I first noticed it in my 100-level Political Science class.
Week one, the class was absolutely packed. There was energy. Debate. Discussion.
Five weeks in, and now it looks like nearly half the class is gone.
Mind you, Professor Weldon was not only an exceptional lecturer who explained concepts with passion and great insight - he was also a very easy grader. It made no sense to me that people were transferring out of his class. A couple of stragglers dropping off once they realize that Poli Sci isn’t for them? Sure. But this was ridiculous.
It happened in my other 100-level classes too: four weeks in, and a little over 40% of the class transferred out of English 101. Psychology? A lecture hall of roughly 200 people had been reduced to 120 or so.
I brought it up to my friends on campus who were also in their first year.
“People dropping classes in their first few weeks is totally normal,” replied Dinesh. “If I saw you sitting there in one of my classes with that dumb expression on your face, I’d drop it immediately too.”
Ha-ha. Very funny.
I turned to Mallory. She just shrugged and said “I don’t know man,” and went back to reading her book.
I’d known both of them for close to five years now. While none of us were in the same program (Dinesh was a robotics geek, Mallory was obsessed with history), we’d all been very close since high school. We were outcasts who clung to each other over our shared love of D&D, video game music, and badminton. After weeks of nervousness hoping all of us would get admission to this university, we were thrilled to find out that we’d all made it - our little trio would get to continue.
“Guess I’m just overthinking things, then. Don’t know why this isn’t sitting well with me,” I responded to both of them.
As we continued hanging out in the mezzanine, I couldn’t shake the fact that the campus, as a whole, looked much emptier than usual for a Monday.
–
As usual, I showed up early for the Poli Sci lecture. Yes, I am a tryhard, and yes, it’s important to me that I’m as close to a model student as possible in this new chapter of my life.
I watched as students shuffled into class. I also paid attention to Professor Weldon’s pre-class demeanor. He was his usual chipper self.
I took the opportunity to go up to him and ask a quick question.
“Hey, Professor Weldon…”
“You can call me Michael!”
“Right, hey… Michael, so obviously, we’re only like five weeks into the class and it’s my first year so I’m new to this whole thing… just wanted to confirm it’s normal for students to transfer out of their classes in the first few weeks? I’ve noticed a really big drop off in all of my classes including this on–”
“Totally normal! I mean, students are still figuring out what their interests are and what their overall class workload needs to be, so this is all very standard stuff. Great question though!”
Well, alrighty then. I think I just needed to hear it from a professor. I started questioning why the whole drop-off thing was even bothering me in the first place. I turned to go back to my seat.
“Don’t ever ask that again, alright?”
What?
I turned around. Did the prof just whisper what I thought he did?
He doubled down with a hushed response.
“I’m not gonna say anything about it, but a word of advice. For your own good, just listen to the material and study it. You really don’t wanna be asking people around here questions like that. Are we clear?”
All I could do was muster up a nod and walk back to my desk.
And with that, the lecture kicked off. As Professor Weldon discussed the various types of political systems around the world, I tried my best to forget the weird exchange I just had with him. To his credit, he defaulted to his regular sunny disposition throughout the presentation. I even answered a few questions he posed to the group, and he called on me as if nothing had even happened.
There were moments though, as I looked around the class, where I felt like I wasn’t alone in my… hypervigilance. Most of the students were tuned in or dozing off as usual, but I spotted a couple of faces who seemed… nervous? Like they were anxiously contemplating something?
In the midst of my surveying of the room, my eyes were drawn to a student sitting near me: a student who I remembered being quite outspoken in earlier weeks of the class, but who now seemed very reserved. From my vantage point, I could make out some of the notes he was scribbling in his notebook:
Follow up Q’s for the Dean:
- Has my drop out request been approved?
- Am I allowed to tell my family?
- Why are only some students notified about this?
- Does it emerge from Williams Hall?
As you can probably tell, these questions had absolutely nothing to do with the class.
I wrote them down in my journal. It was time to do some research.
–
After class, I invited Dinesh and Mallory to my (unfortunately) tiny dorm room for an evening conversation about everything that happened today.
