Hide From Me

When I went to college I lived in an apartment in Washington, DC with a roommate. It was a studio apartment, sort of small but way larger than a normal dorm room. The building use to be a hotel when it was first built.

I use to travel back home during holidays or a weekend here and there. My roommate said she didn't like being in the apartment alone and neither did I. We both agreed that when we were alone it felt like someone was still in the room and sometimes even felt as if someone was looking at you. She would always try to find places to go whenever I was away.

On Thursdays I had a full day classes, I would be away from 9AM till 8PM, while my roommate only had 1 class to go to at 1PM. When I got back to apartment she was lying in her bed and jumped up and yelled, "How'd you open the door?!"

Confused, I just replied, "By opening it."

She said she went to go to her 1 o'clock class but she couldn't open the door. The knob would turn, it was unlocked, but she couldn't push it open. It was as if someone was leaning on it. She even tried to use a metal ruler as a crowbar to force it open. She called the front office and a person from the office came up and couldn't open the door either. I think they might of thought it was some sort of joke so they left her stuck there. She got herself all upset and scared, missed her class and hid under her covers until I came home.

There were marks on the door where she had used the ruler. I tried to get the door to get stuck for me but it wouldn't. Then she said something that gave me more chills - she said, "It hides from you when you are here." I asked what else had happened to her, but she would never tell me. I told her to call me if she ever got stuck again, that no matter where I was it was only 15 minutes away. She never got stuck in again that I know of.

The only thing I had happened to me was when we first moved in. I was alone and was setting some things up in the kitchen. I remember I put a carton of cigarettes in the cabinet, along with a bag of potato chips and other snacks. Not even an hour later I was still alone and wanted to open the carton of cigarettes, but they weren't in the cabinet. I couldn't blame anyone for taking them; no one was there but me. My stuff was still in boxes and everywhere there were piles of stuff I was putting away. I started to go through everything; I was getting angry that I couldn't find them because I swore I put them in the cabinet. So I yelled out loud to the empty room, "Give them back!", pretty much because I was about to give up. I went over to the bookshelf and started putting the pile of books away off the floor. Then I found the carton of cigarettes behind a few books that were already on the shelf.

"Thank you." I said to the empty room. At that time I just checked it off as me being tired and maybe somehow I moved them and forgot...maybe.

So needless to say we lived there until the semester was over and then went our separate ways.