When I first arrived at university my student card didn’t work and was devoid of any information. Someone on campus had mistakenly directed me to the lead IT Technician of the university to fix this. I should have just gone to the main reception, I found out afterwards. However, the Head of IT was willing to help and, whether through accident or laziness, gave me access to every electronically locked door on the university grounds. To the constant amusement of my friends, I have yet to find a door that I can’t swipe open with my card.
I developed an odd hobby in my third year, I began sneaking around the university at night. I’d wander around after hours looking for unknown, hidden and restricted rooms just for the thrill of it. This was only possible with the help of my key card, of course. I experienced one of the most breath-taking moments of my life the first time I did this. It happened when I broke into the Biology and Chemistry’s laboratories during an intense full moon. The ghostly light caressed conical flasks, brought glowing agar jellies to life, light swam across waxy plant leaves, bounced off metallic instruments, and made halos around every test tube. The haunting beauty left me utterly speechless and no pictures I took even came close to what it felt like. The experience perpetuated this hobby to the point of obsession. By that time, I had heard the same stories and reoccurring conversations in my friendship group and my night time escapades became the only thing that gave me a sense of excitement. This feverish habit continued harmlessly for some weeks until it came to a sudden end due to an odd series of events. After which, I vowed never to do it again. I will try my best to only tell the facts in my story, in the hope that someone out there might be able to make sense of what happen and perhaps even shed some light on the hideous incident.
It all started one evening when I was walking up a stairway during one of my break-ins. The evening’s scarlet light spilled upon each step and washed onto walls. I was heading towards a place called the “Tower Room”. I had just discovered its existence in a hidden alcove behind the entrance foyer, which was odd, especially considering that it was located within my college (college in the British sense: a site of accommodation with its own identity, services, and administration). I knew my college well, from the bar to the laundry room and everything in between, but never heard of this place before. What characterised my college was a remnant of a historic tower that stood in the centre of the building, presumably part of the original college. I concluded this stairwell lead the old tower and was overcome with excitement. As I climbed the stairs, I found a secret passageway which led to the back of the college bar. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends about this. I stopped on the third floor to look at an old metal sign that was painted black with a white border. The white lettering read: “College Library - Third Floor”. I was confused how there was even space for a library in such a small historic tower. I turned off and stood in front a room named “Seminar Room A6.C”, which was written on a plaque beside the door. This plaque had been placed over a previous plaque that was no longer there, judging from the unfaded wall paint behind it. There were raw plugs in the wall, presumably for screws that held up the previous sign. This must have been where the old library was. It had an electronic lock, so I swiped and walked in.
The ceiling was low, the room was perhaps 3 by 3 meters with three floor-to-ceiling windows that cast the red light across the floor. This place was clearly forgotten by any refurbishments because the computer and projector were extremely dated. There were multiple tables in the centre of the room with some scratchings on them and someone had left a white and blue hoodie hanging on the back a chair. There was a buzz of forgotten energy, like walking through an ancient cave with wall paintings made by long-lost ancestors. I circled round the room and suddenly I saw something that made my blood run cold.
In the corner was a dead rook, similar to a raven but with a long curvaceous beak. The size and stillness of the bird shocked me. The windows were fixed so the bird couldn’t have got in here by itself. Did someone bring the dead bird to this room? Maybe it got stuck inside and died up here? But someone had to let through the security door? Weird, especially as there was no sign of how it died. It looked remarkably fresh, its sable feathers were both beautiful and macabre. Its eyes were open, glistening in the red sunset. I couldn’t help but be transfixed by those black haunting eyes and I began to imagine what swirling dreams within dreams they might have seen in its life. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked for any other clues but there was nothing. It felt strange leaving this dead rook in a seminar room, but what was I going to do with it? I couldn’t report it. There would be questions about my trespassing and it pretty unhygienic to carry it anyway. I supposed that I would just leave it to the next person who comes in. So, I left and returned to the stairwell once again.
I eventually reached the fifth floor. The university sat on a hill so from this height you could see crimson light draped over the town below. The Cathedral looked particularly spectacular with its gothic architecture appearing as if it came straight out of some horror film. I came to a small hallway with four doors, one called “the plant room”, which was propped open by a hoover and filled with boilers and faucets, and on the opposite side were two other rooms which were named “A6.8” and “A6.B”. I thought I heard someone showering from A6.B, but when I got closer, I realised it was far more violent than that. It was like water slapping out of a drainpipe during torrential rain. The sound startled me. Why was it coming from an internal room on the highest floor of the building, moreover there had been nothing but sunshine for days? The door was shut with a physical lock, so I couldn’t get in with my card key. Room A6.8 was also locked in the same way but silent. At the end of the small hall was a fourth room, which was left open, the “Tower Room”.
