u/Big-Waltz1610

the dorm I chose for this year is Plunkett, as i preferred not to share a bathroom with an entire floor of people. i’ve heard some talk that plunkett has a lot of maintenance issues and is kind of crappy. i’ve also heard it has black mold and that the basement sometimes floods.

i do have an air purifier for my dorm, so i‘m not terribly concerned about the mold at the moment. is it as bad as people say? are there other issues not talked about that i should be aware of and keep an eye out for?

Hello all! This is a story I wrote a few years ago when I was 16. Found it recently while clearing out my drive and thought I might as well post it.

CW (may contain spoilers): >!Implied emotional abuse, body horror, graphic imagery, gore, self harm, animal death, claustrophobia !<

——————

I slammed the door behind me hard enough to rattle the frame, not bothering to look back. My hands shook as I fumbled with my car keys, flinging myself into the driver's seat the moment I managed to yank the door open. I wanted to scream, but my throat had closed up too much; all I managed to choke out was a pathetic whimper. I instead displaced my anger by squeezing the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.

Her voice still bounced around in my skull in that disappointed tone that had always made me feel small. After telling her I was leaving for good, she smiled gently and said I'd be back when I was done with my little fit.

I reclined the seat back and stared at the stained fabric ceiling of my sedan. My eyes were sore from the tears, and so sleep came to me easily. 

———

I awoke to an inky darkness that rendered everything around me completely obscure. For a few groggy moments, I couldn't recall where I was or why I was here. The ache in the side of my neck brought me back to reality. 

I checked my phone on instinct, but of course it was dead. I was terrible about remembering to charge the damn thing.I groped around the center console for the cheap crank flashlight I'd bought for times like this and stepped into the night.

My legs felt like they were filled with rice, still tingling and half-numb from having slept on them funny. Looking at myself in the side mirror, I saw the marks on my cheeks you could only get from a truly hearty sleep. 

I inhaled, feeling the thick air fill my lungs like syrup. I squeezed the flashlight and watched it flicker to life, but was disappointed to find that I could still barely see more than a few feet in front of me. 

“Cheap, shitty thing…”

I squinted up at the sky, realizing it probably shouldn't be this dark. I could have sworn tonight was supposed to be a gibbous moon.

There were no stars either, not even one single pinprick or twinkle. I felt a frown begin to stretch over my face, my brows twitching in unease. Sure, suburban light pollution was a thing, but this seemed rather excessive. It was probably just clouds.

A shiver ran down my spine despite the humidity.

My grandmother's voice came back to me then, something she'd told me as a child: 

“When nature goes quiet, you should too.”

 I'd always dismissed it as superstition. But standing there in that unnatural darkness, I listened for what I didn't hear.

It was the middle of a Georgian summer; I should have been drowning in the chorus of frogs and the overwhelming drone of cicadas. Instead, there was nothing. I spun around, peering out into the darkness as though I’d be able to actually see anything. 

I walked briskly to the front door, the silence seeming to amplify the sound of my footsteps on the concrete. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I rolled my eyes, wishing I could be surprised. 

“Petty bitch…” I mumbled under my breath. I couldn’t pretend to be surprised.

I moved around the house, methodically testing each window. Locked, the whole lot. I stood in the backyard for a moment, staring out at the dark mass of forest behind the house. Nothing moved, and nothing made a sound.

Eventually, I trudged back to my car and curled up in the backseat, pulling my jacket around myself like a blanket. Maybe in the morning, this would all seem less surreal, and she'd have calmed down enough to talk

———

When I woke again, my whole body ached with the deep soreness that comes from sleeping in an awkward position for far too many hours. But that couldn’t possibly be right. It was still oppressively dark outside, despite my body telling me that much time had passed.

Concern pricked at the back of my mind, the instinctive part of my brain dangerously close to turning it into fear. 

I got out of the car and tried the front door again, then pounded on it. I received no answer. I pressed my ear to the wood. Absolutely nothing. I heard no footsteps, no creak of floorboards, and no drone from the TV that was always left on.

