Two Faces in the Dark

After lights-out, I make my roommates play with an Ouija board with me.

Being the scaredy-cat she is, my roommate decides to ask something stupid, "Where did my earphones go?"

I almost burst out laughing. I can't believe she's using it to find her earphones.

To our surprise, the planchette starts to move. It spells out, "It's under your bed beside the eye."

We exchange glances in confusion. What eye?

I snort and get out of bed. Using my phone's flashlight, I check under the bed. Nothing is there.

Before I can make fun of my roommate for being superstitious, the door slams open. The student who stays next door barges into our room, her face as pale as a sheet.

Her voice trembles as she shouts, "Wake up! Everyone on campus is going wild! Someone found an eyeball in our dorm!"

Everyone in our room started freaking out. "Holy shit!"

Madison Lane, who loved gossip the most, jumped out of her bed. She wasn't scared at all. In fact, she was excited.

"Did that really happen? I'm not sleepy anymore! Hurry up and show it to me!"

She snatched the phone away. Queenie Sanders, my other roommate, hid beneath her blanket.

"Don't look at it, Madison. It sounds so scary… Julia, it can't be real, can it?"

I frowned and leaned in to look at the post, too. The viral post already had thousands of views. The title was in blood red.

It read, "What a terrifying night! An eyeball was found in Crown Residence Hall! We have the picture to prove it!"

Tapping on the post revealed a creepy image. Although it was censored, we could still make out the details.

The image showed a bloody, spherical object lying in the turn to the third floor's staircase. A coin was placed next to it for size comparison. There were already more than a thousand comments.

"What! Isn't this Crown Residence Hall our dorm? How am I supposed to go to the bathroom now?"

"Same. I'm already planning to use my trash can instead."

"The texture and veins make it look so real…"

Queenie threw the phone away in shock and gripped her blanket tighter. "Ew, gross! Is there a psychopathic killer in our midst?"

I examined the image closely, zooming in and sliding the window around. Then, I snickered, "It's fake."

"What?" Everyone turned to me.

I turned the phone around to face them and pointed at the corner of the image. "Look, there's light reflected on the eyeball. It looks way too smooth, like glass. It was probably photoshopped."

The moment I finished my sentence, Leah Cooper, another roommate who had been silent all this time, suddenly grabbed my arm tightly.

"Julia," she whispered.

Her body was trembling all over. "It's not fake... It's real."

I was stunned by her reaction. "How do you know that?"

"T-That's because when we played with the Ouija board just now…" Her voice trembled as she continued, "It said that the earphones I lost were under the bed beside the eye!"

Only then did I remember that we were playing the Ouija board when Kayla Smith barged in.

Just a few minutes ago, I was even planning on making fun of Leah for being so superstitious. Now, with two of these events in quick succession, it felt like an actual prophecy.

Madison's and Queenie's faces paled. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"What eye? How could you take an Ouija board seriously?"

I got out of bed and turned on my phone's flashlight. Then, I aimed it under Leah's bed. I was surprised to see that Leah's earphones really were hidden in the innermost corner beneath her bed.

Madison shrieked and stumbled back. "It's really there! I'm getting goosebumps!"

"It's just a coincidence." Even though I was shocked, I tried to keep calm and said, "There are absolutely no ghosts in the world."

However, Leah looked drained. She collapsed onto her bed and mumbled to herself, "The Ouija board was telling the truth. It left its eyeball in the hallway…"

The eerie atmosphere in our room creeped Kayla out. After reminding us to lock our door, she quickly made herself scarce.

Queenie and Madison squeezed themselves under one blanket in the same bed. Queenie was scared to the point of tears.

"Julia, I'm so scared… Can we go to the resident director tomorrow to request a dorm change? This dorm's got to be haunted!"

Madison was no longer interested in gossip. She agreed with Queenie, her face as pale as a sheet.

"Damn it. If I knew the scoop was that thrilling, I wouldn't have joined in so eagerly. How am I supposed to sleep now?"

I was also feeling the creeps, but logic told me ghosts weren't real. It was most likely a prank that simply coincided with what happened to Leah. It also didn't help that Leah was a timid person, to begin with.

"Settle down and stop scaring yourselves." I sat back on my bed and said nonchalantly, "Someone probably just found the eye specimen dropped by some unlucky med student and decided to post it online."

Suddenly, we heard the jangling of keys from the hallway. The security guard, Emily Parker, was making her rounds.

"Why haven't you gone to bed? Look at how late it is. Hurry up and go to bed!"

When Emily pushed the door open and saw the four of us sitting in a circle, she was stunned. "My, my, are you having a party or something?"

Queenie was the most timid out of the four of us. She couldn't help but ask, "Ms. Parker, is it true that they found an eyeball in one of the hallways?"

Emily's expression was unreadable. She lowered her voice before saying, "It's true.

"The cops were here just now. They already left with it. It left me feeling pretty restless, so I decided to make more rounds tonight."

As she spoke, she shot a few nervous glances down the hallway. "Don't roam around tonight, ladies. Make sure to lock your door."

Then, as if she recalled something, she paused and added ominously, "Come to think of it, this isn't the first creepy thing that happened here.

"The elders told me that this place used to be a mass grave. Who knows how many unwanted corpses were buried in this land? Beneath the building's foundation is also the grave of a little girl whose eyes had been gouged out…"