Room 17B

All of the breath left my lungs when I walked through my open doorway into the room I’d be sleeping in for the next year. Something felt… uneasy as I looked around at the old concrete walls, with their paint chipping and peeling away, and the floorboards that were quickly covered up with shoddy carpeting by the university. I looked over to my parents who smiled at me.

“Just like I remember it!” My dad beamed, sporting the bright green shirt of his alma mater, matching the countless posters we’d walked past to get here. Weirdly enough, it almost matched the spots of whatever was growing on the baseboards in this room as well.

My mom gave me a big hug, squeezing hard enough to press out whatever air was left inside me. “Don’t worry sweetie,” she said, “decorate a bit, and in a couple days you’ll feel right at home!” I nodded and waved to their backs as I watched them drive away.

I spent the rest of the afternoon decorating. Every so often I’d hear a quick knock on the door and turn to see some other freshman leaning on the frame, or walking just into the entry.

Every conversation went about the same:

“How’d you get your own room?”

“No roommate, that’s so cool!”

“So who do you know?”

“Hey man, what’s wrong with you that you have to be here?”

I already knew that I was the envy of all of the guys in my dorm, skipping the normal awkward new student roommate drama. Truthfully, I don’t know how I ended up with a room all my own. I applied pretty late to the university, but they assigned me a “single” pretty quickly. Room 17B.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m just pretty lucky,” is what I told them all.

By late afternoon, I had hung posters from command strips on the wall, positioned my autographed hockey photos on the dresser, and ran a string of lights as high up as I could get. By the time I was finished, in all honesty, the room looked pretty great, but something still felt weird. Maybe it was the cold air that seemed to stagnate here, but I just chalked that up to the old concrete walls. The dorm probably blew the A/C pretty cold throughout the whole building, it’d been a hot summer that was bleeding into fall.

Dinner at the dining hall was nothing special - not as good as mom’s - but it felt good to be on my own and doing my own thing. I even found a table of guys, a few of whom I recognized from coming to visit as I decorated, and we fell in together quickly, sharing the best foods from our plates, discussing majors, talking about the cute girls we’d seen on the way in.

When I retired for the night, I had to bundle up. The chill was still in the room, despite the heat outside. I fell asleep quickly, the excitement from the day wearing me out. That night, I had a dream that an incredibly cute girl asked me for help moving in. She had long blonde hair up in a tight ponytail, wore the university’s volleyball uniform, and had these beautiful, piercing blue eyes. I helped her move in and she invited me to hang out at her table for dinner. “Try this salmon,” I said, holding my fork up. But when I looked up at her, her blue eyes were gone, replaced instead by black voids, holes boring into her skull. Dark ooze ran down her face and pooled on her tray of food.

I shot awake in my bed, gasping for air.

The next day, classes hadn’t started yet, so I had a full day to hang out. I went to the quad where a group of guys were playing badminton. I recognized one of them, David, from dinner and he invited me over to join them. I told him about the dream, and he playfully punched my arm. “Damn dude. If you’re that scared of girls, let me know when you see that one. I’ll take her!” We laughed together.

That night, I laid back down in bed, the blankets covering me from chin to toe to fight off the chill. It almost felt colder than it did last night. I shut my eyes to sleep, but something was bugging me in the back of my mind. I opened one of my eyes and noticed a shadow in the corner. I assumed it was just the shadow of a weird tree being cast in my room - until it moved.

A human shape with an elongated head and hunched shoulders with arms that reached all the way to the floor. It stepped forward, raising an arm towards me. I ducked my head under my covers, my breath ragged and wheezing in the cold, and waited. But… nothing happened. I looked back out and the figure was gone, my room was empty.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Or the one after that.

Or the next.

Or the next.

Or the next…

Every time I laid down in my bed, something happened. When I’d fall asleep, I’d have that dream. It would be different every time, but it always ended the same, with me staring at those same black hole eyes pouring black ichor, their mouth curved in a scream or a frown, or a cruel mixture of both. If I couldn’t fall asleep, I’d see him again. Sometimes he’d be in the corner, sometimes watching from the window, and sometimes standing at the foot of my bed. Sometimes he’d stay put and sometimes he’d move. The worst nights he’d step forward once, maybe twice, nearing my bed. I’d scream, or turn away and hide my face, curling up and praying he’d leave. He always did.

A month into the school year, David pulled me aside. “Hey dude,” he started, “you don’t look too good. Are you okay?” I told him everything through bloodshot eyes, a mixture of sleep deprivation and sobbing as I explained everything, hoping to God he wouldn’t think I’m crazy. He listened through the whole thing, and when I had finished, he looked me up and down. “I thought something looked wrong,” he said, “let’s go visit my friend. His grandma was a Nigerian witch doctor, he’s good at this spirit kinda stuff.” I could only thank him. For being a friend. For looking out for me.

We went to talk to this guy he knew: Chidoze was his name. I saw him physically shudder when we walked in the room, and when he looked at me, his eyes locked at the top of my head. This was definitely the work of a spirit - that much he was confident about, but exactly what kind of spirit was going to be different. He needed to see the room.

When we walked into my room, I could see it had the same effect on them that it did on me. They gripped their chests and I could see their breathing become manual and much more labored. Chidoze looked around and nodded before pulling out a sprig of an herb that I’d never seen before and a lighter. He lit the herb and walked around, shaking it in the corners, the windowsill, the foot of my bed - all of the places that I’d seen the figure. He didn’t need me to tell him those locations, he could “see the different aura” without any need for that.

“The aura is the worst over here,” he said, walking into the corner where I’d first seen the figure. I looked over to my friend David to thank him. David was facing Chidoze, but something was off. His eyes were closed. “Hey Dave,” I started, “you okay dude?” He turned to me, the holes of his skull bleeding the same dark ichor that I’d always seen in my dreams. “Chidoze!” I shouted. My new savior turned towards me, the burning herb still in his hand, now barely smoldering as the wet ooze fell onto it. His mouth curled as it opened in a scream.

I woke up with a start in my bed. The figure was there at the foot of my bed. I tried to turn, to pull up the covers, to hide… but I couldn’t. There was something on my chest, something weighing me down and keeping me from moving. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The figure stepped closer. Its arm raised and extended, its fingers, gangly and long, wrapping around the metal bar at the foot of my bed. I tried to pull my feet back, but they wouldn’t move. The bed groaned as the figure pulled himself closer, steadying itself with its other hand on the mattress. It came closer. I tried to scream, but no sound came out, I only felt a gurgle in my mouth. Glancing down, I saw the liquid pooling in my mouth, black streaks of an oily substance pouring down from my eyes, down my nose, leaking into my nostrils, and curling down my lips like inky waterfalls.

The hand reached out, the long fingers wrapping around my mouth and chin. I heard something not quite human, but also not quite not. The fingers moved up, two of them extending towards my eyes, finding the holes pouring the liquid down my face. I realized what the sound was. It was laughter.

The Next Morning:

*Notice from the University*

Dear students,

Many of you have become aware of an issue with one of our students. We would like to ensure all students that the situation has been handled. Last night a student had a breakdown. He was escorted off the premises and has been taken to the hospital for a psychological evaluation. He is not expected to return this, or next semester. As such, the room the student was staying in is now available. Please send applications for the room to the registrar by Friday.

Thank you.