Chapter 5: The Haunting Follows

I got up late and saw a shadowy figure standing by the window. I nearly screamed.

Looking closer, it was Lucas, smoking on the balcony.

“Why are you smoking in the middle of the night? Trying to give me a heart attack?”

He didn’t turn around, just held the cigarette between his fingers.

“You scared? If you didn’t do anything, why are you freaking out?”

“Dude, knock it off.”

When I came back from the bathroom, the window was empty. Lucas was already in bed, snoring.

I figured I’d already yelled at him about it, so I let it go.

But a few nights later, my phone buzzed me awake. In the blue glow, I saw Lucas smoking by the window again.

The other two roommates were out cold, so I kept my voice low.

“Are you trying to kill yourself, smoking every night?”

He didn’t turn, just replied,

“Yeah, I want to die.”

“Whatever. I’ll deal with you in the morning. Just finish up and get some sleep.”

The next morning, I chucked a pillow at his head.

“You need to quit. Still smoking in the middle of the night?”

He looked totally confused.

“I didn’t smoke.”

“I saw you—twice—by the window.”

“No way. You must’ve been dreaming. See? My cigarettes are here. Four missing because I smoked during the day. Didn’t touch them last night.”

A chill ran down my spine. Goosebumps everywhere.

I knew I hadn’t dreamed it. The message that woke me up was still on my phone.

---

This bugged me for a week, until the third time I woke up at midnight.

In the darkness, that figure was at the window again.

He just stood there, looking out, smoking.

He wore Lucas’s pajamas and had his haircut, but I couldn’t see his face.

But I was sure it was Lucas.

I wanted to catch him in the act, but the lights were off, so I used my phone’s flashlight.

I shouted,

“Look, he’s smoking again in the middle of the night!”

My flashlight beamed right at him, but the other two roommates didn’t budge.

“Matt! Chris!”

I called again, but they were dead silent.

“Wake up, you guys…”

Halfway through, I realized something was wrong—why was it so quiet, and why wasn’t Matt snoring?

At that moment, the figure I’d lit up slowly turned around.

The second I saw his face, my phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor.

His face looked all wrong, and what he was biting wasn’t a cigarette—it was a lollipop.

“Aaaah!”

---

That’s the last thing I remembered. When I opened my eyes, I was in my own bed.

The alarms were blaring.

I shot up in bed and saw the other three stretching and getting up.

“Do we really have to go to this dumb class? I’m exhausted.”

“They take attendance. Come on, we can nap in the back.”

Lucas groaned, “Skipping breakfast, let me sleep. Someone bring me a boiled egg if you’re nice.”

“Eli, why are you sweating like crazy?”

I stared, at a loss for words, feeling like my whole world was upside down.

Was it all a dream?

I wiped my face and croaked,

“Just a nightmare.”

“Haha, was it a sweet dream or did something freak you out?”

I ignored him and just wanted to check my phone to calm down.

But then I froze.

Why was my phone… on the floor!

---

“This dorm isn’t right! Something’s off!”

I yelled, jumping out of bed without even putting on shoes.

I grabbed my phone—so it wasn’t a dream, it really happened!

“Chris! Did you hear me calling you last night?”

“Lucas, did you eat a lollipop at midnight?”

“Wait, the candy? The wrapper? The stick?”

I started digging through Lucas’s trash can.

But the three of them pinned me down.

“Eli, man, don’t freak us out. If you’re not feeling well, let’s go to the health center. Why are you digging through the trash?”

Before he finished, it felt like lightning struck my brain.

Dirty stuff? I finally remembered that comment.

Turning a girls’ dorm into a guys’ dorm is usually to use the guys’ energy to cover up something sketchy.

I quickly grabbed my phone and replied to that message.

“You said something might’ve happened here—what kind of thing?”

The person replied instantly.

“Uh… just ask if any senior ever cosplayed as the Hanging Ghost, Newton, or Ophelia…”

“What do you mean?”

“If I say more, it’ll get flagged by the mods.”

Flagged? Why would it be flagged?

Seeing me act nuts, my roommates ran to get a counselor.

I didn’t care. I was busy googling Hanging Ghost, Newton, Ophelia.

Finally, I got it.

One is a ghost that hangs, one is known for falling (Newton—as in Newton’s law, falling objects), one is a tragic figure who drowned herself.

She was saying someone had committed suicide in this building.

And the college had covered it up—painted the walls, switched the dorms, and the seniors with red eyes moving out.

Suddenly, everything clicked.

---

I stared at the windowsill, remembering last night, cold sweat running down my back.

Like I was possessed, I walked toward the window.

I’d seen him three times; he kept staring out the window—what was he looking at?

What could you see from here?

The dorm was always dusty; we never cleaned properly, so why was this windowsill spotless?

I don’t know where I found the guts, but I reached out and touched the clean windowsill. Suddenly, a chill shot up my arm.

Suddenly, it was like a movie playing in my head.

A slashed wrist, a hand reaching out the window, blood dripping down the wall.

I don’t know how long I stood there before coming to my senses, numb and shaken.

That image wouldn’t leave my mind—the same window, the same sill.

I opened the window and looked down along the wall.

The smell of new paint still hung in the air, the wall spotless and white.

I took out my dorm key and scraped at the paint under the window, bit by bit.

White flakes floated away, revealing what was really there…

A bloodstain!

