Chapter 2

The next morning, I woke up to find Lisa' s side of the room completely empty. Her desk was clear, her bed was stripped, and her closet was open and bare. She had moved out in the middle of the night without a word.

Jessica was already awake, sitting at her desk and staring at the empty space.

"She' s gone," Jessica said flatly. "I heard them come back late last night. They packed up all her stuff and left. Didn' t even say goodbye."

The pit in my stomach grew deeper. First, my three roommates disappear, now a girl I just met flees in the middle of the night after seeing me.

"This is because of me," I said.

"Don' t be ridiculous, Sarah," Jessica said, though she didn' t sound convinced. "I told you, she was weird to begin with."

Just then, Karen walked back into the room. She froze when she saw me, her hand gripping the doorknob. She looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes.

"Lisa moved to a single room across campus," she said, her voice quiet and strained. "She wasn' t comfortable here."

"Because of me?" I asked directly.

Karen wouldn' t meet my eyes. She just shrugged and walked over to her bed. She hesitated for a moment, then turned to me.

"Sarah," she started, her voice barely a whisper. "Where did you go last night?"

I frowned. "What are you talking about? I was here all night. I slept on the floor right there." I pointed to the sleeping bag and pillow Jessica had lent me.

"No, you weren' t," Karen said, her voice gaining a sharp edge of fear. "I saw you. Around 2 a.m. I got up to use the bathroom, and you were gone. The front door was unlocked."

"That' s impossible," I said, shaking my head. "I was asleep. I' m a heavy sleeper. I didn' t go anywhere. Jessica, did you hear me leave?"

Jessica looked from me to Karen, confused. "No, I was up late studying, and you were definitely asleep when I finally went to bed around one. I didn' t hear the door open."

"I' m telling you, I didn' t leave this room," I insisted, looking at Karen. "I still have the key card Jessica gave me." I held up the key with its bright pink flamingo keychain. "It hasn' t left my pocket."

Karen' s face went white. She took a small step back, her eyes wide with a terror that looked identical to Lisa' s from the night before. It was as if my denial was the most frightening thing I could have said.

"But... I saw you," she stammered. "You came back around sunrise. I heard the door click."

"You must have been dreaming," Jessica said, trying to de-escalate the situation.

But Karen wasn' t listening. She just stared at me, her whole body trembling. She grabbed her backpack and practically ran out of the room, muttering something about a class she was late for.

I watched her go, a strange feeling creeping up my spine. "Why is everyone so afraid of me?"

Jessica sighed. "I don' t know, Sarah. This is getting really strange."

Later that day, after a useless trip to the housing office where a student worker just handed me a form and told me my former roommates had officially transferred schools, I found myself walking toward my old dorm building. I wasn' t planning on it. My feet just seemed to take me there.

I saw Karen up ahead, walking with a friend. I thought about calling out to her, to try and talk to her again, to understand what she thought she saw. But then I saw her friend glance over her shoulder, spot me, and grab Karen' s arm. The friend whispered something in her ear, and Karen' s head whipped around.

The moment she saw me, her face contorted in fear. She didn't hesitate. She grabbed her friend' s hand and they practically ran in the other direction, disappearing around the corner of the library.

I stopped in my tracks, feeling like I had some contagious disease. The isolation was suffocating.

A strange impulse took over. I walked up to the third floor, back to Room 304. The maintenance notice was still taped to the door. I pressed my ear against the cold wood, listening. Silence. I tried the handle, but it was firmly locked. I peered through the peephole, but it was dark on the other side. It was just an empty, dark room.

Whatever Karen thought she saw, she was wrong. I couldn' t have been in there. The door was locked. There was nothing inside but dust and old memories.

Still, as I walked away, I couldn' t shake the feeling that something was watching me from that dark, empty room.