A Whisper Between Walls
Sera woke before her alarm, pulled from sleep by something she couldn't name. For a moment she remained still, eyes half-open, breath shallow, listening. The dorm room was dim with the first dull smear of morning light, but something about the air felt… wrong. Heavy. Close. As though it had been stirred by something that wasn't her.
Her pulse ticked faster.
She didn't know why.
When she finally pushed herself upright, the memories of last night slid back into focus—the whisper brushing the shell of her mind, the cold glide along her spine. She tried to exhale the tension out of her body, grounding herself in the soft rustle of her blankets and the faint hum of the building's heating system.
She turned ad stared at the conner of her wardrobe where the figure she had seen last night had stood
"It's probably nothing,Just stress," she whispered to the quiet. "Just college stress."
Her feet touched the floor.
A cold sweep curled around her ankles. Gentle, deliberate.
Her breath hitched.
Then it was gone.
Sera stood, hugging her arms around herself, trying not to stare at the shadow pooling beneath her desk. Everything looked normal. Absolutely normal. Her mind was playing tricks on her—had to be.
But the room felt… occupied.
---
Campus
By the time she left for her morning class, sunlight and noise wrapped her like armor. Students trudged across the quad with coffee cups and headphones, backpacks bumping against their sides. The world felt awake, real, grounded—so unlike the suffocating quiet of her dorm.
"Sera!" Jade's voice cut through the chaos. She rushed over, her bracelets clinking as she looped her arm through Sera's. "Where were you last night? I swear I pounded on your door forever. I thought you died."
Sera forced a smile. "Just tired."
"Tired?" Jade frowned, leaning in to study her face. "You look… I don't know. Spooked."
Before Sera could respond, Micah stumbled up beside them, hoodie half-on, phone in one hand, breakfast muffin in the other.
"Morning, disasters," he said, then blinked at Sera. "Whoa. You good? You look like you saw a ghost."
Her heart jumped into her throat.
Micah laughed, completely oblivious.
If only he knew.
---
Classes blurred together. Sera copied notes without reading them, nodded through conversations she barely heard, and checked the corners of every room she entered—just in case.
But it wasn't just paranoia.
In her second lecture, as she reached down to pick up a pen she dropped, she saw it—the shadow beneath her desk stretching, thin tendrils reaching toward her like ink dragged by an unseen hand. Her blood ran cold.
She blinked hard.
The shadow snapped back into place the moment she looked directly at it.
Her fingers trembled around her pen as she sat up. A chill dripped down her spine, slow and deliberate, like a warning—or a greeting. She couldn't tell which.
"This is fine," she whispered to herself. "I'm fine."
The temperature in the room dipped.
Nothing else moved.
---
Dorm Nightfall
By evening her nerves were frayed and thin. Sera showered, pulled on an oversized shirt, and sat cross-legged on her bed with her laptop open, drowning her thoughts in videos and background noise. Jade spammed memes. Micah sent a reminder about an assignment. Eli—always dramatically cryptic—texted her a simple be careful with no context.
She ignored it.
Or she tried to.
Outside, students laughed down the hallway. Someone dropped something heavy upstairs. Life was happening on every floor.
But inside her room…
the quiet was too aware.
The overhead light flickered once.
Twice.
"Don't start," Sera whispered to the ceiling. "Not right now."
The light steadied.
But the shadows didn't.
One corner of the room darkened further, the black deepening as if something shifted within it. Slowly. Fluidly. Like a figure turning its head.
Sera's breath caught.
"Who's there?" she whispered, hating how her voice shook.
No answer came.
But the air changed—pressing closer, wrapping around her like a cold breath exhaled against her skin.
Her laptop dimmed, then brightened again. A soft ripple rolled across the far wall, disturbing the darkness like a wave. Sera stared, frozen.
The shadow peeled itself from the corner.
Not a person.
Not a shape she could name.
But something aware of her. Something that had been waiting.
Her throat tightened. She couldn't scream. Couldn't move. Could only feel the slow shift of chilled air sliding across the room toward her, brushing against her legs, her hip, her waist—stopping just beneath her ribs.
She feltf hands she couldn't see brushing against her thighs, then on her face. She closed her eyes
"Who are you show yourself"
The touch wasn't threatening. It was almost… cautious.
As if asking permission.
Her lips parted, voice barely breath. "Why me?"
Silence stretched for a heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Then—
a whisper curled behind her ear, velvet-dark and impossibly close:
"Because you heard me."
The cold receded, drawing back with an almost reluctant pull. The presence slid into the corner again, dissolving into shadow as the presence slid into the corner again, dissolving into shadow as though it had never been there at all.
The room returned to stillness.
Sera sat frozen in place, hands trembling. She should've been terrified. She was. But beneath the fear, beneath the heart-pounding panic, something else stirred—
Curiosity.
Recognition.
A pull she couldn't name.
She exhaled, shaky and slow.