Haunted Hotel: Personal Nightmare

**Haunted Hotel: Personal Nightmare** is the fourteenth installment in the *Haunted Hotel* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

The game opens with Elizabeth Blake, a young mother, saying goodbye to her son Stephen. Her daughter Kate is extremely sick, and no doctor has been able to cure her, but Elizabeth has a plan. She assures Stephen that Kate will be all right and she'll be home soon, then leaves with the little girl in a taxi. They go to a large building, where a mysterious figure gives Elizabeth a contract to sign.

The game skips ahead twenty years to the adult Stephen, who narrates that he never saw his mother or sister again. A letter is delivered to his door which is from his mother - it has her locket, containing pictures of Stephen and Kate as children, taped to it for proof. The letter begs Stephen to come to a place called the Freedom Hotel and save his mother. He immediately takes off in pursuit.

He soon finds that the hotel is not what it seems. Everyone who checks in there becomes trapped in a nightmare of their own specific fears, which they have to list when they check in. They sign a contract agreeing to this in exchange for their heart's desire - in Elizabeth's case, she had agreed to become entangled in the nightmare in exchange for Kate's recovery. If someone can escape from their nightmare, they receive what they requested, but thus far no one has ever done it.

As he explores the hotel, Stephen finds his friend James Blackthorne is among those trapped there. James came to rescue his cousin Mary, who reached out to him for help much as Stephen's mother did. Mary is engaged to a young man named Frank, but her father has forbidden the match. Both Mary and Frank are trapped in the hotel, hoping that if they can escape their nightmares, they'll be allowed to marry. Stephen gradually helps Frank, Mary, and James defeat their nightmares.

Stephen finally discovers that his sister Kate is none other than the young woman who checked him into the hotel. Thomas Coldwell, the owner of the Freedom Hotel, has been brainwashing her for years and causing her to forget who she is. Stephen is able to restore her memories by reassembling a photo of them with their mother. This breaks Kate out of the nightmares and, in turn, breaks Stephen and Elizabeth out of theirs. A furious Coldwell disintegrates, cursing Stephen for ruining his bid for immortality, and the imprisoned "guests" are seen staring at the ruins of the Freedom Hotel. Frank and Mary are able to get married, and Stephen is reunited with his family.

### Bonus Chapter

Stephen and Elizabeth visit the grave of George, Stephen's father, who died when he was young. He asks his mother why George left them, and she says he needs to discover that for himself. She presents him with her husband's diary, which will guide him to learn the truth. George was friends with Thomas Coldwell and accompanied him on an excursion to the Arctic. Coldwell was looking for a rare Viking artifact known as the One Amulet, and George hoped that he could make enough money from the expedition that he could afford whatever treatment Kate might need for her illness. The amulet, however, took possession of Coldwell's mind and turned him on his evil path in the search for immortality, and George died as a result.

## Characters

* Stephen Blake: The player character, who is trying to rescue the mother and sister he lost twenty years earlier.
* James Blackthorne: Stephen's friend, who is on a mission to save his cousin Mary.
* Kate Blake: Stephen's sister, who no longer remembers him.
* Elizabeth Blake: Stephen and Kate's mother.
* Mary: James's cousin, who wants to marry her sweetheart but her father won't allow it.
* Frank: Mary's sweetheart, who came to the hotel to try to earn the right to marry her.
* Thomas Coldwell: The owner of the Freedom Hotel, who traps people in their own nightmares and uses their life force to fuel his own bid for immortality.
* George Blake: Stephen's father, who in the bonus chapter is revealed to have gone with Thomas Coldwell in search of a Viking artifact.

## Connections

* James's personal nightmares are all connected to previous games in the series. He's tormented by Lilith Blackthorne (from *Death Sentence*), Ray Turner (from *The Axiom Butcher*), and Duke (from *Phoenix*).
* The Freedom Hotel appears as a location in *Detectives United: Origins*. The hotel is destroyed at the end of this game, but presumably it gets rebuilt sometime between the two adventures.
* The One Amulet, the Viking artifact which caused Thomas Coldwell to become evil, returns as an important plot point in *Detectives United: Timeless Voyage*.

## Trivia

* Mary is voiced by Charlotte Ann. She was also the voice actress for the player character in *Haunted Hotel: Eclipse*.
* Frank is voiced by Chris McCann. Chris is better known to Elephant Games fans as being the voice of Dorian Brown in the *Detectives United* games.
* Young Stephen is voiced by Maya Tuttle, who also voiced Rachel Collins in *Haunted Hotel: The Evil Inside*, Jane Stuart in *Haunted Hotel: Lost Dreams*, and Stacy Gray in the *Grim Tales* series.

## External Links

* *Haunted Hotel: Personal Nightmare* at the Elephant Games website
* *Haunted Hotel* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook