We weren’t supposed to be there.
Amber Court wasn’t on the list of recommended hotels, or even on the list of tolerable ones. But it was a corporate event weekend in Genting Highlands, and the usual spots were fully booked. Matt, our boss, refused to commute up and down the hill. Understandable, considering we were pulling 18-hour days. So we opened Google Maps and picked the only place still blinking green: Amber Court Apartments.
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I should’ve known we were screwed the moment the GPS recalculated and took us off the main road.
The drive-up felt like we were entering a set for a B-grade horror flick. Dead trees flanked both sides, skeletal and black, swaying against the mist. The fog thickened as we climbed, swallowing chunks of headlights. The air felt colder, not Genting chill, but that kind of cold that grips your spine like it’s trying to warn you.
“This is where people die in movies,” I joked, trying to cut the tension. No one laughed. Matt just squinted at the road. Cathy, our team lead, kept refreshing Waze like the app might miraculously reroute us to a Marriott.
And then we saw it.
Amber Court stood like a forgotten relic, rising out of the mist with rust bleeding down its grey concrete face. The building looked… diseased. Not haunted in a theatrical way, but in that institutional decay kind of way. You didn’t need ghosts when mold, despair, and bad lighting could do the job just fine.
We parked and walked into the lobby.
No one spoke.
The air was stale. The kind of stale that has history. The lobby was huge, too big for comfort. A giant front desk loomed at the far end, and no one was behind it.
“Hello?” Cathy called out, barely above a whisper.
Then a head lifted.
I jumped. We all did.
An old man rose slowly from behind the counter, like something out of a glitchy video game. Maybe he’d been napping. Maybe he was dead and rebooted. Who knows. He blinked at us, then started the slow, creaky process of checking us in.
We booked three rooms: one two-bedroom apartment for the core team, that was Matt, Cathy, and me, and then two separate rooms for Harvey and Elaine. Harvey was my junior back in university, practically my kid brother. Elaine was the dinner emcee we hired. Of course, only one of the solo rooms was on our floor.
Elaine looked visibly spooked. You could see it in the way her hands kept wringing her sleeve.
“Harvey,” I said, “be a gentleman, yeah? Let Elaine take the room near ours. You’re cool with one floor up?”
He didn’t love the idea, but he nodded.
We hauled our bags into the apartment. The second we stepped in, the unease doubled. The air was musty, the curtains drawn. I yanked them open, but it was already 7 p.m. Outside, the mountains swallowed the sun. Inside, the furniture looked like it hadn’t hosted a living person in years. The couch was damp. I didn’t sit.
We had work to do anyway. I still had to finish my script for the morning conference. I was emceeing the formal bit, while Elaine handled the dinner show. Mine was mostly greetings and speaker intros. Elaine had to bring the charm. Lucky me.
The only problem: I didn’t have my own laptop, and Cathy and Matt were still hammering out their slides and agenda.
“Why don’t you take a nap?” Cathy said, looking up from her screen. “When I’m done with my laptop, I’ll wake you.”
“Okay, sure.”
I went into the room, lay on the bed without bothering to undress, and knocked out almost instantly.
When I woke up, the door was half-open. The apartment was dead quiet.
I checked my watch. 1:03 a.m.
They hadn’t woken me.
I sat up, confused and mildly panicked. Matt needed to review my script in the morning. If I didn’t deliver, I’d look like a slacker in front of the big bosses flying in from Singapore.
I walked out.
Their laptops were packed up. Matt’s bedroom door was shut. Cathy’s stuff was gone from the table. No one said goodnight. No one knocked.
What the hell?
I dug into Matt’s bag, found his laptop, and started typing furiously. My brain was foggy. My fingers kept hesitating. The silence pressed down on me like a weight.
Finished by 3 a.m. Printed two copies on our mini printer. Left one on the table with a pen and highlighter. Went back to bed.
But sleep didn’t come easy.
I kept feeling watched.
By 6 a.m., everyone was awake. No one said much. Matt and Cathy packed in silence. They didn’t even look at me.
Down in the lobby by 7, the tension still hadn’t lifted. They were talking to Harvey and Elaine like normal. Joking. Smiling.
Just… not with me.
Did I do something wrong?
We got to the event venue by 7:30 a.m. The hotel crew had already set up the conference hall. I did a mic check, set up my notes, and handed Matt the printed script.
He flipped through it. “Looks good,” he said, flat. No smile.
I hosted the conference like a robot. Inside, I was spiraling. Cathy and Matt were usually tight with me. We were more than colleagues. We were close friends. This cold shoulder thing was new. And it stung.
They warmed up by evening, just in time for the corporate dinner. Elaine crushed it. Guests laughed. Directors clapped. Everyone was happy.
The best part? The hotel had spare rooms that night.
No more Amber Court.
The next morning, we checked out and started the drive down. I sat in the backseat. Matt drove. Cathy rode shotgun.
The mist was lighter this time, but the silence was thick again.
Then Matt said, “I think we need to talk about what happened.”
I straightened.
“I didn’t bring it up yesterday because I didn’t want to affect your performance,” he said. “But your attitude that night was really not okay.”
I blinked. “What attitude?”
“You were being passive-aggressive,” Cathy chimed in. “I asked you to draft the script on a notepad first. So once I finished with the laptop, you could just type it in but you ignored me and went to bed.”
“No, you told me to go to bed,” I said, confused. “You said you’d wake me when you’re done.”
“I never said that,” she snapped.
“She didn’t,” Matt confirmed.
I stared at the back of Cathy’s head. “I remember exactly what you said. You looked up and said, ‘Why don’t you go to bed and take a nap? When I’m done with my laptop, I’ll wake you up.’ And I said, ‘Okay, sure.’ Then I left.”
There was a pause.
A long one.
“I’m getting goosebumps,” Cathy muttered.
Matt was quiet now too. Cathy turned slightly, just enough for me to see her pale profile in the side mirror.
“We wouldn’t lie about that,” she said softly. “We’re not trying to prank you or anything. We were really upset with what happened.”
“I know,” I replied. “And I believe you. But I know what I heard. I responded. I remember it clear as day.”
Matt let out a long exhale.
“No wonder you looked so confused,” he said. “That’s why you looked like a deer in headlights yesterday morning.”
“Ah! That’s why you guys were pissed off with me,” I said. “I thought you just… left me hanging. I didn’t understand.”
We drove in silence again, only this time it wasn’t angry or awkward. It was that kind of silence where everyone’s brain is trying to recalibrate reality.
After a while, Matt muttered, “What a weird night.”
We didn’t bring it up again. But every once in a while, when the three of us are together, the story resurfaces.
We never changed our versions.
They insist they told me to write first. I insist they told me to sleep.
And the spooky part?
We all believe each other.
