Chapter 3
Jessica was the first to say it out loud.
“Were we too harsh?”
But Reilly immediately shot back, “Too harsh? Wait until she splits your skull open and see if you still think it’s too harsh.”
Despite her cute face, Reilly had a fiery personality. Her words erased any guilt I had been feeling.
The four of us were not even in the same major, so after Madison moved upstairs, we naturally drifted apart. We barely saw her for the next few days.
Then, three days later, before dawn, a bloodcurdling scream ripped through the dorm building.
We all woke with a start.
“Who the hell is screaming this early?” Reilly grumbled as she climbed out of bed, clearly furious from lack of sleep.
Jessica rubbed her eyes and grabbed her phone. “It’s not even six yet. What the—ah!”
She nearly slipped climbing down from the top bunk.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Jessica stared at her phone, her hands shaking. “I just saw in our business school group chat that someone died in our dorm building.”
“What?” Reilly and I both went pale.
Reilly stepped closer. “Which room? How did they die?”
Jessica looked down at the screen again, then her face turned even whiter.
“It’s on the floor right above us,” she whispered, looking up as if she could already feel something pressing down from the ceiling. “They said the victim had a fatal head injury. And… they said it was in a really disturbing way.”
The room fell into dead silence.
Because all three of us thought the same thing.
Madison.
After a long pause, I finally spoke, my voice trembling. “It… it couldn’t be Madison, right? She said she locked her door and blocked it with stuff.”
Reilly answered coldly, “I’ve seen movies where sleepwalkers can unlock doors by themselves. Some of them can even ride bikes.”
Silence filled the room again.
Then Jessica forced out a nervous laugh. “Come on. Let’s not scare ourselves. Whoever the killer is, that’s for the police to figure out.”
Reilly and I nodded, but none of us looked convinced.