Caleb's eyes snapped open before the first rays of dawn could even touch the dorm room window. The darkness was thick, oppressive, as if the walls themselves had weight, pressing inward. The muffled groans of the building settling—or perhaps something else—made him stiffen. For a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming, but the metallic scent in the air was far too vivid for that. It clung to his nostrils, tangy and biting, like rust left in the rain.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the cold floor a shock to his bare feet. Each tile pressed into his skin with a faint, unyielding chill. Caleb tried to shake the lingering unease from his bones. He told himself it was just a new dorm, old building, creaky floors. But the silence around him was wrong. Not peaceful, not empty—it was aware, attentive, waiting.
Outside, the wind whispered through the pines, scratching their tall trunks against one another in an eerie chorus. Shadows pooled at the edges of the window, twisting and stretching with the weak moonlight. Something deep in Caleb's chest told him the world outside wasn't normal either, but he pushed it aside, trying to focus on the mundane: breakfast, schedules, people. The simplicity of normalcy was a comfort he hadn't felt in weeks.
He dressed quickly, pulling on the same worn jeans and sweatshirt he'd arrived in, trying to ground himself. When he stepped into the hallway, he froze. The air was colder than the room, but not just cold—sharp, biting, filled with an almost electrical tension. And there were marks.
Scratches ran along the wooden panels of the wall, shallow but jagged. Their randomness belied intent. Some were straight, deliberate; others curved and clawed at the surface, as if whoever—or whatever—had made them had been frustrated. Caleb traced one with his fingers instinctively. The wood was rough, splintering under his touch. He flinched and pulled back. There was something about those marks—some silent message he couldn't yet decipher—that made his stomach knot.
At the end of the hall, he paused. The stairwell beyond was dark, almost pitch black, but not quite. Shadows danced along the edges, contorting in ways that didn't make sense. The wind from outside seemed to drift down the stairs, carrying the scent of metal and something else Caleb couldn't name. Fear pricked at his nerves. Normally he could tell himself he was being paranoid, that it was just an old building. But tonight, the building felt alive.
He took a step forward. Then another. Each footfall echoed unnaturally, too loud for the quiet dorm. With every step, he became aware of a tapping sound—soft, deliberate, almost playful. Nails rapping on wood. Caleb froze, staring down into the darkness. He held his breath. The tapping paused.
When it started again, it was faster, sharper, deliberate. It moved up the stairs rhythmically, as if it were a heartbeat, a pulse trying to communicate. Caleb swallowed, trying to force his mouth to move. "Hello?" His voice sounded small, swallowed by the shadows. No answer came.
The first light of dawn crept into the dorm through cracked blinds, and for a moment, Caleb felt relief. Maybe it was just his imagination. Maybe it was nothing more than a restless night and the acoustics of the old building. But the air remained too cold, too heavy, too aware.
Caleb decided to leave the dorm for now. He needed movement, something tangible. If he stayed, the walls would close in on him, and the shadows would grow bolder. With hesitant steps, he made his way to the common room. The smell of damp wood was stronger here, mingled with the faint, metallic tang that made his stomach churn.
A group of students were gathered around a flickering television, its static buzzing like insects trapped in a jar. They didn't notice him. Or perhaps they did and chose to ignore him. Caleb felt like a ghost, an observer in a world that had already determined he did not belong. The static from the TV seemed to seep into the room itself, muting the edges of reality, making everything feel slightly off-kilter.
He pressed a hand to the wall as he walked past, feeling the vibrations, the subtle hum that ran beneath the surface. The scratches along the hallway seemed to extend farther here, jagged lines reaching toward the corners where shadows pooled thickest. Caleb paused again. Something in him whispered to stop, to turn back, to leave immediately.
A soft hiss came from behind the stairwell, barely audible but unmistakable. Caleb froze. Not the wind, not a trick of acoustics. This was deliberate, aware, something alive. He wanted to leave, to run back to his room and lock the door, but curiosity anchored him in place. The sound repeated, longer this time, forming an almost speech-like rhythm that he couldn't parse.
