My wife and I were looking forward to a relaxing getaway. She had found a cozy cabin with “rustic charm” in the countryside, promising a peaceful escape from our daily lives.
On our first night, as I was unpacking, my wife’s whisper caught my attention. “There’s a light blinking up there,” she said, pointing to the smoke detector above our bed. I laughed it off at first, but her shaken voice made me uneasy. I got a chair, climbed up, and unscrewed the cover. My heart sank. Inside was a camera, hidden and aimed directly at our bed.
We didn’t even need to discuss it. We frantically threw our things into our bags and sped away into the night, leaving the cabin behind. As we drove, fear was replaced by anger. I immediately pulled out my phone and wrote a furious review to expose the host.
A few minutes later, a reply came in. “You fool,” it read. “That camera wasn’t even mine. It was his.” The cryptic message confused and terrified me. Was there someone else watching? We never went back to find out, but we filed a report and now triple-check every hotel room we ever stay in.