---

That twisting bloodstain overlapped with the image burned into my brain.

A pale, slender wrist and the sound of quiet sobbing.

I pressed my hand to the windowsill again and again, but the chill was gone.

The sound of the door unlocking snapped me back to reality.

My three roommates and the counselor walked in.

He saw me at the window, his eyes wide.

“What are you doing?”

I felt dazed. I pointed at the window, my voice rough.

“Sir, there’s blood here.”

He rushed over and pulled me away.

His eyes darkened as he looked at the sill, then at me.

“Wait here.”

He left and closed the door behind him.

“Eli, what blood? Are you okay?”

The guys crowded around the window and saw the bloodstain.

“Holy crap, is that really blood? How’d you find it, Eli?”

“Touch the windowsill.”

I had them try, just like I did, to see if they’d get that vision.

But no matter how much they tried, nothing happened.

Then the counselor came back.

“Come with me to the office.”

---

On the way, no matter what we asked, he just repeated, “It’s nothing serious. Let’s wait until we get to the office.”

But when the office door opened, the vice president, the dean, the department chair—people we’d only seen on the college website—were all there.

The chair spoke first.

“We got your report. Maybe living in that dorm was uncomfortable. After discussion, the school has decided to move you. There are two empty two-person rooms on the third floor of West Hall. The environment is much better.”

The usually gruff director was all smiles, waiting for our answer.

The guys looked at each other, but no one spoke.

“Sir, is the bloodstain under our window real?”

Maybe they didn’t expect me to be so direct, or maybe I just didn’t care anymore.

The staff’s faces froze.

Then the dean took a sip of water, scooted his chair closer, and looked right at me.

“What’s your name?”

“Elijah Ford.” I don’t know where I got the nerve, but I didn’t hesitate.

“Elijah, here’s the situation: there was an incident in your dorm. A student took their own life, but after investigation, it had nothing to do with the school. The family had no objections, and everything was handled appropriately. It’s all in the past.”

“Now, we’ll move your dorm. I’ve seen your grades—quite a few failed courses. You should focus on your studies. If you want to stay for grad school, the college’s got your back. You’ll graduate, no problem.”

Lucas piped up first.

“Thank you, Dean. We’ll study hard and get into grad school.”

He nudged me under the table.

The other two nodded, and everyone looked at me.

It felt like as long as I nodded, everything would be swept under the rug.

“The family’s fine, everything’s handled, and four random guys get a guaranteed pass to grad school? Sounds like the school’s getting a raw deal.”

As soon as I said it, the leaders’ friendly faces went stone cold.

No one spoke for a long time.

In the tense silence, I forced a smile. “Thank you, college.”

That was it. Everyone let out a sigh of relief.

It was the first time I’d had so much power, the first time my opinion mattered.

But I knew they weren’t afraid of me—they were afraid of the truth.

Since we’d taken the deal, this could never be spoken of again.

---

Angel House got repainted, and the four of us moved into a new dorm.

It was even better than we’d hoped.

Low floor, tons of light, a corner room, and way bigger than a normal dorm.

Word was, it used to be an eight-person room, now just for us four.

Classmates asked how we scored such a sweet deal from the college.

Before my roommates could answer, I said,

“Just sell your soul.”

I thought that was the end of it, that we could go back to normal.

But that morning, while cleaning, Lucas suddenly shouted.

His broom clattered to the floor, his whole body shaking.

“What the hell?”

We followed his gaze to the floor.

There was a clump of long hair, as big as a fist.

When we moved in, we cleaned top to bottom—there wasn’t a speck of dust.

After a week, finding hair wasn’t weird anymore, but it shouldn’t have been long hair.

“Did someone sneak a girl in here?”

“No way.”

“Then where’s all this long hair coming from?”

---

In the middle of the night, Chris suddenly sat up, waving his phone flashlight around.

“Chris, what are you doing?”

Matt, woken up, grumbled sleepily.

Chris’s face was pale, eyes wide, scanning the room.

“Did you… hear something?”

“Hear what?”

“Crying. A woman crying.”

My heart skipped a beat. I listened hard, but heard nothing.

None of us slept that night.

The first to crack was Matt.

He said he saw it.

When he went to the bathroom at midnight, he felt like someone was following him, but when he turned, there was nothing.

Until a few drops of cold liquid hit his head. He wiped his hand and looked up.

A human-shaped shadow was hanging upside down from the ceiling, arms dangling, swaying like broken branches.

He passed out and someone found him in the hallway the next morning.

“I’m done. Forget grad school, I’m going home!”

Matt started packing like mad.

I held down his suitcase.

“Calm down. If you leave, will she stop coming for you?”

Chris crouched on the floor, hugging his knees.

“Yeah, we switched dorms, but she still found us. She’s already picked us.”

“We can’t escape. None of us can.”

Lucas said nothing, but he was shaking.

Looking at these guys losing it, I spoke slowly.

“If she shows up every night, why don’t… we all stay up tonight, all four of us together, and see what this thing really is?”

The room was silent for a moment, just the distant hum of the campus AC and the tick of Chris’s watch. I could feel the weight of what I’d said settling over us, like the air got thicker. It was the kind of plan you come up with at 2 a.m. because you’re too scared to do nothing. But in that silence, I think we all realized we were in this together, even if we were scared out of our minds.