It was like the old library room, low ceiling, old projector, two floor-to-ceiling windows that over-looked an ugly bitumen flat-roof. The hazy red sunset looked quite ominous in here, but nothing was that odd, it was just some dull seminar room. I moved closer to some tables and saw the same scratchings that were in the old library room. It was some sort of Latin, but I couldn’t understand it. I wandered around for a bit and I wondered if this would make a nice secret hide out, an unknown corner of the university to myself. I could come up here to study if I wanted to. Perhaps even watch some films from the projector in the evenings.
I decided to see if the old projector worked, it appeared to be linked up to an old university computer. I flicked the switch for the projector and the most horrendous scraping and whirring sound occurred for a couple of seconds then I heard a metallic click. The luminescent lens of the projector lit up and the light flooded out gently. It illuminated the dust in that charming way projectors do. It seemed to work, and the computer’s start up screen was displayed onto the wall. I went over to the computer but when I started using the mouse, I noticed that it wasn’t working properly. It was as if it was fighting back, as if someone else was controlling it. Momentarily, I wrestled with it, but it soon began behaving normally. I thought nothing of it and I put my university login credentials in. I thought I’d stick on one a short YouTube video to see if the sound worked.
I sat back on one of the chairs with my feet up on the desk and waited for the ads to roll on by. The ads were normal and the sound seemed to work well, but when the video started but it was just blank. A luminous blackness stained the room. I was about to get up to check the computer when all of a sudden a vague reference of a face and shoulders appeared within the blackness of the video. I leaned forward in my chair. It was a person, I could just about see the glints of their eyes, but the lighting of the video was so bad it was hard to understand what was going on. They were moving unnaturally, looking drugged or restless. This was not what the YouTube video I stuck on. I suddenly felt extreme sense of distressed, like scalpel in my stomach. Who is this? What sick fuck would film them like this? But this feeling was nothing compared to what I felt next. I slowly got up from my chair when I started to recognise…. I started to recognise the figure in the video… the figure within the darkness. It was me. It was my own face.
“Why are you here?”, seethed a voice like broken glass, “You’ve come in my room”.
I now understood what rigour mortis feels like. All the tendons in my body contracted and stiffened. I managed to stagger towards the computer, and the voice returned:
“WHY ARE YOU HERE?”, it shrieked, “WHY ARE YOU IN MY ROOM!?”
A juxtaposed melodic voice followed with:
“I see youuuu”
I ripped the computer plug from the wall. The room cut back to a silent eeriness, the sunset was the only source of light once again. Suddenly, a rook cawed loudly on the other side of the window, hopping about on the flat roof, staring into the room with black pearly eyes. This was too much. What the fuck is going on? I ran to the door, but it was locked. It had a mechanical key lock like the other rooms of the floor so I couldn’t swipe myself out. I furiously shook and turned the handle. It was no good, it was locked from the outside. I’ve explored the university a lot recently and I never had anything like this before. I started pleading internally, this was my own fault, if I just hung out with my friends in the evenings like a normal person I wouldn’t be in this mess. My phone had no signal and the university wifi didn’t seem to reach up here. It was 9:37PM at this point, what was I going to do?
Although freaked out by the video, I tried to turn the computer back on in an attempt to contact someone, but it had a start-up error message that only led me in circles. It needed a university administrator to sort it. I was shaking in fear and anxiousness, the hazy yellow streetlight flickered on and cast vague shapes across the room. I wasn’t sure whether my vision was going blurry but everything began to seem vague and distant. I felt tired, so tired. I was shaken up and felt sick but before I could make it to a chair, a weakness came over me and I crumpled to my knees, as if I was a paper cup under someone’s foot. My thoughts turned into alphabetti spaghetti; nothing was coherent or made any sense and my eyes kept shutting like elevator doors. I collapsed and in a couple of seconds I blacked out.
***
When I woke up, there were sharp wedges of light that cut inside the room from the streetlights. Slowly my thoughts started to come together to make words, then sentences, then fully formed ideas. I checked my phone and it was 3:26 AM. What the hell happened? Did I just have a panic attack and pass out? I felt groggy as I started to pick myself up. I hadn’t realised that there was a book underneath one of the tables. The title was: “Dissecting birds – A Beginners Guide by Dr. P.L. Hargreaves”. It had notes all over the pages, diligently written and relating to passages within the book. It appeared someone had been practicing this from the detailed nature of the notes, however, as I flicked through the pages, the notes became more erratic, turning from cursive pencil notes to unrecognisable scribblings and then finally deranged scratchings. One of the last pages of the book had its corner turned.
“WHY ARE YOU HERE?” it read on the left page. “HE’S IN MY ROOM” on the other.
