The room they led me to was a study in neglect.
It was small and shabby, with black mold spidering up one corner like skeletal fingers reaching for the ceiling. The furniture looked as though it had been dragged from a forgotten storage space and given a cursory wipe-down. There was a bed with a mattress thin enough to feel the slats through, a dresser with one crooked, gaping drawer, and a single lamp that stuttered with a sickly light when
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