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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MikeJesus on 2024-09-18 00:11:39+00:00.

It is with great sorrow that I must announce the end of The Burnt Quartet.

After the incident at our last jam session, we have decided to put all performances at the Rusalka to an end. We have also parted our ways as musicians, for good measure.

 I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who has been with us since 2017. Your constant positivity and words of kindness have made every show a pleasure. Even if you’ve only come once in a blue moon, thank you. You’ve kept us playing and helped us grow as musicians — as people, even.

If I could leave things at that. If I could just tell you that The Burnt Quartet broke up and tack on a warning to avoid The Hotel Rusalka at all costs, I would.

I would, but there’s the incident from the last show to contend with.

I hate to sour this goodbye to The Burnt Quartet with a recollection of that horrible night, but it’s been three weeks. I have already heard my fair share of rumors. Though I rather wouldn’t — it’s important I set the record straight.

As most of you know, The Hotel Rusalka burnt down in the summer of 2015. Finding the lobby of the hotel well preserved and the city uninterested in doing anything with the building, me and the guys started performing our weekly concerts there.

The doors beyond the lobby were locked, but it didn’t matter. It was the entryway of the hotel that had the fantastic acoustics. Staying out of the rest of the hotel was an unspoken rule. Even when we found the keys a couple weeks in, we kept the doors to the rooms locked. 

The fire had destroyed much of the upper floors. Most of the Rusalka was a burnt husk. It was a reminder of a terrible tragedy. Our weekly concerts weren’t about dissecting that disaster. 

The concerts were meant to be about something positive.

On our last show, however, that cardinal rule of avoiding the upper floors was broken.

So many lovely people stayed after the show and it was starting to rain. There was no way we could all fit in the lobby. We probably should have all just called it a night, but I knew where the keys were. I also knew, from the floor plan in the lobby, that there was a large dining hall just behind the entryway. 

I take full responsibility for my decision. As much as it pains me, I also take full responsibility for the consequences of my decision.

The floor plans were accurate. Not only was the dining hall big enough to fit everyone who stayed after the show — we also found a couple bottles of liquor and with them the energy to perform again. Just as we were setting up to play, however, one of the members of the quartet, who I’d presume would like to remain nameless, ventured out into the stairwell with one of the audience members.

Their tryst was short. It wasn’t even five minutes after our colleague left that he returned. Both him and his female friend looked terrified. They had ventured out into the stairwell looking for privacy. What they found instead, was a foreign voice.

From the upper floors of the Rusalka, the floors that had been eaten up by that terrible fire nearly a decade ago, someone was groaning. The suggestion seemed insane. The doors to the stairwell had been locked ever since we started doing our weekly concerts. There was no conceivable way that someone could make their way upstairs without us noticing.

The post-show gathering had turned into a party. The dining hall was filled with smiles and laughter and a steadily strengthening insistence that we play another round of songs. I was almost content with forgetting about the groaning and losing myself in the music. When I checked on the stairwell myself, however, I knew that I could not stand idly by.

The groans weren’t the sounds of the burnt hotel settling. They weren’t the wind and they certainly weren’t any animal. Undeniably, the groans were the sounds of a man in crisis. Without any hesitation, me and the guys went upstairs to see if we could help.

Not to put too fine of a point on our heroics, of course. Going up the charred steps of a building long condemned wasn’t a calming task. The idea of leaving someone suffering upstairs while we play jazz though seemed absurd and disgusting. Even with everything that followed, even with the dissolution of The Burnt Quartet, I would not have acted any differently.

The higher we rose through the hotel, the more apparent the fire damage had become. The groans were coming from the fourth floor. By the time we could hear the calls for help clearly, the walls around us were soot black.

The closer we got to the source of the groans, the more they took shape. There was a sense of urgency to them. By the time we got out of the stairwell and entered the fourth floor, the groans broke into words.

