Hayley -
The cold darkness of the room felt suffocating, like a weight pressing on Hayley’s chest. Her breath was shallow, panic rising as her eyes tried to focus. She couldn’t move. Not an inch. Her body was frozen in place.
And then, she heard it.
The soft whisper of hair dragging across the floor, like something alive, something waiting.
A figure appeared in the corner of the room. At first, it was just a shadow, shifting and undulating. But then, Hayley saw it fully. The woman.
Her long black hair hung in a tangle of impossible motion, as though caught in an unseen wind, flowing and dragging behind her like a cloak of night. The hair obscured her face, scribbled lines twisting and shifting beneath the strands, as though the face itself was a scribbled mess, too distorted to be seen.
The woman’s form was draped in a white silk frock that shimmered faintly in the dim, suffocating light. It was stained with dark red, and as the figure inched closer, Hayley could smell the faint scent of decay, of something wrong. The woman stood motionless, not facing Hayley but staring at the wall beside her, as if there was something there—something only she could see.
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A voice, a whisper, broke the silence. Gibberish. Words Hayley couldn’t understand, barely even hear. A language from another world, or perhaps from nowhere at all. The words felt like they didn’t belong to this realm.
The ghost’s head turned, the hair swaying in unnatural movements, and for a brief moment, Hayley caught a glimpse of the face—or the lack of one. The scribbles twisted, and the darkness that was supposed to be a face filled her with an unspeakable dread.
The woman’s lips parted, and in a voice so soft, so distant, she spoke. "Sssshhh... no...."
It was all Hayley could hear. Three words, too soft and strange to grasp. But they were enough to send a shiver down her spine.
The woman’s hair whipped violently in the air as she stepped closer, her presence colder with each movement. Then, just as quickly, the figure turned and drifted toward the door, vanishing into the shadows of the room.
And just like that, the nightmare was over.
Hayley woke with a jolt, gasping for breath, the cold sweat soaking through her clothes. Her heart thundered in her chest, and she felt the familiar weight of dread that always lingered after these dreams.
The room was quiet. Her dorm room, with its mismatched furniture and posters on the walls. Nothing out of place. But the unease… the ghost in white had been there again, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed.
She rubbed her eyes, trying to push the dream away. It was the same as always, the same figure, the same nightmare, but today it felt different. Hayley glanced at the clock. 8:45 AM.
Late again.
She scrambled out of bed, shaking off the lingering unease. But no matter how fast she moved, she couldn’t outrun the sensation of those eyes staring at her—of the woman in white who had been a part of her dreams since she was a child. Every time, the same.
What does she want? Hayley thought, trying to make sense of it. But it never made sense.
With a sigh, she grabbed her bag and rushed out of the dorm, pushing the nightmare into the back of her mind, even though she knew it was just the beginning.