While I waited for them to arrive, I spent my time doing online research to see if I could uncover anything that would shed light on the happenings - looking up things like “dropoff rates increasing” or “odd occurrences” at my university. I unfortunately wasn’t able to uncover much of anything - everything online was very boilerplate and sanitized.
The note - “Does it emerge from Williams Hall?” - from class earlier was the only thing that led to something of moderate substance. After searching through our school intranet, I realized that Williams Hall had been more or less designated as “off limits” for a number of years now. Outside of being the location of some of our final exams and student body meetings, the building had been cordoned off so that construction and renovations could be completed there.
Strangely enough, my research also showed me that prior to Williams Hall being sequestered, it used to be the hub for our Faculty of Arts, and was the former homebase for a lot of our major university clubs (theater, debate). These classes and clubs had all been moved into other buildings at the university over the last fifteen years or so.
As I continued digging, Dinesh arrived.
“Hey cuckoo bird,” he said as he came in. Before I could cut him off and tell him that this was kind of serious, he continued–
“So, uh, something happened actually and… maybe you’re not totally completely nuts.”
“Okay…,” I responded.
“So, we’re in week five right? Up until last week, my robotics class was basically at capacity - one or two stragglers dropped off in the first few weeks, but we were more or less a full group. Today, I shit you not, half the class was missing. I asked the prof, and he said they dropped out, and then he just changed the subject. I looked into it, and if you drop a class after week three, you’re required to pay a full refund. Why the fuck would anyone drop a class this late?”
I nodded. “It’s not just dropping classes and switching into other ones. I think it’s–”
“People dropping out of the university altogether,” Dinesh said, cutting me off. “Feels like there’s… less people in general now, at the campus.”
A rush of anxiety hit me as I realized that Mallory hadn’t responded to any of my texts today. I shook it off.
“So… something really weird happened in Poli Sci class today.”
–
I filled Dinesh in on everything. He was a bit incredulous, and didn’t totally believe the exchange I had with the instructor (his interpretation being that Professor Weldon was simply offended I was pointing out that people were dropping his class).
Nonetheless, he helped me with my research.
We scoured the web, searching up old Reddit posts, blog posts, discussion board conversations - anything at all that mentioned Williams Hall or bizarre events at the university. Aside from jaded former students calling out the difficult grading scale here, everything we came across was useless. But, we did notice a suspicious trend…
The year 2008 was very interesting for the school… in that there was no record of anything happening here that year. No campus events that took place here (or events that were hosted at the university in general, for that matter), no sports records, no graduation records, the list goes on. Nothing. Were there any professors that taught here in the year 2008? Not that we could find. A 2008 yearbook? Nope.
Dinesh and I went deeper and deeper down our rabbit hole, as I tried to push aside concerned thoughts of still not hearing back from Mallory. Dinesh mentioned that we should hone in on the year 2008 and try to use the Wayback Machine, in case that could help us find anything that might’ve been archived or deleted since. It took a little while, but we were able to dig up an old message board conversation, which I’ll share below.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Thread: So are we going to talk about that?
Fuckyou37
06/10/2008, 12:03PM
Title says all… June 7 at Williams Hall. won’t say more at risk of exposing myself, but I know there are lots of others who go to this school or went here, and were there when it happened. Why the actual fuck is no one talking about this?!?
LostInTranslation
06/10/2008, 4:33PM
This some Skull & Bones Society shit? :)
Fuckyou37
06/10/2008, 4:46PM
No.
Fuckyou37
06/11/2008, 12:00PM
bump.
Fuckyou37
06/12/2008, 12:05PM
bump.
KungFuKid88
06/15/2008, 8:49PM
Yep. Count your blessings and stfu. Nothing more you can do. Remember what they said happens if you blab about it.
Fuckyou37
06/16/2008, 9:52AM
That’s insane.
that no one has called the cops in this whole fucking time is insane.
also I swear to god they told some kids to get out of dodge before it happened. Knew a bunch of ppl who pced out a few weeks before. linguistics class with a certain hot professor was emptyyyyyyyy. No one else had a clue…
btw: Have any proof you were actually there? Also wtf is reality? Like that actually happened.
