The news about my old friend Aaron filled me with sorrow. After a series of career failures, he attempted suicide. Fortunately, he survived.

We used to be close, and the thought of his suffering left a bitter taste in my mouth. I decided to visit him. However, when I checked the flights to his city, I found that every ticket for the day was sold out. Left with no other choice, I booked a train ticket—an overnight journey that would take me from this afternoon until the following day's afternoon.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept on a train. With a resigned sigh, I packed my essentials into a backpack: my phone, laptop, and a novel by Natsuhiko Kyogoku.

Before heading out, I habitually checked my email, though I had long stopped expecting a reply from LIN. To this day, she hadn’t responded. Had she forgotten? Or perhaps the photo she took… had captured something too terrifying to keep?

With these lingering thoughts, I boarded the train bound for W City.

My seat was at the very end of the carriage. As soon as I settled in, a group of lively university students entered, dragging their luggage behind them.

“Here, this one!” A young man called out, waving the others over.

Two girls, their arms full, handed their bags to him before plopping down onto the seats. “See? You’re useful after all,” one teased, prompting giggles from the other.

The guy—F—grinned sheepishly as he shoved their bags into the overhead compartment. Then, with a heavy sigh, he dropped into the seat beside me.

The three of them were friendly. F was a tall, broad-shouldered guy with an easygoing demeanor. Q, a short-haired girl with bright eyes, had a sharp wit. The last one, M, was quiet and reserved, her long hair partially hiding her face as she focused on a book. They occupied the seats opposite me, and for a moment, I felt outnumbered.

From afternoon until late evening, the chatter below never ceased. The university students talked nonstop, and the two women left to chat with someone in the next carriage. Eventually, I climbed down, deciding to have a cup of instant noodles for dinner. As I set my book down beside me, M spoke up for the first time.

“Natsuhiko Kyogoku?”

Surprised, I glanced at her. What followed was a conversation that started with Kyogoku’s novels, then moved on to urban ghost stories. I hadn’t expected this quiet girl to be such an expert in folklore.

It turned out that all three of them were university students studying folklore and anthropology. This trip was part of their field research on regional traditions and supernatural beliefs. Their enthusiasm was contagious, and before long, I found myself relaxing around them.

“I write about strange occurrences and folklore for my column.” I explained.

“Then you have to hear ours!” Q’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

I nodded, intrigued. The three of them leaned in eagerly, ready to share.

Story 1 - Q’s Story

It seemed inevitable that a girls' dormitory would become the setting for a campus ghost story. And this story was no exception.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Lights out didn’t mean the end of the night—it was only the beginning. Once everyone was tucked into their beds, the real conversations started. Some nights, it was just casual gossip; other times, it turned into deep discussions about class topics. But more often than not, it was just aimless chatter, stretching into the late hours.

Tonight was one of those nights. Q and her four roommates had settled in, ready for sleep. No one knew who started it, but one comment led to another, and soon the room was alive with voices, spinning stories and laughing in the dark.

Then, suddenly, Q shouted, “Cut it out!”

At first, no one paid much attention. They kept talking. But five minutes later, Q yelled again, “I said, cut it out!”

This time, the room fell silent.

“What’s wrong?” one of the girls finally asked.

Q turned toward her bunkmate——who slept right beside her—— “You keep poking my head.”

The girl frowned. “I didn’t touch you.”

The dorm layout was simple: five beds in total. Two along the north wall, two along the south, and one on the west side. Q’s bed was one of the two on the south wall, right beside her bunkmate’s. The way the beds were arranged, there was no space for anyone else to squeeze in. If someone had been touching her, it had to be her bunkmate.

That was when Q started to feel uneasy.

“What do you mean you didn’t?” Q shot back. “You’re the only one close enough to do it!”

Logically, her bunkmate was the only person who could have reached her. But every time Q turned her head to look, her bunkmate was lying perfectly still under the blankets, showing no signs of movement. And then there was the other thing—whoever had been poking her hadn’t just been tapping lightly. The force had been strong, enough to push her head forward both times.

If it had been her bunkmate, the motion would have been obvious. The bed would have creaked, the blankets would have rustled. But there had been nothing. No sound, no sign, nothing to explain what had just happened.

So if it wasn’t her bunkmate… then who was it?

Q finished telling her story and glanced at M.

“Our dorm was old, full of eerie vibes,” Q said. “M, you had an experience too, didn’t you?”

M nodded, looking at me, hesitating for a moment before finally deciding to share her own story.

Story 2 - M’s Story

M lived in the dorm next to Q’s, separated by just a thin wall. Her bed was right next to the class president’s. Every morning, the class president would wake up early, switch on her desk lamp, and start memorizing vocabulary words. Because of this, M had grown used to a predictable sequence of sounds: the creaking of the old bed as the president climbed down, the soft shuffle of feet, the door opening and closing, the click of the lamp turning on, and the rustle of pages being flipped.

It became part of her routine, something she barely noticed anymore.

Then came that morning.

M, still half-asleep, heard the familiar sound of the bed creaking as the class president climbed down. The door opened. Everything seemed normal. But then, not long after, she heard footsteps coming back inside.

Drowsy, M barely cracked open her eyes, peering through the mosquito net. In the dim light filtering through the curtains, she saw a shadowy figure standing in the middle of the room.

And it wasn’t the class president.

The realization jolted her awake. She wanted to move, to sit up—but she couldn’t. Her entire body was frozen.

The shadow figure seemed to notice something, turning its head toward her.

“I couldn’t make out its face,” M recalled, “but I knew, without a doubt, that it was looking at me.”

Slowly, the shadow moved. It approached M’s bed, step by step.

She tried to struggle, to break free from the invisible force holding her down. But her body refused to obey.

Closer.

And closer.

Stopping right at the head of her bed.

Then, it raised a hand and lifted the corner of the mosquito net.

Cold.

A bone-chilling cold spread from M’s wrist, crawling through her entire body. She shuddered violently—and suddenly, she could move again.

With a gasp, M shot upright, fumbling for her bedside lamp and switching it on.

She turned to look at the class president’s bed.

The class president was still there, fast asleep under the blankets.

M let out a breath, shaking her head. "I still have no idea what that was. Luckily, it only happened once."

The atmosphere in the room was heavy, everyone caught up in the eerie tension of the stories. Suddenly, two older women returned, chatting casually and offering everyone sunflower seeds. The group politely declined, but the interruption at least eased the mood a little.

"Actually, I've had something weird happen to me too—back in school," F, who had been quietly listening, suddenly spoke up. He hesitated, scratching his head awkwardly. "Though, I don’t know if it really counts."

With a little encouragement from the group, he decided to share his story.