As usual, I walked slowly back to my dorm room after my study session at 10:30 PM.Usually accompanied by two roommates, Julie went to hand in her chemistry homework and Jiayi went on a date, so I was the only one left.The lights in the building were still on , and it was quiet, with two or three students occasionally passing by. I went downstairs. This school is strange, calling the garden LG1.
Every time the bell rang, the whole building began to shake. The freshmen and sophomores cheered and screamed, rushing out of this prison like a spring tide. I leaned against the wall waiting for all my classmates to go before me.
The men’s room on LG1 emitted a foul smell, mixed with the smell of aq steril, I held my breath and quickened my pace. This morning Julie disgustedly mentioned, is there a fish dead to have this kind of smell. I thoughtfully look at the fish pond, the night is dark, can only see a pool of dark water. Then I went forward, forward.
The streetlights were blindingly bright, but the area it affected was small, and the sky was dark. The wind was particularly strong today, whistling through, becoming more and more eerie because of the treacherous branches of the tall trees stretching out. I zipped up my uniform jacket as high as it could go and walked through the crowd into the dormitory, ignoring the inquiring eyes of the teachers waiting at the door.
This semester, we moved from the sixth floor to the third floor, and the wetness has intensified its pursuit, like a lurking beast that can’t wait to burrow into flesh and blood and climb onto bones, bringing itchy and unbearable pain to the young.
The underwear hanging in the bathroom had not yet dried, the space was small.The daytime heat was pervasive, so it was steamed with a faint musty smell. I stood on my tiptoes, knowing it was useless, but still touched my clothes in the flickering dim light.Sure enough, it was wet.
“It smells awful! “ Julie shouted. She was back and her hair is a mess. She closed the door and stripped naked. Her pale skin appeared in front of me.
I smile half-heartedly, “It’s the smell of undried clothes, Julie, which side are you picking?”“The right.” She said slyly.
Because the ceiling of the shower on the left was broken, revealing rusty water pipes, and from time to time some ash would drop down, but I am satisfied with this arrangement, the temperature of the right side shower was warmer.
The mop was placed next to me, and the cloth of the mop was stuck with a clump of hair that could not be removed. I was responsible for mopping the floor, and every day I could somehow drag out a lot of hair, everywhere, even next to the empty beds. Girls are really like cats, they shed hair in patches.
Recently I also have found a kind of white small round beads in the dorm. I asked Julie and Jiayi, both denied that it was their own.Where did them come from? I looked towards the missing ceiling, and took the bath towel to wipe my glasses, looking closely at the mop, there are a few beads buried in it.
I heard the door open again and called out, “Jiayi, how was the date?”
It took a long time for a female voice to come, not answering my question, but muttering to herself, “I have to get up early tomorrow morning to wash my hair, I won’t be able to make it tonight.”
“Why are you talking to yourself?” Julie laughed, “Don’t tell us anything about the date. I’m not listening.”
“I wasn’t talking about it.” Jiayi walked in, wrapped in a bath towel.She was very thin.You could see the bones below the skin, “We just talked for a bit, nothing else.”
“Deng, do you smell something bad?I’m going to throw up.”
“Which one do you mean?” I replied, “I’ve smelled enough stink today.”
“It’s everywhere, like a corpse taken out of a three-year soak in fecal water.” She sarcastically said.
“Stop it.” Julie called out, “I’m afraid of all these.”“Okay.” Jiayi’s voice was slurred, probably because she was brushing her teeth.
I didn’t say another word, dried myself from head to toe. I wrung out the bath towel and hung it on the side of the bed. I curled up under the covers to read. Soon the lights went out, I pulled the net down, turned on my side, and quickly fell asleep.
In the middle of the night, I woke up to a cold breeze. The mattress and quilt were thin and I was shivering, the thick quilt was in my suitcase which was on the first floor. There was a rustling sound from the bathroom, like the sound of a giant panda gnawing on bamboo shoots in a video I saw at home on the weekend. I rubbed my eyes, it should be Julie, she sometimes got up to go at night to pee.
My electronic watch suddenly broke down last week and the numbers started jumping endlessly. My mother reprimanded me, saying that my father had used the same electronic watch for eight years. She eventually had no choice but to give me a mechanical watch that I hadn’t used in a long time, and I found that this one was also out of order.The second hand went two frames and jumped back one frame, showing 1 a.m.
“Julie, Julie?”
Silence.
Hesitating for a moment, I lifted the net, cowered a little, took the flashlight and prepared to go downstairs. Light swept across the bathroom, the floor was bright red, half a dead fish staring straight at me, so fishy. The smell that has always existed overwhelmingly attacked me, to the nostrils, mouth and tongue, head. My stomach did’t feel good, Jiayi was right, I also wanted to vomit. I closed my eyes, dizzily glanced again and the fish disappeared.
There was a white bead on the ground. I was frozen weak, my hands and feet were bruised, and I didn’t want to look any closer. I immediately whooshed and scurried down the hallway. The teacher who patrolled the night saw it and rushed me viciously. I gestured and told her what I was going to do.She then grunted and looked suspicious, but had to let me go.
The normally narrow stairway stretched out infinitely, as if there were no boundaries in the vast, dreary night, and I walked with soft feet, as if in another strange, variable space.
This endless road was near its end, and I opened the suitcase, contentedly sniffing the fresh scent of the family laundry detergent and holding the warmth in my arms.This adventure was coming to an end, I thought with delight .The sign on LG1 was prominent, “LG1, Do Not Enter,” it read.
Another girl in the class told me she had been down there and there was nothing in there, just water up to her calves. By some miracle, I was willing to try to continue this adventure for just a minute, and with my blanket temporarily put down, I slipped on my slippers and walked over.
It was standing water, water darkened by the night.
I felt a tuft of hair wrap around my ankle, probably because it was too dark to distinguish between water and hair. I suddenly remembered about the dead fish. The fish in the pond had already dead in the morning, and it had been cleaned up at night.
“Where’s Deng? She must have gone early again.” Julie complained.
“Yeah .” Jiayi mumbled, “Did she hang her wet clothes in the closet again? Her closet stinks.”
Julie fanned and sniffed, “ It smells like fish.”
“How can I live a lifelike this? I really want to go home.”
I was locked in the closet, and they left together.