At one of the large universities in America, inside a wide and medium-sized corridor, there was a young man walking slowly, holding a large amount of papers in his hands after quietly exiting the classroom. The young man walked cautiously through the wide corridor, gripping the papers tightly in his hands for fear of dropping them or having some fly away due to the cold air inside the hall. After all, those papers and documents in his hands were very important for the university, as he had been tasked by the professor to collect them from the other students and return them to the storage office in the basement of the university.

As he walked through the long and somewhat dark corridor, due to the flickering lights from some of the broken ceiling lamps that would light up and then go out repeatedly with a low glow and a faint buzzing sound resembling the moan of a weak patient in a hospital bed between life and death. As he continued walking, the young man noticed that the further he progressed down the corridor, the weaker the light from the ceiling lamps became. On top of that, the air grew colder, and he began to hear strange sounds coming from multiple directions, making it difficult to pinpoint their source, which only increased the young man tension and sense of anxiety. After all, he was walking alone in a dimly lit corridor with a faint light.

"Ugh... I feel so alone here..."

The young man sighed in a low, tense voice, his words echoing slightly in the hall as he walked and spoke to himself.

"Why did I agree to this request from the professor to return the documents to the basement of the university..."

"This place is so dark and cold..."

"And on top of that, these lights are starting to malfunction..."

"I hope the electricity doesn't go out suddenly while I'm here..."

"Oh...?"

He felt even more tense when he said that, as he knew that wishing alone wouldn change anything without action. So he added silently,

"I should hurry a bit before that happens."

After finishing his complaints to himself in an attempt to ease the tension of being alone in that dark place, the young man began to walk silently again through the corridor. This time, however, his footsteps were faster than before as he moved toward his destination, driven by a bit of fear and anxiety about the possibility of the electricity cutting out suddenly on him midway. His steps quickened as he walked through the corridor.

- Steps - Steps - Steps -

With his quickening pace through the corridor, the young man was able to approach the middle of the university hall after about five minutes from his previous location.

He continued walking faster than before, and when he approached the middle of the lower hall of the large university, he noticed some open windows through which a cold and strong breeze was blowing, causing a faint noise. In the middle of one of those windows, there was a small black creature in a strange position, sitting on the window sill. 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, moving slowly and gracefully with difficulty. Nevertheless, its numerous efforts to free its head from the container opening were met with soft, sad sounds. Then, once again, it began to move its little feet in a frantic motion.

The young man stopped silently, noticing the black creature with a steady gaze. He said to himself after observing the creature for a longer period,

"A cat...?"

"What are you trying to do...?"

He watched the frantic movements as it tried to pull its head out of the container, and its small size combined with its nervous movements was amusing to the young man.

After watching the adorable black creature for a few seconds and seeing it unable to free its head from the container, the young man approached it and decided to help the little black creature with slow, quiet steps, being cautious. Despite this, the small 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 due to the container on its head.

"Calm down..."

"I won't hurt you."

In a low, musical, and soothing voice, he spoke, his words echoing slightly in the cold air of the hall, like a gentle melody from a warm symphony. The little cat, after hearing that calming musical voice, relaxed and became quiet.

Once the little cat had calmed down, the young man gently grasped the plastic container from its head and pulled it off, freeing the little cat head from it. 

"Meow."

With a relieved sound, the little cat playfully moved its paw over its head after finally managing to get out of the container, even though it hadn done so without the young man help. However, it felt joy after escaping from that difficult trap.

After several movements around its head, the little cat turned its gaze to the young man standing silently in front of it, smiling gently with a kind and calm expression on his face. 

"Water... Water... Water." 

The little cat, seeing its rescuer standing before it with that light smile, responded to him as a sign of gratitude. He gestured to it with medicine, then reached into his backpack, which contained some food, and offered it a small square box filled with food, which it eagerly approached to eat from. 

The young man watched the little cat eat for a while, occasionally touching its fur, which did not deter it, and the cat responded to his gentle touches. The young man had a deep love for animals, especially cats. 

After some time, when the little cat finished eating, the young man helped it out of the window and then closed the window that was letting in the cold air into the corridor. 

He then moved further until he finally reached the end of the corridor, where he paused for a moment in front of a single 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 many rumors about it, some of which said that 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 old black door of the storage room, and remembering those rumors increased his tension, fear, and hesitation about entering the room. The reason for this was his childhood fear of supernatural creatures, which his mother used to tell him strange stories about to warn and scare him a little before bed. Even as he grew older, he had a vivid image of those supernatural creatures, especially ghosts, which seemed to him to be invincible, as they were non-material beings that were unaffected by all kinds of weapons. 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... It's just an illusion, nothing more than what my mother used to tell me in her fairy tales."

After a while, taking a deep breath, he said this to himself to try to encourage himself, and because he couldn disappoint the professor who had asked him for this job, the young man stepped forward and opened the door. 

