Footsteps

Hey guys, I just finished my Freshman year of college, and had an experience that I think I should share. I've had multiple paranormal experiences, in my life, and will probably end up sharing those later, but right now I want to get this one off my chest.

I'd just like to say that I was not exactly in a good mental place when this had happened. I was stressed because of all the school work, I was rushing my fraternity at the time so I had to do a lot of stuff with them, and a girl that I was seeing had left me for another guy. The whole situation just left me feeling stressed, sleep deprived, and all together inadequate.

So, one night after doing something with my fraternity, I returned to my room in the freshman dorm. It wasn't late so I figured I'd help lighten my workload for later and finish edits on a paper. I finished around midnight, watched a few videos on YouTube and went to sleep. My roommate had left not long earlier to spend the night in his girlfriend's room. I was fine with this though, as I did like having the room to myself most nights. The exception being, that this wasn't like most nights.

I woke up, in the early hours of the morning. I noticed that my phone alarm wasn't blaring "Mulatto Butts", a custom alarm that I downloaded. (It's from Archer for those that don't know) I checked my phone. 3:15 am. I sighed and rolled my eyes. I still had around 6 hours until my morning class started.

I set my phone back down and tried to go back to sleep. But for some reason I just couldn't. Now, I had the feeling like I was tired, and I usually have no problem going back to sleep. I just laid their with my eyes closed, trying to fall asleep again.

I don't know when it started, but soon after, I started getting a strange feeling. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and was so jaring that I was almost shocked by it. I don't know if it was fear, hyper-awareness, or some sort of primal sense of danger that humans never lost from our hunter-gatherer days.

I lay their in my bed, terrified, my eyes wide open, and I had no idea why. That's when I began to listen. Everything was so quiet. Everyone else was asleep, and all that I had to break the agonizing silence was my fan. I didn't hear it at first, but eventually the sound of footsteps coming down my hall became clearer and clearer to me. They weren't normal footsteps like you'd expect from someone casually walking down the hall to go to the bathroom or something, rather they were slow, and shuffling, almost like an elderly person, or a zombie in films moving.

I didn't move, and I sat their listening intently as the footsteps got closer to my door. As they did get closer, I noticed that whoever was moving was also laughing lightly to themselves, as well as murmering something, as though they were having a quiet conversation with someone, and yet there were only one pair of feet moving.

By the time they got right around my door, I was terrified, thinking that they might be insane. I jumped from my bed and deadbolted my door. I know, stupid move, but I just wanted to make sure that whoever was out there couldn't get inside my room.

My blood went cold when I heard the footsteps stop right outside my door. Even the faint laughing and murmering went silent. I backed up slowly and grabbed my knife from my desk, just sitting there in my bed, staring at the door.

I know this whole thing might sound ridiculous, and it even does to me from an outside perspective, but to me, I just had this strange sense of absolute dread about this, and I couldn't explain why.

My fear grew worse as I heard who or whatever was outside my door began to move, laugh and talk to himself once again. Only this time, it sounded as though they were pacing around right in front of my door. I tried to listen to what they were saying, but I just couldn't seem to understand it.

By far the worst part for me was when I noticed that there was no light coming from underneath my door. The dorm has hallway lights that come on if they detect motion, and turn off when nothing moves for a long time. I heard the footsteps, and whatever it was talking to itself coming from what only could have been right outside of my door, and yet there was no light.

I stayed there, looking terrified at the door for hours, right up until the sun came up. At the first cracks of dawn, it just all stopped. I didn't care though, I must have waited for half an hour before I felt safe enough. I had a full bladder after all, and the urge to pee certainly helped me overcome whatever lingering fear I had left.

When I opened my door however, I gasped, and jumped back. The hall bulletin board is right in front of my door, and usually has a bunch of paper notices and stuff stapled to it, but when I went out of my dorm, every single piece of paper was ripped off of it, torn to shreds, and littered around my door.

I've never really spoken to anyone else about what happened that night, I guess half afraid that people would just think I was paranoid. The one thing that I did do was ask my buddy Alex, who has insomnia and lives right across from me, if he heard anything that night.

"Yeah, I think so. I remember hearing someone walking down part of the hall. I think he was talking to himself too."