I am a 21 years old female living in a dormitory with three other roommates. Janet, Tessa, Mary and myself (Diana). We were living at a university campus at that time and our campus was quite huge. We lived in the states, I won’t name the place, but it was in the suburbs. Our university was rumored to be haunted. Most people thought it was a myth, but some people believed in the stories of the headless horseman who roamed about the campus. I had pretty neutral thoughts about it though. I neither believed in those stories, nor discarded them to be rumors. Afterall, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
One Saturday evening, Tessa was heading out to a party that was taking place at Tom’s house. Tom was a senior in the same university and we all were freshman. Janet and Mary decided to join in. They invited me as well, but I had bad stomach cramps that day, so I finally decided to stay. The three girls left at around 9 p.m. I was all alone in that floor as most people had gone to Tom’s party that evening. I was feeling pretty weak and decided to take a nap. I woke up at around 11 p.m. and got myself something to eat. I had some leftover pizza and decided to munch on it. My stomach cramps got worse after eating my meal. For clarification, I was on my period. I decided to get some pain meds for the terrible cramps. As I was about to take my medicine, I noticed someone in the corner of my eyes. I instinctively turned in that direction to see a shirt hanging from the door hanger. It was probably Tessa’s, I thought to myself. I took my med, turned on my laptop and started to watch a documentary.
Around 11:30, I had to go use the bathroom really quick. Our dormitory had a common bathroom with different stalls one after another. As I headed out my room, I noticed that the hallway lights were turned off. It was dark, but not enough dark for me to navigate my way to the washroom. We lived at the end of the hallway and had to walk about 50 meters before we reached the washrooms. I was walking quite slowly. Something in me was sending an alert to my brain that something was wrong. I finally reached one of the stalls and tried to open it. It was locked from inside. I thought that someone must have been using it. So, I decided to use the next stall instead. I sat down to do my business. I heard the bathroom door slam open, which meant that whoever was next to me had finally come out. A female voice politely asked me from outside “you okay in there?”
I replied, “yes of course, just having some tummy cramps”.
The girl then introduced herself to me. She said, “hi, I am Julia, I live in room 404”.
I was quite taken aback by this and I told her “I thought that no one lived in that room”.
She replied, “I have been living in that room for three years now”.
I came out of the stall and saw a beautiful girl standing in front of me. She had curly blonde hair, a tall built structure, pouty pink lips and eyes as deep as a dove. I instantly had a crush on her. I blushed and told her my name. “Hi, I am Diana”, I said.
She looked at me with her beautiful bold eyes and smiled. “Nice to meet you Diana”, she said.
I stood there awkwardly for few seconds then asked her, “haven’t you been to Tom’s frat party?”
She replied with a grim expression, “no, I don’t like him. He is a jerk and so I decided to stay. I thought I was all alone in the dorm, but then I found you”.
I blushed again. She asked me “would you like to come to my room and spend some time with me?”
I nodded my head and followed behind her. She navigated her way easily through the dark hallway and into her room. Room 404 was quite the opposite of what I thought it was. It was a one-person room and the walls were beautifully decorated with many pictures of Julia and her family. The curtains had string lights attached to them. There was a beautiful blue guitar lying on one corner of the room. The room was so neatly arranged that I felt ashamed of myself. I literally lived like a hooligan. Julia also had a collection of books that were displayed on her wall rack. I took one of her books and asked: “So, you are a fan of Harry Potter too?”
Julia smiled and said “only if Rowling knew how much I adored her”. We both giggled at that. Julia seemed like a happy-go-lucky girl and she had an amazing personality. She asked me to spend the night in her room, and I agreed. I was more than happy to remain with someone at that point. She began talking…. “Three years ago, I came to this university expecting it to change my life. Well, it kind-of did. I was attending classes regularly, joined the gym and made a boyfriend. His name was Tom, the guy who is throwing the frat party today.”
I looked dazzled at her. She smiled at me and started her story again “Tom was the sweetest boyfriend ever. He was initially very gentle with me. But then one night, he came to visit me in my dorm. He was drunk and wanted to do things with me. I told him no. He got angry and hit me. He then forced himself on me that night, and after he had his ways with me, he just left my room”.
“Why didn’t you file a complaint against him?”, I asked Julia with tears filling my eyes.
She said, “I did, but he is from a wealthy powerful family and the charges were taken out as soon as his dad came to know about it”. She sighed. “Then started the bullying. I was bullied by everyone in his group. It continued for about two months after which I couldn’t take it anymore”.
