In one of the large universities in America, inside a wide and spacious hallway, there was a young man walking slowly after leaving the classroom in silence. The young man crossed the wide corridor of the large hall cautiously, as he had been assigned the task of collecting and returning all the papers and documents belonging to the other university students in his hall by the university supervisor and taking them to the old storage office in the basement of the university to place them there.
As he walked through the long corridor, which was slightly dark due to some of the malfunctioning lights that flickered with a dim glow and then went out, only to light up again like the weak moan of a sick patient in a hospital bed between life and death. The young man noticed that as he progressed, the light from the lamps hanging on the wall above him grew dimmer, and on top of that, the coldness in the corridor increased. He also began to hear some strange sounds, which heightened his tension and fear in that place where he was walking alone.
This made him quicken his steps in an attempt to reach his destination faster before all the lamps hanging on the wall went out if the electricity suddenly cut off. He continued to walk faster than before, and when he approached the middle of the basement hall of the large university, he noticed some open windows from which a cold and strong breeze was blowing, causing a faint noise. In the middle of those windows, there was a small black creature in a strange position sitting on one of the windows. Above its head was a plastic container stuck to it, and it was moving its small claw on its head in an attempt to get its head out of the opening of the container in a slow and graceful yet difficult movement. Despite its numerous efforts, it could not manage to get its head out of the container, which was emitting faint sounds of sadness. Then, once again, it began to move its feet in a frantic motion.
The young man stopped silently, having noticed that black creature with a steady gaze. He said to himself after observing the black creature for a longer period.
"Cat...?"
"What are you trying to do...?"
As he watched the nervous movements in an attempt to get its head out of the small opening of the container, the cat small size combined with its anxious behavior was quite amusing.
After observing the movements of the little black creature for a few seconds and seeing that it couldn get its head out of the container, the young man approached it and decided to help the little black creature with slow, careful steps. Despite this, the cat was able to hear his footsteps and sense him, but it couldn see him. Once it realized there was a presence nearby, its instinctive reaction was to try to escape, but it couldn't due to the container being over its head.
"Calm down..."
"I won't hurt you."
In a soft, musical voice that echoed slightly in the cold air of the quiet room, it sounded like a gentle melody from a symphony. The cat was able to hear that soothing musical sound.
Once the cat calmed down, the young man slowly grasped the plastic container from around its head and pulled it off, freeing the little cat head from it.
"Meow."
With a cheerful sound, the cat playfully moved its paw over his head after finally managing to get out of the container, even though it hadn done so without the young man's help. However, it felt joy after moving away from that difficult trap.
After a few movements around his head, the cat turned its gaze to the young man, who stood silently in front of it, smiling gently with a kind and calm expression on his face.
"Meow... Meow... Meow."
The small cat that saw its rescuer standing in front of it, with a slight smile on his face as a gesture of gratitude, nodded to him with a signal for medicine. Then he reached into his backpack, which contained some food, and offered her a small square box filled with food, which she eagerly approached to eat from.
The young man watched for a while as the cat ate, occasionally touching her fur, which she did not mind, and she responded to his gentle touches. The young man loved animals deeply, especially cats.
After some time, when the cat finished eating, the young man helped her out of the window and then closed the window that was letting in the cold air into the hallway.
He moved further until he finally reached the end of the hallway, where he paused for a moment in front of a single room door.
"Is this the right room...?"
"It really looks old."
The young man stopped in front of the old storage room and stared at it for a while, recalling some rumors about it that said this room was haunted by ghosts that appeared and frightened the students who came to this place. Some students even swore that they had seen ghosts here before.
He stared for a while at the brown wooden door of the old storage room, and remembering those rumors increased his tension and fear, making him hesitate to enter the room. The reason for this was his childhood fear of supernatural creatures, which his mother used to tell him strange fictional stories about to warn him before bed. Even as he grew older, he had a vivid image of those supernatural fictional creatures, especially ghosts, which seemed to him like invincible beings, as they were material entities that were unaffected by almost any kind of weapon. Their love and malice allowed them to possess the last bodies, and they had the ability to penetrate all different bodies, whether solid, liquid, or gas, and pass through them to attack their targets.
Remembering all those memories made him hesitate even more about entering the door in front of him.
He said to himself.
"There are no ghosts in the world..."
"They are just illusions or myths, and they only exist in the fictional stories my mother used to tell me." After a while, taking a deep breath, he said that to himself to try to calm down, and because he couldn't disappoint the professor who had asked him for this job, the young man stepped forward and opened the door.
