MYSTERY BEHIND THE HALLWAY
Chapter Two: The Folded Lab Coat
The early morning sun filtered weakly through the dusty louvre windows of Awolowo Hall as Dara Ajayi stirred awake, her face damp with sweat. The air in their cramped room was humid, heavy with a staleness that hinted at another day without rain. Zainab lay sprawled across the opposite bunk, one leg dangling and snoring softly. The power had gone off sometime in the middle of the night again, and the rechargeable fan Dara depended on had long died.
Despite the heat, Dara's thoughts were cold and restless. Ifeanyi's name kept bouncing around her head like a stubborn fly. Genius Ifeanyi. The guy who was always sitting alone at the library's back table, sketching cell diagrams and scribbling notes with a left hand that moved like a machine. Gone. No trace, no whisper, no official notice.
The last thing anyone heard: he had borrowed a lab coat.
By 9:00 a.m., Dara was halfway through a watery bowl of pap in the cafeteria. The background noise of students bantering and staff clanging cutlery against steel trays did little to distract her. Her phone buzzed. A message from Uche.
UCHE (8:57 a.m.)
*"That hallway's CCTV loops. Every night, same exact footage. It's not just a glitch, Dara. Someone—or something—is editing time."
She stared at the message for a long time before closing it and locking her phone. Her hands trembled slightly. Not from fear—at least that's what she told herself—but from the sudden certainty that things were about to spiral. Quickly.
That afternoon, she returned to the Department of Microbiology's South Block. The air was thick with humidity, and the scent of old wood and detergent clung to the walls. The echo of her sandals tapped softly as she walked down the first floor, where a few students crowded by notice boards and lockers. The hallway—the one Ifeanyi had last been seen entering—lay just beyond the bend.
That cursed hallway, she thought.
She stopped in front of the janitor's closet where Ifeanyi supposedly borrowed the lab coat. She knocked once.
No answer.
She pushed the door open. The familiar scent of bleach and mothballs slapped her in the face. The room was dim, lit only by a dusty overhead bulb that flickered weakly. Brooms leaned against the walls like sleeping sentries. Buckets. Mops. And there—on a rusty iron hook—hung a single white lab coat.
She stepped in slowly.
The coat looked too clean. New, even. Not the type Ifeanyi would have used weeks ago. She was about to turn when something caught her eye behind a mop bucket.
Folded.
Pressed tightly into a corner.
A second lab coat—bloodstained.
Her heart stopped.
She picked it up slowly, her fingers trembling. The inside of the coat had a faded name tag scribbled in blue ink:
"NNAJI, I. — MBG/19/017"
Ifeanyi.
She nearly dropped it. The blood was dark and crusted along the sleeve, like it had dried weeks ago. She took two steps back before bolting out of the room, her heart pounding in her ears.
Later that evening, she found the security guard sitting in his usual post beside the South Block gate—an elderly man with a weathered face and a permanent frown etched by years of ignoring nonsense.
"Uncle Sunday," she called, her voice steady.
He glanced at her over his glasses.
"Ehen? Dara abi? Wetin you dey find for this place by this time?"
"I want to ask you something, sir. About Ifeanyi Nnaji."
He sucked his teeth. "I tell una say I no dey talk about that boy again."
"Please, sir. Just—was he here the night he disappeared? Did you see him go into the hallway?"
Sunday sighed and scratched his bald head. He looked around as though afraid of being overheard. "That boy… Him too dey stubborn. Come meet me dat night say he wan collect key. Say he forget lab manual inside Lab 3. Time don pass eleven sef. I tell am make he wait till morning. He beg me." His voice lowered. "Na so I give am key."
"And then?"
"I see am waka enter. But…" Sunday's face twitched. "I no see am come out."
Dara leaned forward. "You didn't go check?"
"I check o! But the hallway light don off. Everything dark like inside coffin. And I swear, I hear sound like person dey whisper. I no go lie. Fear catch me. I lock up."
She took a deep breath. "But no one believes you."
"Because them dey mad." He leaned close. "Una think say na every spirit dey make noise? Some spirits dey patient. Them dey watch."
Back in her room, Zainab was plucking her eyebrows in front of a small hand mirror.
"You've been acting weird," she said without looking up. "You didn't come back for lunch. Uche messaged me asking if you're okay."
"Zee… I saw Ifeanyi's lab coat. With blood on it."
Zainab's brow arched. "Blood? Dara, seriously? Maybe it was fake. Or rust. Or ketchup. These boys like pranking."
"He never came out of that hallway. And Uncle Sunday said he heard whispers."
Zainab dropped the mirror. "Okay, enough. You're sounding like those Year One girls in Block A who believe in mermaids."
Dara opened her bag and pulled out the folded coat. "Is this ketchup?"
Zainab took one look, went pale, and didn't answer.
The next day, Dara cornered Tolu in front of the Science Faculty building. Tolu was her seatmate, often sarcastic and annoyingly logical.
"This sounds like a Netflix series gone wrong," Tolu muttered after hearing the full story.
"Can you come with me? Just tonight. I want to check that hallway. I need a second opinion."
Tolu rolled her eyes. "If I die, I'm haunting your GPA."
That night, the two girls returned to the South Block. They waited until 11:30 p.m., hiding in the shadows between two concrete pillars. Dara had managed to borrow the same janitor's key.
The corridor was silent.
The lights were already off.
Dara turned the key and pushed the door. The hallway yawned open in front of them like a waiting throat. The walls were slick with condensation, the air oddly frigid.
Tolu shivered. "Why is it cold? It's like 30 degrees outside."
Dara switched on her phone's flashlight. They stepped in.
They passed Labs 1 and 2. Nothing.
Then something crunched under Tolu's foot.
She bent down. A tile had cracked slightly under her heel.
Dara helped lift the broken piece.
Underneath: an old timetable, folded and damp. Streaks of what looked like dried blood stained the edges.
The courses listed were strange—classes no longer in the school system. Some dates belonged to 1992. Others to 1978. But most terrifying of all—under "Midnight Practical (MBG 412)"—a list of names.
Dara's was at the bottom.
To be continued...