In the Hostel

In the Hostel

After 2 years of the pandemic, finally, our college reopened and asked us to do offline classes. We packed our things and were prepared for the offline classes and the offline exams. On the day of reporting, we went there and saw thousands of students were there. All of them were waiting for the registration to end so that they can leave for their hostel. I too was in the queue. After 2 hours of waiting, finally, I received the room number and went to the hostel. My family members left me there and returned home.

I stayed there along with a new roommate. He used to turn off the AC at the midnight, which was not a very big problem because in the hostel the temperature was fine. In the starting days, things were normal. We used to go for the mess and then the classes. The classes used to be from 8 AM to 2 PM, without any break.

Then one day, I went downstairs for the snacks. I saw some of my batchmates were fighting with the seniors. It was because of the queue thing. I waited for a few minutes and then returned, “Why to wait so long for just a cup of tea.” and came back to my room. It created a lot of drama in our hostel. Then the authority created separation between the sitting place of the 2nd years and 3rd years. That again created drama, the 2nd year students started demanding TV on their side because the seniors have it.

In all these dramas, I stayed in my room and prepared for the competition I was going to have online. I was tired so decided to sleep. I turned off the lights and closed my eyes. Suddenly a notification sound came from my phone.
“I remember that I have turned off the data. How the notification is coming then?” I checked my phone. There was no notification.

“Might be my imagination.” I closed my eyes again and slept.

The next day, I was late for the class, my college was just 5 minutes away from my hostel. I ran fast as I could and was just a few sec before the professor came into the class. Because of lack of sleep, I was feeling dizzy in class. The class ended and we returned to our class. I went directly to sleep. In my dream, I saw a stranger was there in front of me. He was looking at me directly and was angry. His eyes were red, and his face was blurred. With all the courage I had, I asked him, “Who are you?”
He didn’t reply.

“Who are you? And why are you in my room?”

Again there was no reply.

He started leaning toward me. I punched his face but, it made no effect. Suddenly I woke up. My roommates were in the room and were doing something. I left my bed and went to the washroom. The whole day I was having a feeling that someone’s eye is on me. In the mess, in the washroom, in my room when I am alone. All the time I was having a feeling of being watched.

At night, I was talking to my mom on the video call. I was walking in the corridor. In the side of the corner, I had a feeling that someone is standing. I looked there but there was no one. I didn’t tell my family members about this. Because I thought this is just my imagination. I went to sleep. I closed my eyes and was in mid-sleep I heard my phone ringing. I opened my eyes and grabbed the phone, it was silent. I checked for the missed calls, there were none.

“Then why was it ringing? Or it wasn’t?” I asked myself.

My roommate woke up and asked, “What are you doing?”

“I thought my phone was ringing, so I was just checking.”

“But it wasn’t. I am up from the last 2 hours.”

“Why are you up?”

“Watching memes.”

“So, your phone made some voice?”

“No, I am wearing earphones.”

“Umm… Ok.” I thought he lied, he might have played the song and was not accepting that it was his fault. I tried to sleep again because was having a morning class as usual.

The next morning, I was getting ready, I saw an old man at my window. I thought he is just painting the walls but, the labourers were on the other side of the building. I went there and opened the window to ask him, as I pulled the window doors, he vanished. I was shocked. I received a call from a friend, “You are late, the professor is already in the class.”

I ran to the class, forgetting what I saw here. There, our professor was teaching us about the coding language Java, I saw a similar face outside the room. The same old man I saw in my room outside the window. He was looking at me. I tried not to look at him, but my eyes were going toward him again and again. When the class ended, I ran behind the old man, after coming to the stairs, he vanished somewhere. And no one saw him except me.

I came to my room, I thought it would be a good time to tell my family members about this. I called them but, because of a network issue call was not connected. I decided to sleep. After class I get too tired, so need some sleep to do rest day work. Again, I heard my mobile phone ringing. I opened my eyes and saw someone was sitting in the closet in my room. I panicked, I closed and again opened my eyes, there was nothing. “Maybe it was just a dream?” I checked my phone. It was showing an icon in the notification bar. I clicked on it, but there was no message. “What is happening? Why I am seeing these things?”

I sat on my bed and started reading books. Exams were just 1 month away, so I started preparing for them. I used my pens and started making notes. I studied for around 2 hours without any break. I was tired so decided to stop for a few minutes. I locked the door and went out. I came back around 10 minutes and was shocked to see the room. The whole room was topsy-turvy. My pillow was on the floor, the mattress was up in the closet. My notes were torn. I closed the door again and ran to call the warden and other fellow mates. They all came. They were shocked to see the room. The walls were having long claw marks. Tables were broken and there was blood all over the floor. There was a body near a bed. We went there. It was the dead body of one of my roommates. It was torn open. This spread all over the hostel. All of us were outside of the campus. The authority managed to give us a new hostel to stay in.

The hostel we were previously in was locked from the outside. The guard claimed that the whole night someone was laughing in the hostel. We were shifted to the new hostel. We managed to get our packages from the hostel to the new hostel. We all were scared. But somehow, we managed to settle in the new hostel.

“So, finally peace from that supernatural activity, isn’t it?” My roommate asked.
“Yeah, hope so. I don’t want to see those things again.”
“Yeah man, me too.”
We closed our eyes and tried to sleep. There was a knock on the door. My roommate went to check. There was no one. He turned on the room lights and suddenly he screamed. On the wall on my side, it was written, “2 more years are left.”

The End.