“What did you do then?”, I asked.
“Nothing”, she said.
I felt Julia was hiding something. But I didn’t want to press on the matter anymore. I quietly sat beside her and held her hand. We both cried together that night and we fell asleep on her bed.
Next morning, I woke up to frantic knocking on Julia’s door. I opened my eyes and it took some time for me to process what was happening. I quickly got up from the bed and opened the door. My roommates and the warden were standing in front of me. I rubbed my eyes and asked them “what happened?”
Mary said that I was missing in the morning, so they called me. My phone was in my room. They could not find me anywhere and so they had to inform the warden. The warden suspected that I might be in room 404 and so they came looking for me. I probably made my face looking at the warden when she said “look around you, do you think anyone lives here?”
I looked around the room and saw that it was empty. The walls seemed parched, the bed was broken and there was no guitar. The warden began to explain that there lived a girl named Julia. In her senior year, she hung herself to the celling of her room and killed herself. No one knows why, but she just took her life. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I could swear on my life that what I felt last night was real. I started feeling dizzy and fainted at the spot.
I regained my consciousness the next day. My roommates were sitting beside me. I slowly got up and sat on my bed. They all looked at me with questions in their eyes. I told them everything that happened. Mary did not believe me but Tessa and Janet seemed to understand. Suddenly Tessa said “why don’t we investigate what happened to her?”
My brain was already hatching a plan at that time. I filled in the girls with my plan and we began. Tessa and Janet were on board but Mary wanted to stay out of it. So, three of us started investigating in our own way what happened to Julia. At first, we tried to talk to the authorities, but nothing came out of it. We tried contacting Julia’s family. But they just dismissed us. So as a back-up plan, I planned to meet Tom. In the next frat party, I decided to go. A small detail that I forgot to mention was that I had been seeing Julia in my dreams a lot. She keeps on singing the same tune and plays her blue guitar. Sometimes, I see her wearing a yellow dress with flower printed on it, sitting beside me and holding my hand.
Tom was a very charming young man. He was three years older than me. It was a Friday night when he threw another frat party. I, Janet and Tessa decided to attain his party. Mary wanted nothing to do with our plan so she kept out of our way. It was the first time that I met Tom. He was tall and very handsome. His hair was neatly cut and he had a big tattoo covering his left arm. We entered his house and Tessa introduced me to him. Tom instantly started flirting with me and I went with the flow. We were getting drunk. Our main plan was to get the details of what had happened to Julia and get a confession out of him, record it and give it to the authorities. Unfortunately, I was too drunk and our plan did not go accordingly. I did not realize that Tom was taking me to his bedroom. I was wearing a little red dress. I turned back and saw Janet and Tessa walking behind us.
We entered his room and Tom immediately started taking off his shirt. I was panicking at this point. Tom threw me on his bed and began climbing on top of me. Janet was making a video from the door and they were waiting for the right moment. I said no to Tom. His expression started to change and he insisted on taking my dress off. He forcefully kissed me and I screamed for help. Janet couldn’t take it anymore and rushed in to help me. Tom was startled and left me. Tessa was holding the phone now and she had everything on camera. Janet went straight for Tom and slapped him hard. Tom was puzzled. He had never faced retaliation before. Suddenly, Mary rushed through the door and pushed Tom hard. He fell on the floor and looked surprised. I had gathered myself up at that point and we started to get out a confession from him.
“What did you do to Julia?”, Mary asked.
Tom was nervous and he began blabbering. He confessed about Julia and that was all that we needed from him. Tom confessed that Julia was pregnant with his child when she died. She had contacted him many times, but he did not receive her calls or talk to her. She belonged from a very conservative family and so her family disowned her when she broke the news. She couldn’t take it anymore and hung herself. After his confession, we left his house, and went straight to the police. We showed them the video where he had tried to molest me and his confession of why Julia killed herself. The police took the video from us and the next day, Tom was arrested. His influential father could not save his son this time. I stood in the court room and testified against him, and so did Janet, Tessa and Mary. He was sentenced to 25 years of prison time without any parole.
Came the time of summer vacation. We all headed home. I hugged my roommates and our bond had become stronger than ever. While leaving the dorm, I peeped through the keyhole of room 404. I could see a yellow piece of fabric with flowers printed on it.
It’s been 7 days since I have reached home. Julia doesn’t visit me in my dreams anymore. Today, I received a parcel. My mom called me downstairs and gave me a huge box with a “thank you” note on top of it. I opened the box and to my surprise, there was a blue guitar with “D” carved on it.