-Creak-
With the sound of old wood creaking, the door slowly opened before him, and the young man moved inside with documents in his hand.
***
Inside, the room was large and spacious, filled with many documents, books, old devices, and other things scattered here and there.
-Steps, steps- steps-
With slow steps, the young man advanced into the room, looking around at the only light in the room that was dimly illuminating it, flickering slightly before shining again, while the air inside was humid and filled with dust all around.
The young man stared around for a while, then moved deeper into the room to the center, where he found an old desk. He approached it silently until he reached it.
-Noises-
Then, as he was about to place the documents there, he heard some noise, which made him turn around slightly and wonder to himself, "What is that sound...?"
The young man glanced around the dimly lit room, where the faint light continued to flicker slowly. After a moment, he stood still for a while, looking around and ensuring there was nothing around him. He sighed and then moved in front of the desk to place the documents.
-Noises-
"Whoa...!"
Suddenly, out of nowhere, something appeared before him, waving quickly in front of him. In shock, his body involuntarily recoiled. The young man quickly stepped back in astonishment, causing his body to fall heavily to the ground, colliding with some objects in the room. What made the situation worse was that the only light in the room above went out, completely darkening the room.
Fortunately for the young man, after less than three minutes, he had fallen from the shock of seeing that thing in front of him, the lights of the room flickered once more.
"My glasses...!"
But the young man was in another problem, which was that he had dropped his glasses after falling to the ground in shock.
"My glasses... my glasses...?"
He began to search around the room with difficulty, as he couldn't see well without them.
"My glasses... where are you...?"
The young man continued to search the room with difficulty for his glasses, and after many attempts and struggles, he was able to find them. He picked them up and placed them in front of his face once more, after which he could see the room clearly in front of him.
In front of him, a face was a little close, and he could also see the thing that had been waved in front of him, which had suddenly caused him to fall to the ground with force.
It was a skeleton of a human body with empty eyes, and behind the skeleton stood a tall young man smiling lightly, who was silently watching the young man who had fallen to the ground from the corner.
"Haha... sorry... sorry, did I scare you...?"
"Oh, my little friend..."
The young man who had regained his sight tilted his head slightly as he looked at the skeleton in front of him, while the other young man laughed lightly at him and watched him silently. Then he opened his mouth with a soft and calm voice and said,
"Adam...?"
The young man was suddenly shocked and stunned after realizing the nature of the thing, not the person, that had caused him to fall to the ground. He adjusted his glasses and stared at the young man in front of him for a while, then he sighed gently at that. With Adam's help, he got up from the ground and brushed off the dust and dirt from his clothes.
After that, the young man asked his older friend in front of him,
"What are you doing here...?"
"What do you mean? I was waiting for you here..."
"Waiting for me? Why...?"
"To go back to the neighborhood."
Adam, who was Drake neighbor in the same residential area where he lived.
Adam continued talking to his friend.
"I came to your hall looking for you but couldn't find you, and after I asked the professor about you, he told me he requested you to return the documents to this room..."
"So I thought of coming here before you and scaring you..."
"Did I scare you... did I scare you...?"
By moving the skeleton figure in his hand towards his friend and slightly narrowing his eyes, he smiled at him.
"Yes, you really did scare me."
The young man smiled and looked at his older friend, who wanted to respond with a smile himself but thought otherwise, given the calm expression on his face.
"But why were you so late? Did something happen? I waited for a long time, and I was hiding here..."
"What were you doing all this time in the hallway...?"
"Oh... I encountered a cat on the way."
The young man replied calmly, and then both of them started gathering the remaining papers that had fallen. After finishing collecting them and putting them back in place, the two young men exited the storage room and went upstairs. Upon returning to a different hallway, they appeared with their full bodies. Adam, who was ahead of his friend, had a cheerful expression on his face, dark brown hair, light brown eyes, a tall and broad body, and prominent chest muscles, all dressed in a stylish university outfit. Adam was a university student in his third year, waiting to graduate.
Behind him walked the other young man, who appeared after him with a thin and short body, a gentle and calm facial expression, and above-average facial features with dark black hair like the night, styled neatly, and large gray eyes behind a pair of beautiful glasses. He wore an outfit consisting of a gray jacket over a t-shirt, pants, shoes, and a large backpack, all in black.
Even though those simple clothes on his thin body were modest, his gentle facial expression and neat hairstyle made his slender appearance attractive to the eyes.
The young man name was Drake Green, a university student in his second year, 21 years old, and about 173 cm tall.