-Creak- 

With the creaking of old wood, the door slowly opened before him, and the young man stepped inside with documents in hand. 

***

Inside, the room was large and spacious, filled with many documents, books, old devices, and other things scattered here and there. 

-Steps, steps- 

With slow steps, the young man moved further inside, looking around at the only light in the room that illuminated it weakly, flickering slightly before shining again, while the air inside was damp and filled with dust throughout. 

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- 

Just as he was about to place the documents there, he heard some noise that made him turn around a bit nervously, questioning himself anxiously,

"What is that sound...?" 

The young man glanced around, feeling uneasy in the dim light that continued to flicker slowly. After a moment, he stood still for a while, then cautiously looked around to ensure nothing was there. 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 a state of shock, his body involuntarily recoiled. The young man quickly stepped back in surprise, causing his body to fall heavily to the ground, crashing into some items in the room. What made the situation worse was that the only light in the room above went out, plunging the room into complete darkness.

Fortunately for the young man, after less than three or four minutes, he had fallen from the shock of seeing that thing waved in front of him, the lights in 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 again, 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 had been silently watching the young man who had fallen to the ground from the corner for a moment. 

"Haha... sorry... sorry, did I scare you...?" 

"Oh, my little friend..." 

The young man who had regained his sight tilted his head slightly in astonishment 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 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, Adam...?" 

"What do you mean? I was waiting for you here..." 

"Waiting for me? Why...?" 

"To go back to the neighborhood." 

Adam, who was the young man neighbor in the same residential area, was always waiting for him to return home together. But today, the young man was late, so Adam thought he would go ahead to the neighborhood. 

Adam continued to talk to his friend, 

"I came to your classroom to look for you, and I couldn find you. After that, I asked the professor about you, and he told me that you were asked to return the documents to this room..." 

"So I thought to come here before you and scare you..." 

"Did I scare you... did I scare you...?" 

By moving the skeleton in his hand towards his friend and teasing him a little, Adam smiled playfully. 

"Yes, you really scared me."

The young man smiled, mirroring the smile of his older friend, but unlike his somewhat vague words, the calm expression on his face, filled with a hint of coldness, did not lead his friend to believe that. After all, he knew his friend was a person completely devoid of emotions and desires. 

When he finished reading the expression on his younger friend face, Adam did not focus on it and asked him something else to change the subject.

"Why are you so late...?"

"You know, I waited here for about half an hour..."

"And I was hiding here behind the desk waiting for you..."

"And you might wonder to yourself, was the hallway through the hall really that long?" 

Adam sighed in complaint and said to his younger friend,

"What were you doing all that time in the hallway...?"

The young man, who listened to his friend complaint about waiting for him, grew tired of hiding behind the desk for so long. He smiled slightly and replied in a calm voice to his friend complaint with a simple sentence.

"Oh... I encountered a little cat in the hallway." 

His vague and confusing answer made his friend wonder how a little cat could delay someone for that long. However, after a moment of thought, he realized how much his friend loved animals and played with them, especially cats, which made him accept his friend answer after considering it for a moment, believing that the delay was indeed just due to encountering the little cat in the hallway. 

After he was convinced by his friend answer, the two young men began to gather the remaining papers and documents that had fallen. After finishing collecting them and putting them back in place, the two young men exited the old storage room.

***

He began his ascent to the university's intermediate hall. After climbing to the intermediate hall, the bright light from the hanging chandelier illuminated the different corridor of the hall, contrasting with the dark and dim lower hall where two figures appeared. One was Adam, who was accompanied by his small friend. His serious expression, tall and broad body, and prominent chest muscles were accentuated by his elegant university attire, with dark brown hair and light brown eyes that did not reflect his cheerful demeanor from moments before with his small friend. Adam was a second-year university student, around 23 years old, who had been a bully since his first years at the university, intimidating and scaring many students, targeting and hitting several of them. He had once targeted a young man for bullying, just like the other students in his hall, after some had informed him that he was the one who had been asking the professor for all those surprise tests. He had lured him in with some students from his clique to beat him up and scare him, as he was bothering them with many requests for surprise tests from the professor. After all, he was a bully who loved any reason to bully others. However, after that day, the young man had become friends with Adam, following him wherever he went. Coincidentally, he also lived in the same neighborhood, which strengthened their friendship, shocking the other students who described their friendship as something strange and odd, difficult to understand between one of the best students at the university and the worst bully.

Behind him walked another young man, who appeared after him with a thin and short body, his face expressing a gentle and calm demeanor, though there was a hint of coldness hidden behind his pleasant expression. He had 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 a simple outfit consisting of a gray jacket over a t-shirt, pants, shoes, and a large black backpack. Even though those simple clothes fit his thin body, his gentle expression and neat hairstyle made his slender appearance attractive to the eyes. The young man name was Derek Green, a second-year university student, 21 years old, with an average height of about 173 centimeters.