Caleb's pulse thundered in his ears as he edged closer to the stairwell. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, yet he couldn't. The strange tapping had a pull, a curiosity that demanded answers. He reached the first step and paused. Shadows curled along the wall, longer and darker than any ordinary shadow should be, twisting in ways that seemed almost unnatural.
The tapping resumed, softer now, almost coaxing, like a voice trying to draw him into a secret. Caleb's fingers grazed the railing—cold, slick, and trembling under his touch. A chill ran up his arm, as if the metal itself was alive, reacting to his presence. He swallowed hard. Something was here, something that had been watching him since the moment he entered the dorm.
With careful steps, he ascended. The air grew colder with each stair, and the metallic scent intensified. Caleb's mind raced. Was it a person playing a cruel prank? No, he reasoned. The rhythm was too precise, too deliberate. And then there were the marks on the walls, the scratches that pointed like arrows, urging him onward. He had seen something like this before—not in life, but in dreams, fragments he could never quite place.
Halfway up the staircase, he froze. A shadow shifted at the corner of his vision, moving against the grain of light, something that shouldn't have been possible. Caleb's heart jumped. He blinked, and it vanished, leaving only the oppressive dark in its place. The tapping stopped. Silence followed, heavy and suffocating, pressing down on him from all sides.
A whisper slid through the stairwell. Caleb couldn't make out the words—just an urgent, hushed sound, threading through the air like smoke. He wanted to answer, to speak, to break the silence, but no sound came. His mouth felt dry, clamped shut by fear.
And then he heard it—the scrape. A long, dragging sound, like claws against stone, coming from somewhere deep within the dorm. Caleb's stomach dropped. The sound grew nearer, echoing through the stairwell with an unnatural clarity. He wanted to run, but his feet were rooted to the step beneath him.
Suddenly, a draft swept past him, cold and pungent, carrying with it a metallic tang so sharp it made his eyes water. Something brushed against his arm, feather-light, yet he flinched violently. The stairwell seemed alive, twisting and breathing around him. Shadows leaned closer, reaching, grasping, curling toward him.
Caleb forced himself to climb the final steps. At the top, the corridor stretched endlessly, longer than it should have been. Doors lined both sides, their wood warped, paint peeling. Some doors were slightly ajar, revealing black voids that seemed to absorb the weak light. The air here was heavier, filled with the weight of something unseen.
He noticed a single room at the far end, door closed, but the scratching marks on the wall pointed directly toward it. Caleb's gut tightened. The logical part of his mind begged him to turn back, to flee down the stairs, to escape the oppressive pull of the dorm. But another part—an almost morbid curiosity—pushed him forward.
He approached slowly, each step measured and deliberate. When he reached the door, the air was frigid, his breath visible in short, sharp bursts. He placed a hand on the doorknob. The metal was ice-cold, trembling under his touch. Caleb felt a shiver crawl down his spine as the tapping began again—soft, almost imperceptible, coming from behind the door.
"Who's there?" he whispered, voice breaking, swallowed by the dark corridor.
No answer.
He twisted the knob. The door creaked open, revealing a room empty of furniture, but for the walls. Scratches were everywhere, jagged and chaotic, forming symbols he couldn't comprehend. And in the center of the floor, a thin layer of dust had been disturbed, as if something—or someone—had moved across it recently.
Caleb's stomach turned. He stepped in, trying to be quiet, but the floorboards groaned under his weight. The whispering grew louder, almost angry now, like it resented his intrusion. Shadows pooled in the corners, and for a fleeting moment, Caleb thought he saw a figure crouched there, black and fluid, impossible to focus on.
The figure didn't move, yet it was aware. Its presence pressed on Caleb, suffocating, demanding attention. Panic clawed at his mind. He wanted to run, but the whispering surrounded him, coming from every corner, from the walls, from the floor. He realized then that the dorm wasn't just alive—it was aware of him.
