Stephen King once said that true horror isn’t about monsters—it’s about the familiar turning strange. A buzzing lamp, a quiet lake, a corridor you’ve walked a hundred times. They’re harmless during the day. But after midnight, they begin to feel different, like the world has tilted ever so slightly, and something is watching from the corner.
On this campus somewhere, the stories pass quickly between students. Whispered over cafeteria tables, typed nervously in group chats, laughed off during daylight. Yet they always come back. Here are some of those tales, retold just as they’ve always been—half in jest, half in dread.
Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real universities, campuses, or facilities is purely coincidental (…or is it?).
The Fifth Floor
The library closes at nine at night, except for the fifth floor, which is roped off at six sharp. Even when the library is at full capacity, everyone knows not to go past the rope.
But late-night students swear they hear furniture shifting overhead. A chair dragged slowly across tiles. A book thumping shut, though no one has shelved anything there in years.
One boy lifted the rope on a dare. In the day, the air upstairs was ordinary, almost sterile. But now it was heavy, thick with the sour smell of damp carpet. His phone flashlight stuttered over row after row of empty desks and dividers. Except one.
A chair was pulled out, facing the staircase. Waiting.
He heard the faint creak of weight pressing into it, though the seat was visibly empty. Then something leaned close enough for him to feel a warm breath on his cheek—smelling of dust, and rot, and paper that had been buried too long in the ground.
He never went back to the library.
The Renovation
Workers gutted the old toilets during semester break. The walls were smashed, the pipes torn out. But they never stayed long after dark.
One plumber swore he heard weeping echoing from the exposed drains. Not loud—just soft, wet sobs that made the hair rise on the back of his neck. Another worker left mid-shift after pulling a clump of black hair from a pipe, only to feel it twitch in his hand, warm and slick, as though it had been freshly torn from someone’s scalp.
The toilets have been remade, but no renovation erases what lingers. Students walk past casually in daylight, but after dusk, some claim they hear dripping in the corridor. If you stop and listen, the sound sharpens. It isn’t water. It’s a throat, gasping for air beneath the floor.
The Thief
At first it was small things: pens, coins, snacks. Then whole phone chargers and lecture notes vanished from bags left unattended. Fingers were pointed, but no one found the culprit. Until one night, a girl stayed back late to study for finals with her friends.
At 1 a.m., she saw a locker outside tremble. A latch lifted on its own. Fingers—child-sized, green and wrinkled like fruit left to rot—curled around the edge.
A toyol crawled out, its eyes glassy, skin shining with a thin coat of slime. It grinned at her, mouth filled with broken teeth, before scuttling across the lockers on all fours.
When she finally screamed, her friends woke to find her clutching her notes. Across the sidelight window, small handprints were pressed into the glass—wet, translucent, then vanished in the morning.
The Walk
The walk back to the dorms should take five minutes. But on the road past the sports court, it always feels longer. The lamps buzz overhead, spilling sickly yellow light.
Your shoes strike the charcoal pavement, each echo sharp and brittle, like bones snapping in the distance. But sometimes you hear another pair. Slower. Dragging.
When you turn, someone is standing by the edge of the court. Too far to see clearly. Their head lolls to the side, hanging loosely, as though the neck has been broken.
When they move, they don’t walk. They hop, stiff and violent, with each movement jolting like a puppet pulled by strings.
And the further you run, the closer the footsteps follow—until the road bends, and the lamps flicker out one by one behind you.
The Lake
The ducks disappeared one semester. Everyone joked about barbecues. But then, late at night, students started seeing ripples on the lake.
They swore they saw ducks gliding across the water. Silent. Too many of them. Their shapes pale, their reflections broken.
But the closer you looked, the “wronger” they seemed. Their necks bent back at sharp angles, heads twisting until their beaks pointed straight at the sky. Their eyes glowed faint red, bobbing like embers.
One student went too close to the water, trying to record them. She swore something cold brushed her hand, and dropped her phone into the water. The next morning, her phone was washed up on the grass. When it was restored, one recording survived: thirty minutes of murky water. Toward the end, two red pinpricks flared in the dark—hovering just long enough to know they were staring back.
The Dorm
The dorm corridors are worse after midnight. The lights hum, flickering faintly, and the hallway stretches too far.
One girl returning late found her room door ajar, though she had locked it. Inside, her roommate was asleep. But she heard her name whispered softly.
It came again. Closer. From the wardrobe.
The door rattled once, then stopped.
She was too afraid to open it. She pressed her ear against the wood, praying she’d imagined it. And then she heard the whisper again—her name, sharp this time, whispered from the inside. Followed by the sound of fingernails dragging slowly down the door.
The Last Word
Campus life is supposed to be assignments, late suppers, deadlines. But when the lamps flicker for no reason, when the corridors feel longer than normal, when the lake stirs without wind—you wonder if the campus has its own stories, written in shadows.
Stephen King reminds us that horror hides in the ordinary. And here, on campus, maybe the ordinary is where the horror begins.
So if you ever hear your name whispered when you’re alone, don’t answer. Not every story wants to be told.
Sleep well. If you can.
