I’m posting this because I don’t know who else to tell. My friends think I’m just tired, stressed, or having another one of my breakdowns—but I know what I saw.

This happened last Monday, around 7:45 p.m.. I’m a fourth-year Psychology major at FEU Manila, and it was one of those Manila nights where the air just felt unreal. I was running late, half-asleep from my clinical internship earlier that day, closer to a zombie than a 20-something-year-old.

I entered the Science Building up the stairs that led straight to the second floor. The halls were quiet, a little too quiet. Usually, you’d still hear footsteps, laughter, or the occasional firetruck passing by. But that night, only the hum of the fluorescent lights accompanied me. I hardly noticed, anyway; my mind was stuck between yearning for rest and worrying about my thesis.

I barely paid any mind to the short flight of stairs near the end of the corridor. You know, the one that leads nowhere? Everyone jokes about it: the stairs every freshie climbs, thinking it’ll lead them to the third floor. Stuff like that. I’ve passed it a hundred times. No one really cared about it, just another one of FEU’s many peculiar architectures.

And for some reason, I didn’t even really think—I just started climbing.

It was only a couple steps up before I hit the wall. Dead end, right? But when I blinked, the wall wasn’t there anymore. The stairwell looked longer. The light overhead was flickering and the tiles had turned a darker shade—brownish, like dried blood under fluorescent lights. I swear I heard something breathing above me.

I thought that maybe I was hallucinating, that studying for Course Audit 1 was finally getting to my sanity. So I turned around to retrace my steps, but when I looked down, the hallway was… different. Dimmer. The lights looked older, yellowed with age. There were no doors or bulletin boards. Just a long, empty corridor stretching into nowhere.

And then, I heard footsteps. Slow. Heavy. Coming down the stairs.

I couldn’t move. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my body felt like it was underwater. The breathing grew closer—ragged, wet. The smell of something rotting hit my nose, the primal urge to throw up racking my body. It smelled of meat and sickly sweet fruits left to fester in a lake.

Then something touched my shoulder. Cold. Heavy. Long.

In a panic, I turned around.

There was no one there.

I don’t remember running, but I ended up outside the building, gasping and close to tears. My phone said 9:47 p.m. My friends kept asking where I went, why I never came to class. I’ve been in a dissociative state ever since, trying to make sense of what it all meant.

And now, I avoid passing through the second floor because the moment I do, the double doors to Room 201, the ones by those same stairs, rattle. Like something inside is trying to get out.

So, if you’re reading this and you have evening classes in that building, do not go up those stairs.

I don’t think it leads nowhere. I think it leads somewhere you’re not supposed to come back from.

• Beatrice Diane D. Bartolome

(Illustration by Elysse Nicole Duller/FEU Advocate)