In Fuzhou, nestled among the city's bustling streets and modern buildings, there lay a vocational school notorious for its eerie reputation. Stories of ghostly apparitions and inexplicable events circulated through the dormitories and classrooms, making it a place where students often spoke in hushed tones about the supernatural, swapping tales of haunted rooms, restless spirits, and the shadowed grounds rumored to be cursed.
This school had a specific place where most strange incidents seemed to concentrate—the boys' dormitory. Years ago, as the school expanded its facilities, the number of male students increased, requiring additional accommodations. To address this, the administration repurposed the first floor of the girls' dormitory for the boys, effectively making it a coed building with the two floors separated by a sturdy, locked iron gate. This arrangement would have seemed exciting to the students if not for the stories that came along with it, especially those tied to the floor they occupied.
Strange occurrences didn't take long to start plaguing the first floor. Initially, it was small things—faint noises, odd sounds in the middle of the night. But these minor disturbances escalated, and soon, the boys on the first floor found themselves in increasingly unnerving encounters.
Late one night, a student named Xiao Liu, who had decided to stay back over the weekend, decided to take a hot shower in the teacher's dormitory, as it was the only place on campus with warm water during winter. After his shower, Xiao Liu returned to the dormitory, crossing the dimly lit campus paths alone. His route took him past the school's basketball court, rumored to host ghostly echoes. Students often swore that they would hear the distinct, rhythmic sound of a basketball bouncing in the otherwise silent court late at night. When they went to investigate, however, they would find the court empty, bathed only in the glow of the campus lights.
As Xiao Liu walked by the court that night, he heard the familiar sound—thump, thump, thump. His curiosity piqued, he approached the court, peering through the fence. To his surprise, he saw no one. But as he turned to leave, he heard the unmistakable sound of a slam dunk, the backboard rattling with a force that echoed in the cold air. He froze, his heart pounding. Who could play so late, and why couldn't he see anyone?
A chill ran down his spine, and he took off, refusing to look back. When he returned to his dormitory, he locked his door and lay awake in bed, the eerie memory replaying in his mind. From that night on, he avoided the basketball court, even during the day.
Meanwhile, other boys on the first floor began experiencing odd occurrences. The communal washroom became a particularly unsettling place. Students would hear the faint sound of coins flicking against metal as though someone was repeatedly tossing a coin into the sinks. But each time they investigated, the sound would stop, and they would find themselves alone. This sound happened often enough that few dared to enter the washroom after dark.
As the rumors grew, some students began investigating the dormitory's history. They learned from older staff members that a tragedy had occurred on that floor years ago in one of the rooms that had since been sealed off. A fight between two students had ended in a fatal accident, resulting in the death of one and the permanent closure of the room. The locked door still bore the marks of time and abandonment, and it was said that this room was the source of the disturbances that now haunted the floor.
One night, a group of boys gathered in the dormitory's common area, swapping stories of their paranormal encounters. One student, a boy named Jiang, recounted a particularly chilling experience while staying late in the washroom. He had gone to wash his face when he noticed something strange in the mirror. For a brief moment, he thought he saw a figure standing behind him, just a shadow, watching him with hollow eyes. When he turned around, the washroom was empty. But when he looked back into the mirror, the shadow had returned, staring intently at him. He fled, leaving the washroom lights on, unwilling to go back in alone.
Later that week, a different group of boys gathered in one of the dorm rooms, laughing off the stories as mere superstition. Just as they began joking about the ghost sightings, one of the boys near the window grew pale, his gaze fixed on something outside. "Do you see that?" he whispered, his voice shaky.
The others looked out the window, but the courtyard was dark and empty. Confused, they asked him what he'd seen, and he hesitated before answering. "There was… ahead," he said. "It was floating just above the wall. I swear, it was looking right at me."
His friends nervously laughed, brushing it off as his imagination, but the unease lingered. Over the following nights, more students claimed to see the same thing—a disembodied head drifting just above the wall surrounding the dormitory, staring back at them with cold, empty eyes.
The unsettling incidents grew more frequent. One night, a boy named Wei woke up drenched in sweat, shivering despite the warm blankets wrapped around him. He had been having vivid nightmares of shadows and figures crowding his bed, whispering in tones he couldn't understand. As he sat up, he realized something strange—his clothes were gone. His shirt, pants, and even socks were missing. Bewildered and embarrassed, he searched the room, but there was no trace of them. Humiliated and terrified, Wei withdrew from school soon after, refusing to explain the details of his experience to anyone. His sudden departure added to the dormitory's lore, fueling the belief that the floor was indeed haunted. Stories circulated, each one adding a new layer to the mystery.
Then, there was the tale of the experimental building adjacent to the dormitory, another hotspot for strange occurrences. One night, a student on the balcony noticed a bright light flickering in one of the rooms. It was weird—no one was supposed to be in the building at that hour. Yet the light continued to move, darting from one side of the room to the other, casting long, eerie shadows that seemed almost alive. The student watched for several minutes before finally retreating inside, feeling like he had seen something he wasn't meant to witness.
The most disturbing story, however, belonged to a student who shared his room with three others. Their dorm room had a large, floor-length mirror mounted on the wall, reflecting the entire room.
One night, as he lay awake on the top bunk, he noticed his roommate on the lower bunk suddenly sitting up, eyes open but unseeing. The boy watched, frozen in place, as his roommate put on his shoes and walked toward the mirror, standing in front of it in silence.
The roommate stared into the mirror, his face expressionless, eyes wide and glassy. He didn't move for several minutes, his reflection staring back at him, almost as if it held some hidden meaning he couldn't grasp. Then, without warning, he turned and began moving from bed to bed, pausing in front of each one to stare at his sleeping roommates with an eerie, vacant expression.
The boy on the top bunk closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep, though he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. When he finally opened his eyes, his roommate returned to his bed, lying down as though nothing had happened. When they asked him if he remembered anything the following day, he shook his head, looking genuinely confused.
As time passed, the dormitory's reputation grew, and students became increasingly wary of the first floor. They avoided certain rooms, and few dared to walk the halls alone at night. By now, the stories had become a permanent part of the school's folklore, passed down from generation to generation, each new class of students adding their tales of strange encounters.
Even today, those who have spent time in that dormitory remember it with dread. The memory of that haunted floor, with its creaking doors and shadowed halls, lingers as a reminder of the darkness beneath the surface of ordinary places. It remains a place where the past and the present are forever intertwined, where the echoes of long-forgotten events continue to haunt the living, waiting to reveal themselves to those who dare to look too closely.