The silence was still there, terrible and wrong. 

I stopped squeezing my flashlight and stuffed it into my back pocket. To see was a privilege, but it made me a bright, shiny beacon that said ‘hey, fuckleheads, my limbs are ready to order à la carte’. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I still didn’t turn the flashlight back on.

 I felt my way down the stairs and walked to the garage that was always left open because I’d somehow misaligned the tracks when I was younger. We’d never gotten around to actually fixing it. I nosed my way through my father’s tools before finding the dull and slightly rusted hatchet he hadn’t used in years. It would do. I picked it up, feeling the weight of it in my palms steadying me. 

I should just break a window, but the thought of the cost, of having to explain it later, of over-exaggerating, made me hesitate.

My phone was still dead. I went back to the car and tried to start it, thinking I could at least charge it and maybe drive somewhere with people. The engine turned over once, twice, then clicked. It was dead, too.

Fine. I'd walk up to the road and knock on the Cromwells' door. Maybe they were still awake, even at… whatever time this was.

I started up the driveway, but before I'd gone more than a few yards, my skin began to buzz. It wasn’t painful, per se, but it felt intrinsically wrong. My body reacted the same way it did when fingernails scratched against a seat-belt, or when metal scrapes metal.

Dread, cold and terrible, crept into my chest. I backed up. The buzzing faded. Stepped forward again.

The hair on my arms stood up.

I thought of the Cromwells' porch light, which should have been visible from here. I thought of the streetlamps that lined the road, illuminating my white suburban neighborhood. I thought of how I couldn't see any of it. 

I began to pace around my property, needing to test something. Sure enough, whenever I reached a certain distance from the house, I felt the buzzing. 

I was too scared to see what would happen if I passed that invisible boundary. 

Near the edge of the forest, I heard the croak of a toad. They were very common around here, squat little things that liked the moisture. I remembered playing with the ones that lived in our unused fire pit as a child.

I searched through the dead leaves until I found it. It blinked up at me, oblivious and stupid. It was the only living thing I'd been able to find all night. 

I picked it up gently, apologizing under my breath. It stiffened but didn't struggle, its only weak defense to pee on my hand.

Carrying the toad carefully in one hand and the hatchet in the other, I walked back up the driveway. I moved slowly until I felt that buzzing start in my skin again. I stopped, crouched down, and set the toad on the ground, wiping my hand off on my jacket as I did so.

For a moment, I just stared at it. Every horror movie I'd ever watched warned me about the dangers of curiosity and things better left alone. I reached out with the wooden end of the hatchet and gave the toad a soft poke. It hopped forward.

And its skin sloughed off.

I watched, frozen, as the skin peeled away like wet tissue paper. The toad kept hopping, not seeming to notice or even care. It hopped again, and again, moving forward into that invisible boundary. With each hop, more of it came apart, skin separating from muscle, until finally it collapsed into a formless blob of meat that twitched once, twice, then melted into the pavement.

A sound escaped my throat that might have been a scream if I could have found the air for it.

I sprinted back to the house, feeling guilty for what I'd done to the thing and sick at the thought that it could have been me. I slung myself into the car and locked the doors. I tried to sleep again, but every time I drifted off, I'd jerk awake with my heart pounding. After the third or fourth time, I stopped trying. I just sat there in the dark, staring at the house, watching for any sign of movement inside.

I steeled myself for what I knew I would have to do. I didn't want to retreat from the safety of the car, but I needed to get inside. I crept my way out and scampered up the stairs.

I swung the end of the hatchet hard into the living room window. The glass shattered, and I shoved the curtains away. Behind them were boards. The window was boarded up from the inside. 

Why would she even…?

No matter. I swung and the wood easily splintered, giving way after only a few solid swings. Behind the boards was a hole.

Not a window frame, nor my living room. An actual hole. The walls were meaty and moist. They pulsed, expanding and contracting in a slow, rhythmic way that made my stomach churn.

Every decent instinct in my body screamed at me to run. But run where? To the barrier that would peel me apart like that toad?

