Frightening Nights in the High School’s Dormitory
Linh was born and raised in a poor family in a rural area in the East of Vietnam. At the age of 16, she was accepted into a prestigious high school. That means she had to travel a long way to go to school because the school is located in the center of town, and her family is in a quite remote and sparsely populated area. For convenience, her family advised her to stay in the dormitory because it’s right on the campus, so it’s easier to get around. The only inconvenience is living away from family, and the facilities here are not really good. But Linh insisted on refusing without specifying the reason. According to Linh’s friends, the dormitory was haunted by a ghost of a schoolgirl many years ago. Because of pressure from family and exams, she hanged herself in her room, and her soul has been always around.
Linh did not tell her parents this because she knew they would not care about spiritual topics. She had to go a long way during her nearly 3 years at the school. The story began when Linh entered the review period to prepare for the upcoming graduation exam (one of the most important exams for students, at least in Asia.) Because she had to make full use of time. She had no choice but to stay in the school dormitory to save moving time. To describe a little about the structure of the dormitory rooms, they were small rooms of about 20 square meters for 4 people. One side of the room is 2 bunk beds facing the field behind the school, the other side is a rather small toilet.
On the very first night, Linh could not sleep because she was not used to sleeping in a strange place, only when she was too tired (usually 3–4 am), she was able to fall asleep. After about a week, she got used to the new place and often slept in the middle of the night after studying. The first night, she felt like someone was pulling her leg, but she assumed it was a prank by her roommate, and she was too tired to care. However, this continued for 3–4 nights in a row, until she got annoyed and shouted: “Stop it” and sat up, and turned on the light, she realized that none of her friends were still awake, all of them had gone to sleep and had just woken up from her screams. She quickly apologized, turned off the lights, and thought it was her imagination. While trying to go back to sleep and forget about what just happened, she suddenly heard a strange noise coming from the bathroom, sometimes it was the sound of the door opening, sometimes the sound of water dripping down the floor. Although worried, she did not want to disturb her roommates, she had to go in alone to check, but strangely nothing happened there, the door was still closed, and the floor was still dry. Linh began to feel bewildered and remembered the story of the schoolgirl who committed suicide in the dormitory. She had just come out, about to wake one of her friends up to make her feel less afraid, there was a clear thud like someone had just jumped from the second floor into the schoolyard barefoot. In the dim moonlight, she saw the silhouette of a girl about her age walking slowly across the wide field. Until now, she had witnessed it with her own eyes and completely believed the story.
The next morning, Linh asked for the school’s and her parents’ permission to move home. After telling the story she had experienced to everyone, Linh was further informed that the place where the schoolgirl hanged herself was her room, the 4th room. (According to the Vietnamese concept, the number 4. is the dead number because its pronunciation is similar to the word “death”).
