I woke up sometime during the night to the sound of keys in the lock on the door. The door swung open. Even with just the dim light in the room, I could see that Emily had returned.
Emily stood in the doorway for a few minutes. It felt like she was staring at me but it was too dark to tell if that feeling was accurate. Finally, she walked over to her bed and sat down. She was facing me. This time I was certain she was staring at me.
Eventually, the sleepiness got the better of me and I drifted back to sleep. I dreamt of being on a distant planet. There were three suns in the sky and there was sand for as far as my eyes could see. Then I felt a voice. It was speaking inside my head. The sounds were rhythmic but not anything I could make out. The ground began to shake and a whirlpool of sand formed in front of me. I backed up quickly as it grew. A long tentacle came out.of the sand and slithered towards me. The voice grew deeper and more urgent. The rhythmic chants grew louder in my head and it felt like my skull was expanding.
“Hey!” I heard Aimee yell.
The room slowly came into focus and Aimee was staring at me. “Are you finally awake?” she asked.
“Where’s Emily?” I asked.
“We still haven’t seen her,” she said.
“But she came in here last night,” I said. “I saw her in the doorway before I fell back asleep.”
“She wasn’t here when I woke up,” she said. “I’ve got to get to class, but you can stay here if you want.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll probably go check on Greg and see how he’s doing.”
“See you later,” she said and smiled at me before walking out the door.
Shortly after, I left and knocked on Greg’s door. No one answered and the door was locked so I went back to my room. My first class would be starting soon so I got ready and headed to my class in Pawley Hall.
I had a hard time focusing on class and thought I saw Josh peeking through the window in the door. Time moved slowly but eventually the class was over.
After putting on my backpack, I went out into the hall. I accidentally bumped into someone and nearly fell over. “Sorry,” I said and looked to my side, but no one was there. I shook it off and headed to the OC to see if my friends were there.
I saw Josh at a table talking to some people. There were five other people there and I recognized two of them. One was.Greg’s roommate, Amir and the other was a girl from my Economics class. They were all leaning in and seemed to be listening intently to him.
I found a different table a ways away from Josh and sat by myself. I was hoping Aimee or Greg would show up so I could talk to them before going to see Josh.
There was a loud noise behind me that made me jump. I turned around to look but didn’t see anything. No one else reacted to the sound, making me wonder if I just imagined it. I looked back over to Josh and he was staring at me. So were the others at his table.
“Hey,” Aimee said as she came over from the side.
“How was class?” I asked.
“It was okay…but it felt like someone was watching me.” She grabbed the chair next to me and sat down. “Have you found Josh yet?”
“Yes. He’s sitting over there.” I pointed to the table I had seen him at, but now it was empty. “Huh…he was just there.”
“Weird,” said Aimee. “This whole thing has been so weird.”
“What’s up lovebirds,” Josh said from behind us before joining us at the table.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “And what the hell happened last night?”
Josh smirked. “Remember that hot girl in our rhetoric class last semester?”
“Of course,” I said. “She always used to wear those tight yoga pants and low cut shirts. I don’t know how I was ever able to pay attention in that class.”
“Well I hooked up with this chick from my literature class,” he said and held out his hand for a high five.
“I’m not giving you a high five. What was that last night back in that room?” I asked.
“Wait. What about the hot girl?” Aimee asked. “Is that the same girl from your literature class?”
“No. I just thought it would be fun to remember her,” Josh said with a laugh.
With all this weirdness going on, I felt a little better knowing Josh was acting like his normal self.
“Okay, let’s get back to talking about that room,” I said. “I’ve been feeling weird ever since we went there.”
“It is pretty awesome though, right?” Josh said.
I felt like I should be scared with all that had happened but I was so intrigued with the room that I wanted to know more and go back to it. Aimee looked worried but she didn’t say anything.
“There you guys are.” It was Greg. “Have you seen Emily? I still haven’t found her and she sent me some weird text messages.”
“I saw her late last night in her and Aimee’s room. I woke up when she opened the door but fell back asleep shortly after. She was gone when I woke up in the morning.”
“Her class should be ending in a few minutes,” said Greg. “I’ll text her and tell her to join us here. Then I need to get some lunch.”
We left our things at the table and grabbed some food from the food court. When we got back, Emily was sitting at the table.
“Hey guys,” she said before standing up and giving Greg a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry I didn’t respond to you last night. I was studying late at the library.” She leaned in close to him. “I’ll make it up to you tonight,” she whispered in his ear.
The rest of the day pretty much went as any normal day would. Josh came back pretty late and immediately went to his desk and began writing. I figured it must be for class but I thought it was a little odd that he wasn’t using his laptop. We didn’t talk much as he seemed so focused on writing and, eventually, I fell asleep.