I stared into the hole. This was the only way forward. I was tired of repeating this cycle, of scuttling back to the safety of my car the second I got nervous. Forward into the house, or back toward dissolution.

I squeezed through the hole, tucking the hatchet under my armpit.

Immediately, I was plunged into absolute darkness. The walls, if they could be called that, pressed against me. I couldn't reach my flashlight; there was no room to move my arms. I could only worm forward through the tight, slick passage. The warm flesh yielded under my fingers, and I gagged. It smelled musky and faintly of the shitty Captain D’s near my house.

For some reason I found myself craving sushi.

I grimaced at the thought, vaguely disgusted at myself. I continued to advance forward.

A liquid began to seep in, rising rapidly. Within seconds, I was submerged. I held my breath, panic clawing at me, but I kept moving forward. The sticky walls wouldn't let me go back anyway. A little of the liquid got into my mouth, and it tasted faintly metallic, like diluted blood.

My lungs burned. Black spots danced in my vision. They weren’t too noticeable, though, given that I could barely see anything at all.

Just when I thought I'd drown, I tumbled forward into open air.

I gasped, coughing up the fluid, my hands scrambling across solid floorboards. I was inside the house.

At least, I thought I was. 

The air was thick and warm, like being inside a mouth. The darkness wasn’t the complete absence of light like it was outside, but rather a murky dimness. Even before my eyes had adjusted enough to make out the furniture, I knew something was off.

My aunt worked as an independent film maker. Once, she told me that every time her crew had a new filming location, they’d record a few minutes of complete silence. They needed it for editing later, because every room had its own unique silence. If they used a recording from somewhere else, something would feel wrong. People wouldn’t notice consciously, but they’d sense it, and it would throw off the entire scene.

“Even silence has a sound,” she’d said to me. At the time I’d nodded in interest and tucked it away for future trivia.

The silence in my house wasn’t the right silence.

I swallowed thickly, looking around. The flashlight was destroyed from me landing on it like a clumsy idiot. I felt around frantically for the hatchet. Once I wrapped my fingers around it, relief flooded my body. 

I stood slowly, my wet clothes clinging to me. The floorboards creaked under my weight, but the sound was muffled, absorbed by the thick air. I was in the foyer. I recognized the dimensions of it, and could see the outline of the coat rack to my left. When I reached out to touch it, my hand met something soft and wet instead of wood or metal.

I yanked my hand back.

My eyes were finally adjusting to the dimness. Shapes began to emerge. The coat rack was there, but it was made of something pale and fibrous, like sinew. Coats hung from it, and I could vaguely recognize my old jacket and her floral cardigan, but they seemed to be growing from it rather than hanging on hooks.

I moved deeper into the house, one hand trailing along the wall for balance. The wallpaper felt warm and slightly damp. When I looked closer, I could see it rising and falling faintly, almost imperceptibly. 

The living room lay before me. The furniture sat in the same positions they've been in all my life. The couch faced the TV, the coffee table in the center, the recliner in the corner. But everything was wrong. The couch cushions looked bloated. The coffee table's surface glistened wetly. And the smell, something organic and sweet and rotting, assaulted my senses. 

On the coffee table sat a mug. Steam rose from it in lazy spirals.

I approached it carefully, hatchet raised. The mug was a cheerful yellow color with daisies painted on the side. I recognized it as my own; I’d drank my favorite peppermint tea from it just that morning. 

The liquid inside was dark and thick. It wasn’t quite like coffee, nor anything else I’d ever seen. I hadn't had anything to drink in hours, or was it days now? My throat was parched.

I lifted the mug, my hand having reached for it almost instinctively. The smell was familiar and comforting in a way I couldn't place. It made me think of childhood sick days. 

I set it back down without drinking.

"Always so stubborn," a voice said from somewhere above me, soft and disappointed.

I stopped dead.

The voice came from upstairs. It was distorted as though being filtered through water, but hauntingly familiar.

"I'm not–" I started, but my voice came out hoarse and weak. I cleared my throat, trying again. "I'm not coming up there."

