It's three am, and you can't sleep. The world all around you is quiet and still save for the occasional police siren and the screech of tires coming from the highway just a few blocks away. Why are you awake, you wonder. You hadn't forgotten anything, all the day's to dos had been done and now all you wanted was a peaceful nights sleep and yet. It's three fifteen and you still can't sleep. Your roommate has begun to talk in her sleep again, she is muttering something you can't understand and for a moment you find yourself envying her. Sound asleep, like you wish you could be, like you know you should be, but your brain simply refuses to shut off. It's three thirty am and you are still awake.
Your mind drifts to a warm beach somewhere or really any place that isn't covered in thick icy snow like the world outside your window. You think to yourself how things seem scarier in the darkness of winter. The brightness of day is so fleeting lately, getting out of bed to be greeted only by a melancholy grey sky has become somewhat of a new trend. It is three forty-five in the morning and that is when the knocking begins. It's soft at first and almost rhythmic. You listen carefully trying to pinpoint the spot of origin. Is it the next room over? No. On timid feet you walk over to the door and scan the hallway on the other side of it. There's nothing but the quiet hum of the furnace clicking on.
Walking back into the room, you close the door softly and as the tired hinges squeak with effort you hear you roommate murmur something about an overdue library book. Smiling to yourself you walk back to bed. The knocking seems to have stopped for now and you close your eyes suddenly aware of just how tired you are. It's three forty nine in the morning and the knocking returns this time with almost a sense of urgency. For a moment you consider that someone upstairs might be having sex and the bed frame was hitting the wall behind it. But no, now it was clear it was coming from somewhere in the room.
Grabbing one of the throw pillows that was wedged between the bed and the wall you try to block out the noise, this works but only slightly. It is three fifty two in the morning and the knocking is driving you insane, its rapid now, sounding almost frantic like someone desperately trying to get in. Then the thought comes to you, is there someone trying to get in? Where the fuck is it coming from? It's been well over twenty minutes of this and yet you still had no answer for where it might be coming from. Finally you think you've discovered it, something must have fallen into the heating vent and as the heat kicked on the hot air was pushing whatever it was against the grate hard and fast.
Sighing with relief you try to ignore the sound now that the mystery of the noise had been solved, you decide to try and sleep for now and resolve to leave fishing out whatever had fallen into the vent to tomorrow morning. But after ten minutes the noise becomes almost unbearably loud and you wonder how in the hell it hasn't woken your roommate or the rest of the floor for that matter. Groaning you once again crawl out of bed towards the heat that resided underneath the large window that looked out into the quad and down to the busy street below.
Using your phone as a flashlight you peer into the darkness of the vent. You watched carefully waiting to see what would come shooting up out of the blackness below you. To your surprise and somewhat dismay after almost a solid minute of waiting nothing had appeared in the beam of light but the knocking continued. Its four ten in the morning and now your frustration has grown to a bumbling rage. Where the fuck was knocking coming from? Was this some kind of sick joke? If it was, you thought, you couldn't wait to smash however was responsible square in the face and see how funny a broken jaw was to them. It is four fifteen in the morning and the knocking is almost deafening . It was coming from the window it had to be. Maybe some dumb ass bird had gotten stuck? No it was much to loud for the beak of some bird unless of course that bird was a pterodactyl.
In a mixture of rage, confusion and utter exhaustion you pulled up the shade. You scream. In the pale moonlight staring back at you is a young woman. Her mouth is open like she is trying to scream but can't. Her eyes are a milky white and her face is bloody like she had just taken a horrible beating. Her nightgown was torn to practically shreds and her grey skin was exposed to the harsh winter winds. For a moment she appeared to be suspended in mid air but as you eyes followed her arms up you realized she was clinging to the raised brick just above the outside of your window. By now your screaming has woken up your roommate and most of the other residents. There's pounding on your door and someone shouting "RA let me in! RA!"
By now your roommate can see the girl too and the both of you scream as you watch her fingers slip. She didn't make a sound as she plummets the eight stories to the ground. Running towards the door you pull it open as the RA rushed in checking you both over for injuries before realizing you were screaming in horror not pain. But there's no longer a girl in the window. It's five forty five in the morning. You sit in the common room of your dorm building wrapped in a blanket along with your roommate. The police have been questioning you on what you saw for the past half an hour. They say there wasn't a body and ask both of us if we have ever experienced something called sleep paralysis. They say it's like having a nightmare but you are awake. They ask again if we have experienced waking nightmares. They try to explain it away a freak coincidence but the fact that both of you saw something leads them to believe it was some sort of elaborate prank.
It is seven am the police left after a thorough investigation finding nothing to prove that it was anything more than some sort of dream like phenomena. You and your roommate stay in the common room to afraid to return to the dorm room, afraid that if you do you might see that thing, that girl again. Its is now twelve forty five, both you and your roommate have been excused from classes due to the "traumatic experience" you both shared. Still too afraid to return to the room the two of you eat lunch silently in the dining hall. The hall is mostly empty save for a few stragglers who will most likely be late for class.
From behind there is a sound and both of you turn so quickly you almost startle the girl standing behind you, a newspaper clipping held tightly in her fingers. She asks to sit down and you both nod as she pulls the seat away from the table. The girl makes no effort in small talk. She is tall, thin and somewhat lanky. Her dark hair falls in dirty clumps around her face. She wears a t shirt that says "The Devil Was Once an Angel Too." Without a single word she pushes the clipping to the center of the table. The headline reads: Accident turns to Homicide! Co-ed pushed out of window! As you read you realize that over two decades ago a fight had turned deadly between a girl and her boyfriend. In frustration he had pushed her out of the window. The police found her the next morning. The girl with the t- shirt explains that she had heard about the incident last night and wanted to offer us some sort of explanation, to let us know we weren't infact going insane. You thank her although you are not sure if this situation warrants that.
The girl turns to leave but you stop her, "What about the knocking?" You ask. The girl sighs. "Before they replaced the windows they used to have these little terrance things. They were too small for anyone to walk on they were more for the aesthetic of the place. Anyways when she fell she grabbed onto one on the way down. She used her momentum and kicked on the glass trying to get someone's attention. But it was the day before winter break so a lot of people had already left. So no one heard her. Eventually she slipped."
Your mind races back to last night, someone in fact had been trying to get in. You had seen her you opened the window, just about twenty years too late.
