MYSTERY BEHIND THE HALLWAY
Chapter 3A: Block B Whispers
The whispers started before the dusk of mid-semester arrived. A hush carried in the wind that rolled through the ancient concrete ribs of Block B. The kind of wind that carried tales on its back. Tales that were too ridiculous to be true, and too chilling to ignore.
Dara first noticed it on a Tuesday, during one of those long, dragging lectures in MCB 301. The murmurs came not from the students around her but from somewhere outside the window, just beyond the classroom's cracked louvre panes. She had been half-listening to the lecturer drone about bacterial genetics when she caught a soft voice—her name, spoken low, with uncanny precision.
"Dara..."
She turned. No one.
Outside, the familiar cracked pavement of Block B stretched lazily into the usual patch of heat haze. But in the corner where the Anatomy corridor began, there was a strange ripple in the air. A shadow that didn't belong.
She shook it off.
By now, she was used to feeling strange.
At that evening, the air was heavier. Dara and Zainab sat on their hostel bed, both girls cross-legged, faces lit by the glow of Zainab's phone. Dara was pretending to scroll through Instagram, but her mind remained in the hallway. On Ifeanyi. On the name she saw etched into the ID card. On the bloodstained timetable folded beneath a cracked tile.
"I swear, if you keep acting like this, people will start calling you Hallway Girl," Zainab muttered. She wasn't joking entirely. The playful tone barely masked her concern.
"I know what I heard, Zee. I heard my own voice. From that hallway."
Zainab put her phone down. "Maybe you're hearing echoes. You've barely slept. When was the last time you didn't come home clutching a lab coat or files with red ink scribbled all over them?"
Dara sighed, resting her head back against the wall. "This isn't just stress. It's something... off. The way it calls. The way it sounds exactly like me."
"Well, maybe you're haunting yourself."
That was Zainab's way of making light of it. But even her sarcasm was starting to wear thin.
Two nights later, the whispers came back. This time, louder.
Dara was in the library, tucked into a back corner of the science wing. The lights above her flickered twice—a pattern she'd started keeping track of. A warning. She looked up sharply. The room was silent except for the humming of the overhead fan.
Then:
"Dara... come here..."
She snapped her head around.
It wasn't spoken aloud. It had crawled into her mind like a thought that didn't belong to her. A psychic pressure. The air cooled. Bookshelves trembled. And her phone buzzed.
Unknown Number: "Are you ready for your practical? ANA 204. Attendance is required."
She dropped her phone. When she picked it up, the message was gone.
That weekend, the whispers spread across the student body like a cold. At Bukateria, during lunch, Dara overheard a group of Anatomy students giggling nervously.
"No, for real. A girl in the 200 set said she saw someone peeking at her from the hallway mirror. Looked like her twin. Except the twin had no eyes."
"Ehn! Was it at night?"
"Yeah. Around 11. After her Anatomy lab. She ran home, crying."
"I heard it's the ghost of one Dr. Ikudaisi—an old student who died during dissection practice. They say he walks the corridor, still looking for the rest of his body."
Dara swallowed. There it was again. The same pattern: night, mirrors, body doubles. The hallway was no longer just a dark joke. It was creeping into everyone's mouth. Becoming folklore.
And folklore always held a kernel of truth.
That night, back in the hostel, Dara lay awake staring at the ceiling. Zainab was snoring softly beside her. 11:45PM. Dara couldn't sleep.
The hallway was waiting.
Her curiosity, always her weakness, pulled her up from bed. She slipped into her jeans and lab coat, grabbed her phone and a torchlight, and tiptoed out.
The walk to the Faculty of Science was both familiar and sinister under the moonlight. Every building loomed larger, more ancient. As she neared the Anatomy corridor, her torchlight began to flicker—no, not flicker… it dimmed, like something was draining it.
She reached the hallway.
Silence. Total.
Then—
"Dara."
She spun.
Her voice. Exactly her tone. Her inflection. But coming from the far end of the corridor. It wasn't an echo.
"Who's there?!"
No reply.
Her feet moved before her brain did. Down the hallway, one step at a time. The light grew colder. Her breath puffed into fog. Her torchlight went out entirely. The only sound was the tapping of her heartbeat in her ears.
Then she heard it again.
"Dara. I'm waiting."
A silhouette stood at the end.
It looked like her.
Lab coat. Same height. Same hair. Same shoes.
But the face… the face was wrong. Blurred. Melting.
And the eyes—two hollow sockets bleeding ink.
Dara screamed and stumbled backward, bolting into the open night air. Her chest heaved. The figure didn't follow. It just stood there, grinning with no mouth.
She didn't stop running until she got back to her hostel
Zainab was waiting at the door, wide awake. "Where did you go? I woke up and you were gone."
Dara could barely speak. "It spoke. It used my voice. It was ME. But not me."
Zainab's face went pale. "I had a dream. You were in the hallway, and… someone was dissecting you. Smiling. I couldn't wake up."
Silence.
They both realized something in that moment—this wasn't just about Ifeanyi. This wasn't even about the hallway anymore. It was about identity. The self. Something… someone was trying to replace them.
And it had already started.
To be continued...