It was silent for several long moments. Then it spoke again, almost amused: "I'll wait.”

I looked around the room, searching for another exit. The front door was behind me, but when I turned, there was only a wall. Smooth and pale and pulsing gently with that same rhythmic breathing as everything else. The windows were still there, but when I approached one and pulled back the curtain, there was nothing behind it. Just more flesh. 

A sound from the kitchen made me whirl around. It was a soft, repetitive tapping. It reminded me of nails drumming on a countertop, but wetter.

I moved toward it, holding my hatchet ready. The kitchen was somehow darker than the living room, but I could make out all the normal appliances. They looked… melted, somehow. 

On the counter sat a plate, steaming as though just taken off the stove. 

Approaching it, I could see it was a full meal: meat, vegetables, and a roll on the side. It was the perfect Sunday dinner you might eat after church. But once I got closer, I could vaguely see that the meat was a grey-ish green, spotted with a fuzzy white mold. The vegetables oozed a dark liquid that pooled on the plate and dripped slowly onto the counter. That was the sound I’d heard. Reaching out, I felt that the roll was hard as stone. I yanked my hand back when I felt something crawl over it that I couldn’t quite see in the darkness. 

The plate was still hot. 

Next to it sat utensils and a napkin, all neatly arranged. A glass of milk sat above the plate; it had separated, and the cream floated in yellow chunks.

"You haven't eaten," came the voice from upstairs, closer now. "You must be starving."

My stomach turned. I backed away from the counter.

In the silence that followed, I heard something worse than that voice: footsteps, though they sounded off. They were slow and heavy, moving across the ceiling, from one end of the upstairs hallway to the other.

Pacing.

I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the sounds. 

The footsteps above me stopped.

It was so quiet, I could hear my own ragged breathing. I pressed my back against the kitchen wall, hatchet raised, waiting. The seconds ticked by. 

Silence.

My arms began to ache from holding the weapon up. I lowered it slightly, and that's when the voice came.

"Come upstairs."

It was closer now. At the top of the stairs, or maybe in the hallway. The walls made it hard to tell.

"Please, baby. It's been so long."

My throat closed at that word. Baby. Nothing about it was comforting the way it had intended.

"I literally just saw you this morning," I said. My voice cracked. "I saw you, and then I left."

"That wasn't me, not really. I was just angry. You know how I get sometimes." A pause, and when it spoke again, the tone had shifted to something softer. "But I'm myself again. Why don’t you come and see?"

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking so hard I could barely hold the hatchet. I was soaked in that fluid from the passage, my clothes sticking to me. I was cold now, despite the warmth of the air. I was shivering down to the bone.

Another sound came from upstairs, but they weren’t footsteps. Rather, a wet, sliding noise, like something heavy being dragged across the floor. It moved from one end of the hallway to the other, then back again.

It stopped directly above me.

"I made up your room," the voice continued. "Fresh sheets. Those lavender ones you like."

I hadn’t used those sheets since I was in middle school. I’d traded them for more mature white sheets years ago.

My feet moved toward the stairs anyway.

I didn't tell them to. They just moved, one in front of the other, pulling me across the kitchen floor. I tried to stop, to dig my heels in, but my body wasn't listening.

"That's it." The voice sounded closer now, excited. "That's my good girl. Just come up and let me see you."

No, I wanted to scream, but my mouth wouldn't work. My legs kept moving, carrying me through the living room toward the base of the staircase.

I was there now, looking up into the darkness. I could see the top landing, see the dark hallway beyond it, but nothing else. 

Except…

There. At the very edge of the darkness sat a shape.

"I've missed you so much," it said. The voice cracked with emotion, and somehow that was worse than everything else. The emotion sounded real.

My foot found the first step.

I started climbing.

Each step felt like moving through water. My legs were heavy, so heavy, but they kept moving on their own. My hand found the railing. The wood was warm and damp and pulsing, just like everything else in this house.

Five steps.

I could make out more of the shape now. It was tall, scraping against the ceiling. The silhouette filled the entire doorway.

Ten steps.

