I wasn't going to post this but my friend K told me this story and I genuinely haven't been the same since.

So K and two friends, one girl, one guy, went out drinking one night. They went HARD. By the time they stumbled out of the bar the last train was already gone, so they did what anyone would do and just... checked into the nearest love hotel¹ to crash for the night.

Three of them. One room. They lined up side by side on the bed and passed out.

About two hours later K gets shaken awake. It's the girl friend, and she looks absolutely TERRIFIED. Like. Not normal scared. Something-is-wrong-with-her-face scared.

"We need to leave. Right now."

K was like "...we literally just got here" and started complaining but the friend was NOT having it. "I'm begging you. I'll explain later. If you wanna stay that's fine but I'm leaving alone." She said it over and over.

Something about her face made K stop arguing. So they tried to wake up the guy friend. Tried. And tried. Dude was absolutely blackout drunk, wouldn't budge, couldn't even form words. So the two girls gave up and left without him.

They killed time at a convenience store nearby waiting for the first train. And then K's phone rang.

It was the guy they'd left at the hotel.

"He's still asleep though?" K thought, answering it.

He SCREAMED at them. "WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME IN THAT ROOM."

The girl friend just went pale and whispered, "so he saw it too..."

Here's what happened.

The guy woke up thirsty in the middle of the night and got up to get something from the mini fridge. And that's when he saw her. A woman. Long hair. Hanging upside down from the ceiling.

Her face was covered in blood.

She was making sounds, like she was trying to say something, but he couldn't understand what. And he couldn't move. Full sleep paralysis situation but he was awake, just frozen, for about a minute straight. Then he looked away for a split second and she was just... gone.

The girl friend had seen the same thing earlier. That's why she ran.

Next afternoon all three of them went back to complain to the hotel manager. They wanted answers.

Except when they got there the whole place was surrounded by police cars.

They went up to the manager anyway, said "uh, something going on? because we also had a really bad experience here last night."

The manager's face just. fell.

He asked what they'd seen. They told him everything.

His face kept getting worse and worse as they talked.

Then he said: "Last night... a woman was murdered in room XXX. Beaten to death with a baseball bat."

The room was directly above theirs.

The time of the murder matched almost exactly when the ghost appeared on the ceiling.

All three of them got instant chills and basically sprinted away from that hotel.

K thinks the woman wasn't even a ghost yet. More like her spirit, still alive in those last moments, desperately trying to reach someone. Anyone. Screaming through the ceiling of the room below for someone to help her.

And nobody understood.