And it didn't want him here.
Caleb's pulse thundered in his ears. He wanted to step back, to run, but something invisible held him in place. The shadows at the edges of the room weren't just dark—they moved, shifting and curling toward him with a life of their own. The whispering had grown louder, now overlapping, a chaotic murmur that made his teeth chatter.
The figure—or whatever it was—coalesced slowly, dark and fluid, its edges blurry and writhing as though it existed between spaces. It hovered above the floor, and Caleb felt a wave of vertigo, as if gravity itself was bending around it. He wanted to scream, but no sound emerged.
Then the figure tilted, as if considering him. And that's when Caleb noticed the faint, pulsing glow in its center. A dull, sickly amber light that seemed to throb in rhythm with the tapping sound he had first heard. It was alive, watching, calculating.
Caleb took a hesitant step forward. His brain screamed at him to flee, but curiosity, that fatal curiosity, pushed him onward. "What are you?" he whispered, voice shaking.
The figure responded—not in words, but in sensation. The room seemed to pulse with his heartbeat, the shadows bending inward, pressing against him. The whispering grew sharper, forming syllables he didn't understand yet somehow knew: leave… leave… leave…
Caleb's stomach churned. He swallowed, fighting panic, and forced himself to speak again. "I… I'm not here to hurt you."
A gust of cold wind swept through the room, ruffling his hair, pressing against his chest, as if the entity was exhaling its presence. The amber glow flickered. Caleb's eyes darted around, and in the corners, shapes shifted—faces? Figures? He couldn't tell. They seemed to mock him, silent and distorted.
Then, suddenly, silence. Complete and suffocating. The shadows froze mid-motion. The whispering ceased. Caleb's chest heaved as he tried to regain control over his panic. He thought he had survived, that perhaps the worst had passed.
And then the tapping returned, louder, closer—behind him. Caleb spun, but there was nothing. Just the empty room, the scratches on the walls, the disturbed dust on the floor. He backed toward the door, feeling the floorboards groan beneath him.
As he reached for the knob, the door slammed shut with a force that rattled the walls. Caleb jumped, heart hammering. The amber glow flared, illuminating the room just enough to show the scratches rearranging themselves, forming symbols that seemed almost alive. He stumbled back, pressed against the far wall.
A single whisper floated through the air, slower now, deliberate: stay…
Caleb's knees threatened to buckle. He realized, with a sinking certainty, that the dorm wasn't just a building, wasn't just haunted—it was aware, conscious, and it had taken an interest in him. And for reasons he couldn't yet understand, it did not want him to leave.
Every instinct screamed to fight, to flee, to scream. But the dorm seemed to anticipate every move. Every thought. Every heartbeat. Caleb understood, in a cold, terrifying instant, that his presence here had awoken something, something patient, something hungry for acknowledgment.
He didn't know how long he stood there, frozen and trembling. Time seemed to stretch and warp, seconds elongating into eternity. The amber glow pulsed again, softer this time, like a heartbeat calming—but it did not fade.
Caleb had no choice. Slowly, carefully, he edged toward the door, hands raised as if to placate the room itself. He whispered, "I don't want to hurt you. I just… I just want to leave."
The door creaked open as if granting him permission, and the shadows receded slightly, the amber glow dimming but still present. Caleb didn't hesitate. He bolted down the corridor, down the stairs, and out into the cold morning air. The wind lashed at him, the pines groaning overhead, but it was freedom, temporary though it felt.
He collapsed on the gravel driveway, chest heaving, lungs burning, eyes darting back to the dorm. The scratches along the walls were gone, as if they had never existed. The stairwell was dark and empty. Only the wind whispered now, and the dorm remained silent—but Caleb knew it was waiting.
He had survived this encounter, barely. But deep down, he understood that the dorm would not forget him. It had marked him. Watched him. And sooner or later, it would call him back.