KungFuKid88
06/16/2008, 7:46PM
I’m sure people tried to call the cops.
I was the only guy that crawled to the door when it was all over. Apparently the rest of you just stood up and walked out. Maybe different reactions to shock for all of us?
steve2204
06/16/2008, 11:18PM
heard about this through a friend, friend knew a guy who went there and said something really messed up was happening there and that the rumor mill was in full swing, like the *final exam* wasn’t normal, he tried to drop out but they wouldn’t let him(?), but left nyways. Apparently they found his body later.
I never believed him tho lol my friend says shit a lot of dumb shit when he’s blazing >_>
CidHighwind
06/17/2008, 7:20AM
Thread locked due to inappropriate content.
We also found two other threads on a different message board, both created by the same person in 2008. The posts didn’t mention Williams Hall or the university explicitly, but they did mention the June 8th date. The post was of a mother claiming that her daughter randomly disappeared after going to the campus one day. The mother detailed how she didn’t buy the official story she was told by the police that her daughter simply “ran away”. She said that she was speaking with other parents in the area who were dealing with the same situation, and that she would provide updates as they came. Both threads were locked soon after posting.
As I jotted down the recurring date that was coming up in these threads (June 8th, 2008), I heard the door open.
Dinesh and I exhaled as Mallory entered. But that relief washed away quickly - something was off. Mallory was not herself. She’s always been quiet and reserved, preferring to be 'near people but not participating', but this time felt different.
We slowly started filling her in, trying to find a way to make our disconnected musings make sense. She listened as we talked about the student drop-offs in our classes and the overall campus feeling more empty, the peculiar goings-on in my Poli Sci class earlier in the day, and the archived message board posts we discovered during our online research. As we detailed our findings, we realized that we both sounded a little crazy… all of these things were, ultimately, random occurrences that we were stitching together like some sort of conspiracy theory.
But then Mallory spoke up.
“I had a meeting with the Dean earlier today. I’m going to drop out.”
–
The hours after Mallory said that were stressful. Obviously, Dinesh and I were shocked, confused, and most of all, deathly curious on what spurred this on for her.
Frustratingly, she wasn’t giving us too many details.
She asked us if the Dean had organized a meeting with either of us earlier in the week. When we both said no, she looked really, really miserable. Her reaction only added to our confusion.
We asked her if her reasons for dropping out were similar to what we were researching, and she begrudgingly said yes. When we asked her to elaborate, she said she was sworn to secrecy and couldn’t speak further.
“Why can’t you tell us what’s going on?!” I asked her, for probably the 30th time in our back-and-forth.
“I just can’t. If I say anything more…”
Her eyes trailed off, as if suggesting there was some terrible fate that would befall her if she elaborated further. Most of her answers to our following questions were just a simple “I’m sorry.”
Our one-sided conversation with Mallory continued for quite some time. Eventually, Dinesh asked the question that was lingering at the back of my mind. A question that seemed utterly ridiculous but also very necessary.
“Do you… do you think we should drop out too, maybe?”
It took a while for Mallory to respond. She chose her words carefully.
“I guess it’s random,” she started. “It’s random… which students they explain this whole thing to, and which ones they don’t. If they call upon you, you’re given the option to drop out. But if the Dean didn’t meet with you…”
“What the fuck does that even mean?!” Dinesh responded.
“It… means that I don’t think they’ll approve it. Even if you want to leave.”
Dinesh turned to me with a look of bafflement.
“I mean… we could just, like, leave though, right? Like… physically get up and leave? Like, how could they actually stop us from doing that?”
I saw Mallory’s eyes widen as Dinesh spoke those words to me. I knew that she wanted to say so much more to us, but she just couldn’t. The look in her eyes made it clear to me - us running now would be a mistake.
We struggled to get anything more out of Mallory. Eventually, I jumped in with a softball question that I prayed she’d answer. Referring to the research we were doing, I asked her plainly –
“If Dinesh and I keep digging, do you think we’ll be able to figure out what’s going on?”
She paused for a moment, and then nodded.
And that was all I needed.
“I think it’s time we go on an adventure, Dinesh,” I said.
“Goddamnit,” was his reply.
