Chapter 2

My fingers were trembling uncontrollably. Just then, I heard something approaching my bed.

I kicked off the blanket and rushed toward the dorm room door like a madman, not even bothering to put on my shoes.

I didn't dare look back. The moment I burst into the hallway, my hands were so weak I could barely hold my phone. Fighting down my terror, I dialed the emergency number.

When the police asked questions, I almost incoherently gave them the school address and dorm room number. After a few words of comfort, they said they'd send someone right away.

I was scared out of my mind, so I ran down to the first floor to Luna Bailey's door—she was the resident advisor.

I pounded desperately on that metal door. In the dead silence of the night, the banging was almost deafening.

"Luna! Help! Someone's dead!"

After several minutes, the light inside finally came on.

The door was yanked open. Luna looked groggy, still trying to figure out what was happening when I grabbed her.

I pointed upstairs, my teeth chattering.

"Luna... my roommate... he... he killed himself in our room!"

Luna's face changed instantly.

She didn't waste any time and turned to run upstairs.

Back at the dorm room door, my legs were still shaking.

Luna's hand was trembling a bit, too, as she opened the door, but she managed it.

When I saw what was inside, I froze completely.

The room was spotless.

No blood on the floor, no knife by the sink, not even a trace of blood in the air.

Most importantly, Jeremy was gone.

His bed was neatly made, as if no one had ever slept in it.

"That's impossible."

I stumbled inside and searched the room carefully.

It was as if everything I'd just seen was a hallucination.

Quite a few students had been woken up by the commotion. They stood at the door in their clothes, craning their necks to look.

"What's going on?"

"I heard someone killed themselves?"

Luna was furious, her face bright red. She pointed at my nose and started scolding me.

"Sir, what class are you in? That joke went way too far. You could scare someone to death, you know that?"

The complaints from the surrounding students grew louder, but my head was buzzing.

Was I really dreaming?

Suddenly, I thought of something and frantically pulled out my phone.

"I have proof. I installed a camera."

I used to keep a little hamster by the sink, and to watch my secretly kept pet, I'd hidden a tiny camera above the sink. It had a perfect view of the mirror and bathroom area.

With trembling hands, I opened the app and pulled up the playback.

The moment the footage appeared, my face went deathly pale, and my hands started shaking again.

In the surveillance video, Jeremy was standing in front of the mirror with his back to the camera, covered in blood, holding a knife, and slashing his own neck over and over again.

I held the phone up to Luna and the few onlooking students, pointing at the screen. "Look, he's killing himself. He's cutting his own head. I'm not lying!"

I waited for them to scream, to look scared.

But there was only deathly silence all around.

Luna leaned in for a look, her frown deepening. She looked at me like I was crazy.

"Look at what? There's nothing there."

A guy with glasses next to her pushed up his frames and muttered.

"Are you under too much stress? Are you hallucinating?"

I was stunned.

I pulled the phone back and stared hard at the screen.

In the footage, Jeremy was still frantically mutilating himself, blood spraying all over the sink.

Such a bloody, horrifying scene—and they couldn't see it?

I pointed at the screen incoherently, sweating profusely in my panic. "He's right here! Look how hard he's stabbing himself! Are you all blind?"

Hearing my words, the people around me looked at me even more strangely, as if they were looking at a lunatic.

Just as I was on the verge of a breakdown with no way to defend myself, two police officers pushed through the crowd and walked in.

I grabbed onto them like a drowning man clutching at a last straw, rushing over and grabbing one officer's arm.

"Officers, my roommate just killed himself, and then his body disappeared. I have surveillance footage, but they all say they can't see it!"

I told them everything that had happened, including that threatening text message.

The older officer frowned and listened carefully.

He took my phone, looked at the surveillance video, then looked at me.

His expression grew even more serious.

"Sir, there really is nothing in this surveillance footage."

He said the same thing.

I felt a chill shoot straight to the top of my head.

"That's impossible! Even if there's something wrong with the surveillance, the text message can't be fake."

I quickly exited the surveillance app and opened my messages.

"Just now, he sent me a text message. I..."

The next second, I froze.