Chapter 5: Dormitory 505

Dormitory 505

Even now, I still do not dare casually bring up those days at Luxi No. 2 High School in Hunan, especially my experience in Dormitory 505. Every detail is carved into my bones. Whenever I think of it, my whole body turns cold. That dormitory building stood alone in a corner of the campus, hiding a shadow that none of us in the room could ever shake.

In my second year of high school, when we were divided into arts and sciences tracks, I moved from my old dormitory into the new Dormitory 505. The building had only five floors, and we lived on the top floor. The entire building stood by itself on one side of the campus, with little around it to block the wind. At night, it felt gloomy, and when the wind blew past the windows, it made a strange whooing sound.

The girl in the bed next to mine was surnamed Li. She was delicate-looking and fair, and her home was not far from mine, so the two of us quickly became close. She was a complete atheist. On the first night after we moved into the dormitory, several of us sat together talking about horror movies, frightening ourselves into screams. Only she scoffed at us.

“Where would there be ghosts in this world?” she said. “If there really were ghosts, would you still be able to sleep here so peacefully?”

That night, she finally could not stand our noise anymore. She took a towel and went to the washroom to shower. We kept talking until the second half of the night before falling asleep one after another. Half asleep, I heard someone muttering and cursing. I thought it was Classmate Li complaining after finishing her shower, so I turned over and ignored it.

I do not know how long I had slept when my bed suddenly began shaking violently. I was shaken awake in anger, grabbed the small lamp by my bed, sat up, and shone it toward the next bed.

In an instant, I was so frightened that my soul nearly left my body.

Classmate Li in the next bed was trembling all over. Her teeth were clenched tightly, both hands were waving wildly in the air, and her eyes were hollow, as if she had been possessed.

Everyone in the dormitory was woken up. One by one, they stared in shock, and no one dared go forward. I do not know where I found the courage, but I climbed over, grabbed her hands, and shook her hard. After quite a while, she suddenly came back to herself. The moment she opened her eyes, she hugged her quilt and burst into loud sobs.

The girl from the upper bunk hurried down and held her, comforting her. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It was just a nightmare.”

I copied the way my mother used to do things. I picked up her pillow, slapped it three times, turned it over, and pretended to be calm as I said, “Demons, be gone!”

My roommates laughed at me for being superstitious.

But Classmate Li suddenly grabbed my hand. Her eyes were full of terror.

“Let me sleep with you,” she said.

That night, she held on to me tightly and did not close her eyes once.

The next day, she fell ill. Her eyes were lifeless and her face was pale, but no matter what we said, she refused to ask for leave and forced herself to attend class.

During the noon break, she suddenly grabbed my hand and begged in a tearful voice, “Please help me.”

We gathered around her. Only then did she tell us the truth in broken bits.

It turned out that the night before, while she was showering, she suddenly heard someone calling her name. At first, she thought it was one of us, so she answered several times, but no one responded. When she was almost finished washing, she kept feeling as if someone were watching her from outside the window.

But we lived on the fifth floor. Outside the window there was nothing but the pitch-black night sky.

She was so frightened that she cursed a couple of times, then quickly finished her shower and came out.

After climbing into bed, she could not fall asleep. She vaguely heard the sound of people talking. When she looked out, she actually saw all of us sitting on another roommate Liyao’s bed, laughing and chatting. She called out several times, but none of us answered.

Just as she was about to lie down, the dormitory door was blown open by a gust of wind. Someone wearing sneakers walked in.

She thought it was the dormitory supervisor, but the person did not scold us for making noise as the supervisor usually did. When she looked more closely, all of us had disappeared. In our place was a girl dressed in green.

The moment the girl saw her, she lunged at her, wrapped both hands around her throat, and roared for her to get away, saying that bed was hers.

As we listened, our scalps went numb.

So Dormitory 505 really was haunted.

I quickly gave her the protective talisman my mother had prayed for on my behalf. That same day, I went to ask the senior schoolmates whether they had heard any related rumors, but they had never heard anything about it either.

Day after day passed, and the protective talisman did not seem to have much effect. Classmate Li kept squeezing into the same bed with me, and the bed by the window was left empty.

After she stopped sleeping there, she did not encounter anything strange again.

But the rest of us in the dormitory began to suffer one after another.

The first was Jing.

She skipped evening self-study because she wanted to go back to the dormitory and rest. She had the key, but no matter how she tried, she could not open the door. Just as she was standing there in confusion, the sound of someone drawing water suddenly came from inside the washroom.

Splash. Splash.

It was so clear that it seemed to be right beside her ear.

Jing was so frightened that the key dropped from her hand. She screamed, turned around, and ran all the way back to the classroom building.

The second was Xiaoyan.

She always liked hiding under her quilt and playing on her phone until midnight. Once, she was lying on her stomach in bed, scrolling through her phone, when she suddenly heard footsteps outside the door. She quickly turned off the phone and pretended to sleep.

The footsteps stopped at the doorway.

She was so frightened that she did not dare breathe.

But before long, the footsteps sounded again, approaching the dormitory door step by step.

From the upper bunk, Liyao foolishly asked, “Who is it?”

The moment she spoke, the footsteps disappeared.

Xiaoyan hid under her quilt, trembling all over, and did not dare open her eyes again until dawn.

The unluckiest one was me.

During that period, there was a heavy rain. The river water rose so much that it flooded into villagers’ homes. Our school was built on higher ground and was not affected, so the school let us rest early.

I was especially sleepy that day. As soon as my head touched the pillow, I fell asleep.

It was not until the next morning that my roommates woke me up. They were looking at me strangely. After I kept asking what had happened, I finally learned about the terrifying scene from the night before.

While they were all sitting on their beds chatting, I suddenly sat up from my bed. Without saying a word, I put on my white school uniform. My hair hung loose, and my eyes were half open as I walked to the empty bed and stood there for a while.

Then I sat down on it.

I picked up a comb and gently combed my hair.

After only a few strokes, I suddenly threw down the comb, gave a cold laugh, and muttered, “Rain. Rain. Let it rain harder and drown you all!”

After saying that, I stood up again, returned to my own bed, lay down, and fell asleep.

From then on, every month or two, my roommates would find me sleepwalking. Each time I woke up, my whole body ached and my spirit was listless.

These incidents spread wider and wider through the school, causing a huge stir. Before long, the school changed our dormitory.

After we moved out of Dormitory 505, all the strange incidents disappeared.

But later, I heard that the younger schoolmates who moved into Dormitory 505 after us also encountered similar terrifying experiences. Many were so frightened that they applied to change dormitories.

To this day, none of us knows who that girl in green was, or why she attached herself to Dormitory 505.

And my experience during my first year of middle school made me feel even more reverence toward such things.

At that time, I came home after evening self-study. No one in my family was there. After washing up, I went to sleep. In a daze, I heard someone calling me.

“Xiaomei, your younger sister is waiting outside. Come out quickly!”

I thought my younger sister had come back from Chenxi. Half asleep and half awake, I opened the door and went out. Then I stepped into empty air and fell.

The pain woke me up. Only then did I realize that I had somehow run all the way to the Tudi Gong shrine outside the village. I was barefoot, and my feet were covered in mud.

Later, my mother said that it was Tudi Gong, the Earth God, who had saved me. Otherwise, I might have become a death substitute.

I would never dare make these things up. My old classmates from Class 171 at Luxi No. 2 High School in Hunan Province can all bear witness.

There are some things you may choose not to believe in, but you cannot fail to revere them.

Just like that Dormitory 505.

And that girl in green.

Even now, they remain a scar in our hearts that we still dare not touch.