‘I’ll be late for work!’ a strained voice was calling from one of the rooms. ‘I need to go! I need to get up! I’ll be late for work!’

Carpet had been simmered away to reveal the cement flooring. All the doors in the hall had been turned to ash. With the light fixtures long gone and the sun outside having set, we moved through the darkness with nothing but our phones to guide us.

‘The sirens have already went,’ the voice called. ‘The sirens have already went and I haven’t left the hotel. I’ll be late. I’ll be late and I can’t be late.’

 Past the gaze of our flashlights, we saw movement. In one of the rooms, right by the doorway, lay a man pinned down by a chunk of debris. 

He was alive. He was alive, but he shouldn’t have been.

The moment we saw the man struggling under the chunk of wall, me and the guys descended to help him. It wasn’t until we were squatted around him that we realized the extent of his injuries.

‘They’ve all left,’ he rasped, through lips eaten away by rot and flame. ‘They all left for the institute and I’m still here. I need to go. I’ll be late for work!’

The man was alive, but he shouldn’t have been. All of his skin was charred beyond recognition. His limbs were worn away by starvation. The thought defied all reason, but the state of the man made it clear — Someone had survived the fire of 2015.

Though the state of the man was beyond disturbing, he was obviously in need of help. As we cleared the debris, he thrashed and screamed and made our job no easier. I did not blame him for it. The man was clearly delirious. Instead, I ordered one of my colleagues who was holding the flashlight to immediately dial rescue services so that the burnt man could receive medical attention.

The physical state of the trapped man defied all explanation. Once we got him freed of the debris, he defied reason once more. Though the man should have been dead. Though he had been burned so thoroughly that any chance of survival was absurd, the moment the man was freed he started to sprint.

He ran through the dark hallway towards the stairwell with nothing but the bobbing beams of light from our phones to guide him. I am not much of a runner, so I was not able to keep up. One of my colleagues, however, was able to catch the burnt man just as he was about to enter the stairwell.

When we first set off to investigate the strange groans, my colleague had taken a bottle of liquor with him from the dining hall. Much like me, he anticipated the strange sounds coming from upstairs to be of no danger. He didn’t want to put an end to his merriment.

Bringing that bottle with him nearly cost him his life.

My colleague tried to restrain the burnt man, but he failed miserably. The trapped stranger was not only shockingly strong. He was also dangerous.

When we caught up with my colleague, we found him lying on the floor of the stairwell. The burnt man would not be stopped. When my colleague tried to restrain him, he grabbed the bottle from his hand, broke it and delivered a strike to the abdomen. Blood was pooling around my colleague’s shirt and medical attention was required, but the burnt man was still on the loose.

Leaving the guys to deal with my injured colleague, I descended the stairs back towards the dining hall. The gathered audience had to be warned. Luckily, I was more adept at jumping down the stairs than the burnt man. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairwell I was right behind him.

I did not try to stop his mad sprint. Instead, I simply called out to everyone in the dining hall to not get in his way. Once people saw the broken bottle the burnt man was brandishing, no one had to be told twice.

I followed the burnt man outside of the Rusalka, yet by the time we made it out of the hotel he moved far too fast for me to match. Last I saw him, he was sprinting towards the industrial district. 

I pray that I will never see him again.

The injuries from the broken bottle my colleague received weren’t serious, but they were unexpected enough to make him swear off ever performing in the Rusalka again. The rest of The Burnt Quartet agreed unanimously. Our weekly tradition came to an end without argument.

But why not just perform somewhere else? I hear you ask.

Firstly, none of us are in the mood for music. After what we saw that night, we won’t be in the mood for music for a long time. More importantly though, it’s the implications beyond that night that haunt us.

The burnt man must have, somehow, survived the fire at the Rusalka. He must’ve survived and stayed trapped in his room for years and years and years. He survived and suffered and, every week, he would listen to The Burnt Quartet play.

Perhaps, we will come back one day in a different locat…

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