It was written over and over, across the book’s text and diagrams. I was mortified, my heart started pounding. Even in my drugged-like state, I forced myself to clamber to my feet. I noticed that fucking rook was still outside, slowly turning its head to watch me. I wasn’t wasting any time. The first thing I did was try the door handle and to my unfathomable relief, it opened. I peered out through a crack in the door. I could hear an odd noise from room A6.B again, but it was different now. I thought it was someone was brushing their teeth, but it was more like brushing a patio with a wire brush. I just wanted to go to my own room. I didn’t care at this point. I had enough of exploring, fuck this, I’m going back to seeing friends and continuing my normal life. None of this exploring shit. I ran straight past the hallway and sprinted down the stairs.
My accommodation was in this same college, as I mentioned before, so I got back within minutes. When I got in my room, I tried to supress my breathing and calm down. I could hear my flatmate talking in an adjacent room through the thin apartment walls. She was an exchange student from the USA and often called her family at odd hours. I do my best not to listen to her conversations out of courtesy, but adrenaline does odd things to you, I couldn’t stop myself picking up everything she said. She was having a normal conversation, talking to some friend about nothing in particular. It sounded like her friend had just come back from a night out by the sound of what they were saying. My heart rate was beginning to slow and I sighed. Then all of a sudden, there was a low scratching noise as if a screwdriver was carving a message into the other side of the plaster wall.
“Hey, why are you here?”, she said cheerily, but it was still as if she was addressing her friend on the phone. She went on, “I know, I know. He’s in my room”.
I stood motionless with my eyes wide open. Everything was silent for a bit, but my heart was pounding at full pelt. There’s no way that was a co-incidence. All of a sudden, she growled accusingly through the wall, “WHY are you here? WHY are you in my room?”
I don’t know if I was imagining this or not but I wasn’t going to stay to find out. Grabbing my laptop, bag, and keys, I bolted through the door and marched outside. I looked back to see light seeping out from behind the curtains of my roommate’s window. I thought I saw her face appear from behind the glass. I turned back around and made my way to the library. I didn’t even care if I slept or not. I was convinced that I had a bad panic attack and passed out or something. I couldn’t justify it any other way. As weird as everything was, nothing serious had happened to me so ringing someone at this time of night felt ridiculous, I’d just sound insane. I’d call a doctor tomorrow in the light of day.
A security guard walked lazily around the perimeter of the library. As most students know, there are always insomniacs who inhabit a 24 hour library too. Perhaps if things get worse, I could ask for help, I thought. But when I got in, I knew no-one in here was willing to have a conversation, they wandered around like ghosts, with desk light eyes; dead and nocturnal, so I just stalked the library for a desk that I was comfortable with. I opened my laptop and started playing a show on Netflix but I couldn’t concentrate. My mind was racing with everything and I felt quite paranoid. The windows gave an intermittent knocking sound as windows do when they contract in the coolness of the night. But each knock received my immediate and undivided attention. When I focused on the pitched-black windows, I thought I could see an outline of a face appearing but couldn’t make anything out. I felt exhausted and I wondered if I was becoming delirious. Anything beyond the window was impenetrable within the lighted context of the library, how could I see anything? An email notification pinged loudly. I had an unread message from ‘thetoweroom@university.ac.uk’. My stomach instantly dropped. “Where did you go?”, it read with no greeting or email signature. Seconds after, an additional email appeared and as I began to read it, it felt like I was hurtling to the bottom of the ocean floor.
“Why did you go into my room? The technician gave me that room. Why did you go in there? Its mine. Mine not yours. What were you doing in there? Its mine. The technician gave it to me. That’s my room. Why did you go in there? Where did you go? There was someone in my room. Can you tell someone? Do you know what he did to me? Why were you in my room? You know Daddy gave it to me … ”
I slammed my laptop shut. Every synapse in my brain fired at once. I fell into a state of mania, I started flinging things into my bag then I paced around forcefully. Needless to say, my erratic behaviour attracted the attention of a student at the other end of the room. I needed to prove that this wasn’t happening. I wanted to see if anyone was behind this window. I went to the window and I clamped my hands against it so I could see outside. There was no-one was there but there was something. It was a rook that stood like a stature in the abyss of the night. I turned to look at me. I staggered back from the window in horror. In the reflection of the glass, I looked pale with bloodshot eyes like a patient from a mental institute. Suddenly, red writing filled the entire window: “WHY ARE YOU HERE?” “WHY ARE YOU HERE?” “WHY ARE YOU HERE?” as if written by a million tiny hands. The fear and anxiety I experienced was like a scalpel in my stomach. I let out a noise that I had never heard myself make before. It wasn’t pain or shock, it came from the bottom of my gut - slowly gurgling out. It was pure fear. I needed help. I didn’t care if the guy on the other end of the room had been watching me, I just needed help. I paced over to him, and of course, he saw me coming. He grew into a state fear, grabbing his laptop and standing up.
