I’ve recently began my university life, and through the past year or so I’ve heard some interesting stories from seniors, friends and staff. I’ll be trying to record some of them for you guys.
This story about the girl in the red dress was told to me at a house party after a concert our Music Club had organised. It was the experience of my former Music Club president, now in his 4th and final year of study.
He started off his tale by relaying an old rumor. Apparently, years before he had started his studies, our university had a scandal where a girl had hung herself in one of the classroom blocks. The scandal was covered up effectively by management (I tried looking up the dates and I couldn’t find anything, even in the local newspaper), but my friend asserts that according to the senior that told him this rumor (who was also supposedly a close friend of the girl), the reason for her unalive attempt was because she had been rejected by her crush during prom night.
So, back to my friend. One night during his 1st year of study, him and some friends were studying in campus, on the 2nd floor of the Pelican 2 classroom block. They had had a long day, and exams were coming up. Eventually, his friends decided to leave for a late dinner around 9pm. He had however already eaten a light meal earlier, so he elected to stay and continue, planning to have supper later in the night. He got so into his studying that he only checked the time at around 12am. Seeing that it was late, he decided it was finally time to pack up and leave.
Before I continue, some context needs to be given about the classroom block where this occurs. The Pelican block is the oldest building still in use on campus, and it basically consists of one long corridor, about 60 to 80 meters in length, just wide enough for 2 people to pass each other by. There are exits at both ends of the hallway of Pelican 2, one opening into Pelican 3 and the lecturer offices, the other leading to Pelican 1 and the car park. The classrooms are on each side of the hallway at uneven points (meaning that no classroom door faces another classroom’s door), and the doors were heavy wooden doors with a small window at face level, allowing people from inside or outside to see through. As my friend stood packing his books, he could see out this window, and he noticed that the lights in the hallway were flickering.
No big deal, he thought to himself. The block was old, and electricals are usually the first thing to fail. After he finished packing, he shouldered the classroom door open, turned off the lights and A/C with his other hand, and stepped out into the hallway, walking into the direction of Pelican 1.
About halfway down the hall, he suddenly had the weird feeling that he was being watched from behind. Initially, he dismissed it again, assuming it was his tired mind playing tricks on him. At that time, he didn’t believe in ghosts, and he wanted to just get back home and rest after a long day.
However, as the feeling of being stalked grew stronger, he began questioning himself. When he had walked out from the classroom, the hallway was empty. How was it possible that someone was watching him? The door on the other side of the hall had not opened at all. He tried to speed up the pace and get to the end of the hall, but he suddenly found that his legs were becoming sluggish. As the presence behind him approached, his legs continued to melt into mush, refusing to obey and carry him the last few meters to the door. Wanting to turn around, my friend instead remembered an old superstition that his mother had mentioned before: don’t turn around to look at the spirit, because if you do, it will drive you insane. Resisting the urge, he crawled with all his might, reaching for the doorknob, and freedom.
But the doorknob seemed to never get closer. His vision was swimming now, his consciousness slowly leaving him. Behind him, he felt the spirit’s breaths, almost within touching range. With a desperate lunge, he leapt the last few inches to the doorknob.
And the door opened.
But not his door. The door that had opened was the door on the other end of the hallway, the one his back was facing. A security guard stepped through, and called out to him. Shakily, he returned the salute. As quickly as it had come, the paranoia left him, and his legs regained their consistency again. The guard had been on his rounds, and quickly walked down the corridor, checking each classroom on the way. When he finally reached my friend, the guard studied him for second, somewhat understanding what he had been through, before simply telling him not to stay too late, lest he get something ‘dirty’ on him, and then opened the door. My friend quickly fled out of the building and drove back to his house. When his housemates saw how pale he was, they brought him to a medium the very next day, who commented that he had encountered something ‘dirty’ and then ‘cleansed’ him with a quick ritual.
This story almost sounds like a hallucination, the products of a tired, stressed out mind. But there’s one important detail that I left out of the story, a detail that my friend impressed very deeply upon all of us listening to him. The presence behind him was a girl, and the girl was wearing a red dress, and he described the dress in extreme detail, even referring to the shade of red as “deep, almost blood-red”. If you read through the story, you’ll remember that he never once turned around to look at the spirit, following his mom’s advice. He could not have possibly known what was behind him in that hallway. Yet, when I asked him about this later, he emphasized that his description of the girl was accurate, while maintaining that not turning around in that hallway was what had saved him (and the guard, in my opinion the guard’s the real hero here).
To add to that, his is not the only rumor of a girl in a red dress haunting the Pelican blocks. I’ve heard of encounters by at least 3 different people, all similar but less detailed than the one you’ve just read, all happening to a guy that was alone in the wee hours of the morning. The Pelican block used to be open to students 24/7, but since the pandemic, the block is now closed and locked by 6pm. My friend has already graduated, and his recollection from way back then is just a memory now.
Do I think that hallway is haunted? Maybe. I do sort of believe in ghosts, but I’m too lazy and too much of a pussy to break into that hallway at night, so all I’ve got is just second-hand retellings from the minds of deranged university students. Believe of it what you will.