Room 334

>>18333034
In hindsight, living alone in an unfamiliar area in a claustrophobic room was a bad decision to begin with but it made sense to my 18-year-old self and my parents didn't really care all that much. My sister is a star soccer athlete, and they pay her way more attention that they do me, so, when I mentioned my living arrangement, they were only concerned about if it cost any more.

No, nothing "horrific" happened in this room. There wasn't a murder, suicide, or any type of death in the room, nor was the dorm built over an indian burial ground, or anything else that would result in a haunting. The only real explanation I have is that there are just places in the world that are... off. Some people call it a "nexus of negative energy", whatever the hell that means. I just think there are places in the world that humans are not meant to be, and if places are left empty too long they should stay that way.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The move in day was as awkward as you'd imagine, and was mostly spent arguing with my dad about where to put the futon in such a cramped space and my mom snapping cheesy photos of my sister and I as I unpacked. The room itself had an odd smell to it- very humid, thick air hung in the room. The R.A (we'll call him James) explained that, due to a low amount of applicants the year before, this room had remained empty and to be aware it may be dusty or what not.

The entire time my family helped me move in, they complained the room felt cramped. My sister joked (or so I thought at the time) that it was so small it was hard to breathe. The room did feel suffocating, but I figured that was just due to the already tense nature of me moving in coupled with crowding four people in a small room.

>>18333034
After I moved in, the room almost seemed cozy. I left my door open to let the dusty air out, and the other new arrivals all dropped in to visit before the night was over. They were all nice enough, asking the usual questions- where are you from, what are you planning on majoring in, etc, and all seemed interested as to why I chose a single room. Two of them were introduced to me by their parents, and both seemed incredibly uncomfortable by this prospect, but actually turned out to be nice enough later on.

It wasn't until the third day of living there I began to notice something was just off about the room, although I couldn't quite place what it was. For a start, the room seemed unnaturally dark. It was as if the walls drank light. I knew this was mostly due to it being built in that alcove, so sunlight only reached the room at an angle, but the room just never seemed to be illuminated fully. I didn't notice this until I started spending time in room 332 and hanging out with my first "college friends"; we'll call them Hector and Skyler.

Hector was a spiky haired Hispanic kid with really thick glasses, and was soft spoken but had a good sense of humor. Physics major, which seemed to fit his personality. Skyler was the archetypal stoner- a white guy with dreads and a really artsy half-sleeve tattoo. Despite his appearance, though, he was pre-law, and actually had quite the impressive background in that. Anyway, this was before classes started, and as all three of us didn't know anyone in fraternities or that was able to buy us booze (yet), all we had to do was sit around and play video games on an old PlayStation 2 Skyler had brought.

We stayed up that third night till like, two A.M, dicking around on Crash Team Racing (oldie but goodie), before Hector finally decided he was too tired to keep racing. As I left their room and returned to mine, I noticed just how dark my room really was.

>>18333034
The other rooms in the suite, even the bathroom, were lit with stark white lights from overhead fluorescent bulbs. My room should've been the same- nothing was different about the light fixture, at all, just that it was somehow dimmer. It gave off more of a dim, yellow glow, and casting wild shadows in every direction. I had a lamp, too, and even it didn't seem to be as bright as it should've been, but that could've been explained by a bad outlet or a bad bulb.

It almost looked as if my room's lighting was being powered by a back-up generator. You know how, during a serious storm when those generators come on, the lights run on a much lower wattage? It looked a lot like that. I contacted maintenance about it, but the electrician was baffled- the wires were in perfect condition. He said he'd "get back to me about it", but I never heard from him again.

I figured I'd get used to the lighting, but if anything, it just grew harder to deal with. Natural light was only reliable at times of the day that I was rarely in the room, and didn't last long, and if the glare of the sunset came through the blinds it could be blinding. I couldn't study in the room, simply due to the fact that the eerie glow the room had to it always resulted in me getting a migraine.

Is this fiction? Reads like fiction.