Something about its proportions was wrong. The shape of it seemed impossible in a way that made my brain hurt. 

Twelve steps.

I could hear its breathing. It was wet and labored, as though its lungs were filled with fluid.

Fifteen steps.

I began to choke on the stench of spoiled milk. My stomach lurched, but my legs kept climbing.

Seventeen steps.

A gangly arm reached out toward me from the shadows. The fingers were puffy and swollen, and the arm was several feet longer than it should be.         

I was three steps from the top now.

The darkness pulled back just enough to see more. 

The face emerged first, if you could call it that. The skin sagged in loose folds, hanging like melted wax. Underneath, I caught glimpses of something that might have been features at one point. The eyes were cloudy white, but they saw me, tracking my movement. Its mouth was smeared with greasy mauve lipstick. Thinning hair hung in ratty strands, partially obscuring the face.

Two steps from the top.

I could see that it wasn't standing so much as vegetating. The body was enormous, a mass of pale flesh that looked like risen bread dough left out too long.

One step.

I could see the full shape of it now. There was the suggestion of hips. My eyes trailed up, and I could see the slope of breasts, pulpous and distended, hanging low. Dark and enormous nipples brushed against the floor. In a few places, the skin was translucent enough that I could see the dark veins underneath. The reaching hand came closer, those inflated fingers stretched toward my face.

"There you are," it breathed.

I raised the hatchet. My arms felt like lead, but I managed to lift it.

The thing's head tilted, almost curious. "What are you doing, sweetheart?"

I swung.

My hands shook so badly that I somehow managed to miss. The blade embedded itself in the wall next to it. When I yanked the hatchet free, it reached for me, and I stumbled backward, nearly falling down the stairs.

"Sharp things are for grown-ups," it said as though chiding me.

I swung again and again. I missed each time, and each time the thing slithered closer, herding me backward down the stairs. My heel caught on a step, and I fell, landing hard on my tailbone. Pain shot up my spine, and the hatchet clattered away. 

"You're just making this harder than it needs to be. Why do you always do that?”

I scrambled backward on my hands and feet, crab walking into the living room. The thing followed, squeezing itself down the stairway like toothpaste from the tube.

It was in the living room now, looming over me. It gently brushed a strand of blonde hair behind my ear, the exact same shade that hung from its own scalp.

I tried to resist. I wanted to run, to fight, to do anything, but my body moved without my permission. I stood and took a step forward.

"Good girl," it said, and wrapped me in an embrace. 

I was torn between revulsion and comfort. Because, as disgusting as it was, as wrong as every fiber of my being knew this was, being in this creature's arms was the most comfortable thing I'd ever experienced. The skin was doughy and moist, but it was warm. My teeth slowly began to stop chattering. Its yellowish nails scratched along my back, soothing and rhythmic.

Despite everything, my eyes grew heavy. Just a quick rest, I told myself, just for a moment.

Some distant part of me knew this was how it worked. Exhaustion and comfort were offered at the exact moment I was too tired to refuse. But… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps I was only overreacting, just as I always did. 

I stopped fighting

———

I woke to find it watching me. How long had I been asleep? Hours? Days? When I opened my eyes, it smiled, a grotesque stretching of that lipstick-smeared mouth. I could see its teeth now, large and perfectly straight and white. Glancing around, I saw that I was in my bedroom. It moved aside with a slow, slug-like motion, revealing something hanging from the dresser. 

A dress. Ratty and filthy, stained with things I didn't want to identify. But there was something almost pretty about it, in a forgotten, tragic way. Like something salvaged from a thrift store and never actually cleaned.

I slipped it on. 

It turned me around and began doing my hair. Its movements were crude, yanking and pulling. I felt chunks of hair tear out, my scalp screaming in protest. But underneath the pain was that comfort again, that warmth.

It slathered oily makeup on my face, its movements rough and imprecise. It smeared lipstick across my lips, the same mauve color it wore.

"Beautiful," it crooned while caking powder onto my cheeks. “You take after me.”

It opened its arms, and I accepted the embrace, letting it lead me from the bedroom. I was in a trance-like state, floating, disconnected.