As we all left my dorm room, the three of us reluctantly gave each other a group hug. We’re not the mushy, touchy-feely types, so this was the first time we’d ever done anything this sentimental. It was awkward and not great, but everything felt too serious for us to not do it. As we let go of each other, I saw the first tears I’d ever seen Mallory cry.
“I”m really sorry I can’t say more. I’m really, really sorry,” she said. All good, Mal.
And with that, Dinesh and I headed out on a nighttime trek towards a certain building.
–
We made our way through the nearly pitch-black, empty courtyard, towards a bunch of construction signs and scaffolding that suggested we were getting closer and closer to Williams Hall. Dinesh, continuing his research on his phone, was chiming in with some “fun facts” –
“This building’s been under construction for like over a decade… how?”
“It’s probably just an excuse,” I responded.
Past a collection of tools and barriers, we arrived at a side door to the building. To my surprise, it wasn’t locked.
We entered, using our cell-phone flashlights to maneuver through the dark. Past the scent of old wood and peeling wallpaper, in a hallway that I can best describe as “rickety”, a word that I’m aware doesn’t make sense in this context but is the only one that comes to mind -
We arrived at the foyer. The ceiling stretched high above us. We maneuvered around a wet spot on the floor reflecting back at us (probably a leaky pipe somewhere) as our phone lights illuminated the dusty engraving above us that read Faculty of Arts.
“Which way do you think we should head?” I asked as our lights spun around the room, taking in every inch of the once-bustling building. The beam from my cell phone cut through the air, creating a glow that illuminated relics around us: various seating areas that seemed carelessly assembled, abstract art installations that were now covered in grime, and a collection of aged plaques adorning the walls, preserving the wide smiles of professors and administrators of years past.
A sign off in the distance that read Final Exam Room caught my attention. I motioned to Dinesh and he followed.
With our footsteps across the marble floor of yet another hallway that had seen better days, we approached our destination. Along the way, we encountered empty classrooms on both sides of the large corridor. Our brief peeks into all of the rooms revealed perfect preservation and consistency: desks and chairs neatly arranged, and the boards in each room having only one simple message written on them:
REMINDER: FINAL EXAM - JUNE 8TH
“Does every class do their final exam on the same day?” I asked Dinesh.
He didn’t reply. He was drawn to the large doors at the end of the hallway. I flashed my light at the engraving above them -
FINAL EXAM ROOM / STUDENT BODY MEETING ROOM
Huh. Weird combination if ever I’d seen one.
“I feel like coming here was beyond stupid,” Dinesh said.
“Yep. But we’re here now.”
Dinesh shined his phone light on a small sign posted up beside the doors.
Final Exam Room
Most Recent: June 8, 2008
Next Exam: June 8, 2023
Don’t forget to study!!!
We froze up. The obvious question for both of us was why a seemingly abandoned and under-construction building would have a note about an upcoming final exam scheduled for just a few days from now… an exam taking place only half-way through the semester, mind you.
“Do we go in?” Dinesh asked.
I wasn’t voted “most inquisitive” in high school superlatives… because it wasn’t a category. If it was, I would’ve secured it, no competition. This whole thing had been nagging at me from the first couple of weeks. I needed to know what was going on.
“Yes. We go in.”
We opened the doors, revealing a large room with hundreds of desks, all perfectly spaced out from each other. It was an exam, after all.
The hall stretched far and long. As we inched our way in, a pungent smell flooded my senses - like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
I pointed my phone light from desk to desk as I walked on by, realizing why the abandoned room felt so “lively” to me from the second we opened the door.
Nearly all of the desks were occupied by the headless and decayed bodies of students seated upright. Hands on the table. Coats on the chair behind them. Bags under desks.
Before the shock of the sight could overtake us and force us to get the fuck out of there, the sound of footsteps from the other end of the large exam hall caused us to redirect our phone lights to the source of the sound.
A figure emerged from the shadows, dressed in attire that was unmistakably formal. His hands were clasped behind him, a posture of composure and control. A face that I hadn’t seen since my first week orientation. The Dean?
He addressed us.
“Gentlemen - the exam isn’t for a few days now. I suggest you get back to studying.”