>>18333093
sounds like you're dealing with clinical depression, which is scarier than any ghost. I prescribe hard exercise and a healthy diet.

Sounds like a case of Eroleplayo syndrome.

Type faster niqqah.

>>18333034
It's funny how when we think of unsafe places they're always isolated or abandoned- a mental hospital in a fenced off area, or a cemetery in the middle of the woods. I guess what was so off-putting about this room was that it was just... not right, despite being surrounded by a safe and normal place.

The feeling of the room being uncomfortable became more sinister and more oppressive. I attributed it at first to the bad lighting and to homesickness, but the feeling that there was something eerie about the room became more and more tangible, although I couldn't place what it was. I tried rearranging the furniture, and that seemed to make it inexplicably worse, and moving it back only served to do the same.

Technology would bug out weirdly in the room. The microwave I had often would stop randomly before it was done, the fridge over performed (it froze things easily, so I had to turn it off from time to time to make sure that didn't happen), cell service was incredibly shitty and wifi cut out at random. I attributed the latter two to the location in the alcove, but it added to the general unease of the room.

>>18333034
Due to my course load, I didn't have much of a social life beyond Skyler and Hector so I was at the dorm a lot. Skyler had a fake ID after the first few weeks and kept us stocked up on shitty vodka and cheap beer, and we drank/smoked without fail nearly every weekend. We never hung out in my room, though- it has less space, and Skyler said something about it put him "on edge".

The room waa very isolating in that way. It shut you off from the outside world, both technologically and in a very physical way. The claustraphobic feeling was growing progressively more uncomfortable rather than me getting used to it, and it made sleeping difficult.

I guess the reptitive, day to day grind fucked with my memory a bit- and the room making me feel so isolated made time slip by, and it left my memory less than clear. This made things even more odd, looking back on it.

Nearly dailt I'd feel an overwhelming sense of dejavu upon opening my bedroom door. I'd go so far as to utter random words or to jump or skip or something when I entered the room, but the eerie familiarity managed to come every time. There were other things, too- there was a message written inside the desk in sharpie from the previous resident here. "Good luck with finals!"- but I remember other versions, too, some without punctuation, some with a smiley face, etc.

Keep it up OP. Going to sleep now but I'm hoping for quality storytelling when I come back. Cheers.

>>18333034
sorry guys, dozed off last night.

The room just got progressively more fucked. Skyler noticed one day that music or noises inside the room didn't drift very far out of it- I could be blasting music but it'd sound incredibly faint unless you were in the room. At some point, the lock on the window jammed, so opening it wasn't an option. Not that I would have anyways, there wasn't anything to see- but still found it odd.

The room started to give me an anxious feeling. At first, it was subtle- just a nagging suspicion I was being watched when I was in the room. It made me anxious. Sometimes it'd get overwhelming. I felt certain I was about to get shot in the back of the head, or that if I turned around someone would be in the room- they never were.

Then it all became less subtle. I walked in one day, and nearly dropped the water bottle I was carrying- my futon was brown. This wasn't a big deal, except for the one I'd brought to school was black. I blinked, and it was back to being normal- but I know what I saw.

>>18334107
It was particularly unsettling when the lights were off. I have bad vision anyways, so in that room in the dark trying to fall asleep, the shadows really did seem to move sometimes. I'd usually try to use my phone to light up the room and make sure nothing was actually there- nothing ever was, but the emptiness really made me want a roommate sometimes.

Belongings of mine would go missing sometimes. Socks, a pen, a toothbrush, etc. Still have no idea what happened to them.

So remember how I never could place what was off about the appearance? There happened to be a sunny day that I was in the room, and I finally noticed it. The shadows were,,, fake. They were simulated, somehow- trying to make the room look genuine when it wasn't. They were not the right shape and not in the right location- for example, my floor lamp by the window cast no shadow at all, and the futon had a large shadow projected on the opposite wall of where it should've been.

>>18334115
your mum sounds like a cunt