Something pulled me out of my sleep in the middle of the night. My vision was blurry and I felt like I was still dreaming. I looked up and saw stars on the ceiling. Movement at my side caught my eye and I turned to see Josh standing by his desk. His hands were raised towards the ceiling and he was moving them around. The stars glided across the ceiling in coordination with his movements. I felt the low vibrating sound again throughout my body. Visions of a deep ocean materialized in my mind, with water swirling rapidly in a whirlpool. Voices sounded in my ears in a language I could not understand. After a short time, I must have passed out because the next thing I remembered was waking up in darkness in my bed.
Hushed voices filled the room and I saw the outline of two shapes by the back wall. Suddenly the whispering stopped and the shapes turned towards me. I had my eyes mostly closed and pretended to be asleep. I was afraid to move. The silence went on for a long while. Finally, I gathered the courage to open my eyes and saw only Josh staring at me in silence.
Then he suddenly smiled and said, “Good morning!” he sounded normal, except some of the words he said didn’t make any sense. It was like every fourth or fifth word was just gibberish. I had a headache so I just figured it was related to that.
“Better get up, you thlont want to be late,” he said.
“What?”
“I said you don’t want to be late…your class starts in ten minutes, doesn’t it?”
I looked at the time and sprang out of bed. After a quick mouthful of mouthwash and a spritz of Josh’s body spray, I grabbed my backpack and ran out the door.
“See you later,” he said.
I looked back and paused for a moment. An extra shadow behind Josh caught my eye. It looked like two human shadows were on the wall behind him with one moving more than the other. “Yeah. Later,” I said before heading out the door.
I kept drifting off to sleep in class and finally lifted one foot off the ground to try to stay awake. It helped and I was able to pay attention for a while. At least, until I heard a scratching noise from the back of the lecture hall at the top of the stairs. I looked around and everyone else seemed to be focused on the professor but I couldn’t concentrate because of the noise. I glanced back and saw an all black figure against the wall near the door. It had no features other than a human-like shape but there were long thin tendrils coming from its head, moving like snakes across the ground. I blinked and it was gone.
I kept hearing the same noises behind me and then what sounded like heavy wet breathing. The sounds got closer and eventually sounded like they were directly behind me. A horrible smell overtook me as I felt hot air blow across my neck. I tensed up, afraid to turn around. My eyes closed for a moment and when I opened them, I found myself alone in the room.
My head felt lighter than air and darkness pulsed at the edges of my vision. I grabbed my things and stumbled through the row before running up the stairs. Behind me, I heard the fold out desks slam down and some of them splinter. The door slammed shut as I ran through it and some people in the hall gave me weird looks.
I was sweating profusely and felt unsteady on my feet. After finally making my way outside, I sat on a bench to collect myself. My eyes darted around at movement on the outer edges of my peripheral vision.
I started to get up when I felt my pocket buzzing. It was another weird text message from Emily. It was just a series of letters that appeared to be random but spaced out like words in a long sentence. As I looked at them, it began to grow dark around the edges of my vision. Then the darkness slowly filled in towards the center of my sight. It got better when I couldn’t see the message anymore.
I looked around and everything seemed normal. People were walking to their classes, some were sitting down in the grass on the sunny and warm early spring day, but I felt like I was losing my mind. I continued to sit for a long time, watching the world around me.
My skin suddenly felt a chill as the wind picked up and the sky grew darker. Billowing gray clouds seemed to come out of nowhere and thunder rumbled loudly.
I stood up and ran to the dorms before the rain came. It fell thick and heavy, thundering down on the windows.
“I thought it was supposed to be nice all day,” I heard someone say.
The building shook with each roar of thunder. I needed to check on Greg and wanted to see if Aimee was okay.
My phone buzzed in my pocket again. It was Aimee.
“What the hell is happening?” she shouted.
“What is going on? Where are you?” I replied.
I heard her scream and then the phone went silent.
I called back but it went straight to voicemail. I ran out the door, down the stairs and then to her room. The door was unlocked so I went inside. Aimee was sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head buried in them.
“Are you seeing things too?” I asked as I put my hand on her shoulder.
She immediately pushed herself backwards and crashed into her bed.
“Hey, it’s just me.”
It took her a few more seconds to realize it was me. “Something was in here with me,” she said. “I saw it outside before I came in here.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know but my door was closed and it still somehow came in here.”
“I saw something too…in my class,” I said.
Lightning flashed outside the window followed quickly by a deep rumble of thunder.
“My back really hurts,” she said.
I reached my hand down to help her up and she sat down on her bed. She turned her back towards me. There were five thick lines across her shirt where the fabric was gone. Her skin was red and there was dead skin outlining each line across her back.
“That looks painful…do you have anything we can put on it?”
“I think I do in the bathroom.”
I helped her there and found some Neosporin in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. She winced in pain when I applied it to the burn marks.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m almost done.”
“I’m exhausted,” Aimee said. “Want to lie down with me?”
I hadn’t realized how tired I was until a climbed in her bed. She rested her head on my chest and my eyes kept closing. After a few minutes, I was fast asleep.
Morning came and I found myself alone in the room. “Aimee?” I called. I got up and checked the bathroom but she wasn’t there. Her phone was on her desk and her backpack was on the floor.