"You deserve to feel beautiful," it murmured as we moved down the stairs. "Don't I deserve that too?"

I nodded dreamily.

We reached the living room. It guided me to the couch and sat me down. It knelt in front of me, those milky eyes tilted up toward my face.

"You'll stay, won't you?"

"I–"

"Don't leave again." Its voice cracked, and one doughy hand gripped my knee tighter.

Something in the back of my mind was screaming. A voice I'd been ignoring, getting louder. I became aware again of the moist flesh touching me, the weight of those hands. It wasn't comforting anymore.

"What do you want from me?" I asked, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.

It smiled. "Stay close."

It stood, turned toward the kitchen. "Are you hungry? Let me get you something."

The moment its back was turned, I lunged for the fire poker beside the hearth and drove it into the creature's back as hard as I could.

The metal vanished into its flesh like water. It turned around, still smiling.

I picked up a vase and tried to fling it, but my shaking hands caused me to fumble and drop it. The sound of the porcelain shattering only made it chuckle and look at me like a toddler throwing a tantrum. 

I looked around desperately for anything else to attack with. I saw the hatchet from where it fell earlier, grabbed it, and swung at its head with everything I had.

It dodged, and I didn't remember until mid-swing that you should never swing an ax with your legs together.

The hatchet buried itself in my thigh.

Pain exploded through my leg. I crumbled to the floor, gasping, blood pooling beneath me.

Its reaction was immediate. It lunged, scratching and grabbing at me, pulling me close to examine the wound.

"No," it hissed. "Don't. Don't sully yourself. You’re supposed to be–"

Beautiful. It wants me to be beautiful.

I yanked my leg free, blood dripping onto the carpet. The creature recoiled slightly, staring at the crimson stain spreading across the floor. Something like distress crossed its features.

I looked down at the shards of ceramic scattered across the floor. 

The thing reached for me again. "You fucking brat."

I pressed a shard to my forearm and dragged it across just hard enough to slice the skin. Blood quickly began to well up. 

It screamed.

The sound wasn't human. It was a wail, high and broken, the sound of something fundamental tearing apart. It reached for me but jerked back, as though my blood burned it.

My hand was shaking terribly. The shard nearly slipped from my grip, slick with blood. My breath came fast and shallow, blurring my vision, but underneath my panic was a feeling of cognizance. 

I cut again, deeper this time. A long line down my inner arm, from elbow to wrist. The pain was immediate and sharp, but underneath it was a sense of control I hadn't felt since waking in the darkness.

The creature shrieked and clawed at itself, at the air, but it couldn't touch me anymore. Wouldn’t. Not when I was like this.

"Stop," it wailed. "Please, stop it, you were perfect. I sacrificed everything for you-“

Each cut was deliberate and measured. I wasn't frenzied with it. Tears streamed down my face, mixing with the blood now dripping from my chin where I'd bitten through my lip.

The creature began to collapse in on itself, its mass deflating like a punctured balloon. It moaned, a sound of pure anguish.

I push pushed further. I needed it to understand that I would rather destroy myself than let it keep me.

Everything became a blur. Blood dripped to the floor. Fingers dangled by sinew alone. Skin was pared off like an apple. 

I pressed a shard to my left eye. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold it steady.

"Don't you love me?" I don't know if the creature whispered it or I did.

I pushed.

The sharp pop reminded me of biting down on a cherry tomato. Vitreous fluid oozed down my cheek, warm and viscous. I gasped so hard I nearly dropped the shard. 

The creature was writhing now, its form losing what little cohesion it had to begin with entirely. It got smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until it looked… normal. More or less. She looked like how I had always remembered her from my childhood memories.

Through my remaining eye, I saw her reaching for me one last time, that grotesque hand extending as far as it could.

“Please look at me.”

I turned away from her, lying down and closing my eye, letting the world slowly fade away.

I could hear her trying to drag herself across the floor towards me, but I would not give her the pleasure of dying with company. 

"I love you," she whispered. 

“I know.”