Tower Spirit

I am a brand new college student and life couldn't be better. I am learning so much and meeting so many new and exciting people, but last night was horrible.

I recently met this very nice guy and because we both have to study so much the only time we can realy hang out together is late at night.

Last night I called him at about midnight and asked him if he wanted to come on a walk with me.

Our campus is beautiful at night. I love how vast and empty it is and I love to go exploring. So, he met me in front of the main building called the tower. We walked around near the drama building just chatting. Time realy flew because when I looked up at the clock on the tower it was nearly four am. We decided that we both better get to bed.

Because he is a nice guy he always walks me to my dorm. As we were crossing in front of the tower on our way back, I just happened to glance up at a building right next to the tower mall. I stopped talking mid-sentence. In one of the windows was a obvious figure staring out at us. He instantly looked up and said "oh, my God" then we just kept walking (a little faster). Once we got out of view of that window I said I needed to sit down and collect myself. We sat on a bench across the mall from the main building and started to laugh about how silly we were.

We realized that the figure could have been anything. As we sat there we started talking again. We sat there for a long time enveloped in each other. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow pass in the mall between the tower and our bench. The figure looked like someone running across the mall. My first thought was who was late to a class this early in the morning. But, when I turned to look I realized no one elese was anywhere near by.

I casually turned to my friend and told him we needed to leave (I was trying to play it cool). We hurried home and I didn't mention anything. He hugged me goodnight and started to walk away but then he turned around and said "why did you wanna leave the mall just then?". I told him what I had seen and he calmly told me that he had been hearing very soft random screams the whole time we were on the bench talking, but that he hadn't said anything because he didn't want to scare me.

I went up to my room and got a short nights sleep. In the morning I had pretty much forgotten about the whole thing. But, today as I was crossing in front of the tower I realized that I go to the University of Texas where there was a mass shooting in the 60's or 70's. A guy climbed up to the top of the tower and started shooting people on campus. Many people died right where I was sitting last night.

I don't think I will go on many more late night strolls around campus.