“No no. What the FUCK! JUST FUCK OFF”, the student shouted, “LEAVE ME ALONE, I’m not fucking joking”. His eyes were fixed on my right hand. When I looked down, I saw that I was clenching a scalpel and my right hand and it was covered in thick dark blood. With all my strength I tried to say something, but I just couldn’t get any words out. He ran off leaving his laptop cable and books.
I just stood there drinking everything in. I hadn’t slept all night, possibly drugged and had been pumping out adrenaline for an hour or two now. I could feel my heart beating irregularly and was swaying as I staggered around. What was happening to me? I must have gone insane because when I looked down again there was no scalpel or blood on my hands. But why did he run off then? I was confused beyond the point processing it. I shuffled back to my desk and sat there in silence desperately trying to figure out what to do. I could have collected my thoughts if it wasn’t for the library lights. They were so surgical and sterile. I started to feel nauseous as I got flashbacks of dissecting frogs at school. I’m not sure why it hadn’t affected me before but I tried to ignore it. It was no used though I couldn’t bare it for a second longer. I ran outside with the urgency of some who is about to vomit and as soon as I pushed through doors into the cool outside air, I instantly felt better. The night breeze stirred quietly, and the clouds obscured the moon giving the sky an inky glow. It was calm and gentle out here. The only noise was the security guard pacing around. I collapsed on a bench and waited there. I didn’t sleep. I simply sat there staring at my feet, just trying to make sense of everything. I did this until the faintest hum of daylight appeared on the horizon. It was still night time, but the first signals of daybreak gave me hope.
I started to look around in a slight daze, when something caught my interest. I couldn’t tell why but I kept staring into one of the adjacent buildings. It had glazed curtain windows in the ground floor entrance foyer and I kept trying to make out impressions of chairs, tables and columns. But to my horror I realised there was a figure within the building… it had been looking at me all this time. A prickling metallic taste filled my mouth. They were alone. In the darkness. Wearing, a blue and white hoodie. An uncontrollable trembling came over me. Whether it was reality or imagination, the figure slowly retreated into the nothingness.
I was so sick of this, I just needed to survive till daybreak. I heard scratching. It was similar to the scratching I heard in my bedroom before. I felt trapped, and like a bear prowling around in my stomach, every fibre in my body was telling me to run, or hide, or perhaps fight. Then, out of nowhere a rook flung itself at me, from the veil of darkness. It was possessed with the fury of a tiger. I panicked and I tried to protect myself the best I could but this bird was extremely violent, intentionally attacking my eyes with its piercing beak. With one particular stab, it got deep into my eye, I believed it had blinded me. I yelled out in pain and an unstoppable rage came over me. A rage strong enough to kill this fucking bird beyond the point of any humanity. Despite its beak and claws, I grabbed the foul bird by the neck. In a fight for its own life the rook ravaged my hand with all the strength it had leaving cuts all over my arm. All the while I pulled out a scalpel, clenched it in my fist and cut the bird’s chest, in a slow but thick stroke. Guts and entrails erupted from the dying bird covering both my hands in thick dark blood. The rook croaked horrifically and quickly stopped moving. I smiled and even began to laugh at the pure absurdity of what just occurred. I looked up, and in a millisecond’s glance, a spectral ghost looked back in the reflection of the library window with yellow blotched skin, a hospital gown and blood coming from its mouth. Somewhere deep down inside me, if I’m honest, was a flicker of enjoyment from cutting the bird open.
I heard steps running towards me. It was security. I grabbed the bird and ran in the opposite direction. I didn’t have time to think but instinctively I knew the guard finding out was a terrible idea. He might report it to the university and what the fuck would I do then. If I ran immediately, I had a chance to get away with it at the very least.
I ran with fear and rage, every muscle in my body pushing me forwards, with the dangling bird still in my fist. No-one was about on campus, and I couldn’t hear or see the security guard follow me. Most likely he was investigating the scene, and the distressing amount of blood left on the floor. I ran to my college dorm, I needed to get away from this. I didn’t care. I started croaking air into my lungs as I continued. I was possessed. I felt I was escaping from the sun’s dawning rays. Baffled and crying, I finally reached my college entrance in total delusion.
Why then? Why did I run towards that staircase? Why did I start stumbling up the steps to the Tower Room? Why did I stay up there for days on end? I lost all memory.
***
It was 10 days before security found me living there, in that Tower Room. When the first guard came in, I leapt out and grabbed him in a hellish grip. I looked at him like a prisoner who hadn’t seen light in ten years. With both my hands on the straps of his security vest, I dragged him down with my body weight. I tried to push words out of my mouth, like forcing a large log through a chipper. All that came out was blood that rolled down my chin and neck.
The police report only quoted two unintelligible phrases from me:
“Why are you here?”
“Why are you in my room?”