The blue flashing lights of the ambulance lit up my room for a few seconds as the ambulance carrying Olivia drove past my dorm hall. The dormitory hall supervisors had been quickly woken after the whole even had taken place. Olivia’s screaming had not only woken up the people sleeping on this floor, but the floor above and the floor below as well. A few minutes after Olivia had gone catatonic the whole dorm floor had been invaded by several dozen people who had all been horrified by the sight of Olivia’s broken arm.
When the dormitory hall supervisors finally arrived after being called, an ambulance had already been called and Olivia’s parents notified. Although no one knew exactly knew what had happened to Olivia. She had been the only one peeking through my bedroom door and no one else had seen what had frightened her. When the supervisors and paramedics asked her what had happened Olivia had been unresponsive. After that the supervisors drifted from person to person trying to establish what had happened to Olivia but no one knew… well no one except me.
The entity that had been standing in my bathroom had slammed the door with Olivia’s arm in it. It was that thing which had broken the bone in Olivia’s arm like a twig. That horrible sound of the moment her bone snapped replayed itself in my head, over and over. My stomach churned uneasily and I tried to swallow down whatever sickness I was feeling.
I couldn’t throw up here. If I threw up then everyone would see what I had for dinner- a pint of A-negative blood. I needed to get out of here. There was no way I was going to spend the rest of the night in this room.
I walked over to my bed and slipped my hand under the pillow. I wrapped my fingers around the cell phone and pulled it out. I pressed the wake up button and was surprised to see that my phone was flat. A shiver ran down my spine as I realised whatever had been standing in my bathroom earlier had managed to drain eight hours of battery life out of my phone.
I crossed my room and connected the phone to the charger on my desk. In a few minutes when my phone had enough battery to function I would call Caspar. Until then I would have to sit tight and focus on anything other than that awful sound.
There was a soft knock on my bedroom door and one the dormitory hall supervisors called Mark poked his head through and asked, “Am I okay to come in?”
I replied with a nod and Mark walked into my bedroom. He scanned my bedroom and then paused to point towards my bathroom doorway and the pile of wood on my floor.
Before I could answer his question my bedroom door was flung open and Caspar strode in wearing jeans and hoodie. The sickening fear in my gut evaporated and silently I thanked God. Caspar locked eyes on me and I could see the worry etched into his expression. He ignored Mark and crossed the room to where I stood and placed his hands either side of my face.
“Are you okay?” He asked me softly.
I nodded my head weakly at him, “I’m okay.”
His thumb caressed the side of my cheek as I spoke, and I could feel the tension and anxiety melting away. I leaned my head into his hand and watched him respond with a frustrated but relieved sigh.
“Thank fuck,” He whispered harshly before pressing an urgent kiss onto my forehead.
I closed my eyes savouring the brief intimacy between us and felt bereft when he pulled away from me to face Mark the dormitory hall supervisor.
“The bathroom door was my fault,” Caspar explained, “Hazel had hit her head in the shower and I needed to get to her in a hurry so I broke down the bathroom door.”
Mark regarded Caspar with derisive stare and replied, “And what was a lecturer doing in a student’s room?”
Caspar looked at me and said, “Hazel is my wife.”
If my jaw could drop open like cartoon it would have. Caspar slipped his hand into mine and pulled me to his side.
“We got married over summer and it was pure coincidence that I was asked to cover for one of Hazel’s seminar tutors. Of course once I realised the problem I spoke to the head of department immediately who advised us to discretely hide our relationship from the other students,” Caspar explained.
Mark folded his arms and said, “I will need to check with the head of department and the dean that your story is true- but it still does not explain how Olivia Macadam’s arm ended up getting broken in your wife’s bedroom.”
Caspar suddenly stiffened and growled, “What exactly are you insinuating?”
“The people who were with Olivia at the time of the incident said that they felt someone pushing against the door, trying to force it shut on Olivia’s arm,” Mark said.
“And you think it was Hazel,” Caspar replied.
“Well she was the only person in the room at the time, and from what I heard things between Hazel and Olivia were not exactly rosy,” Mark said.
I shook my head, horrified by the accusation that was laid against me.
“No, that isn’t true- I tried to help Olivia … I was the one who opened the door,” I tried to explain.
Mark raised a cynical eyebrow and asked, “Then who slammed the door shut on Olivia’s arm- the door must have been forced shut from the inside.”
I opened my mouth to reply but stopped myself.
There was no way I could explain to them what I had seen. There was no way that they would believe me if I told them that some sort of entity had been in my bathroom and that it had sucked the warmth and electricity from my room, then viciously attacked Olivia.
“I don’t know,” I eventually whispered.
Caspar’s hand tightened its grip around mine and he said, “That is a ridiculous accusation. Hazel is just one girl, how could she possible have enough strength to slam the bedroom door shut with the kind of force that would break bones. There were half a dozen people on the other side fighting to push the door open – and you are telling me that Hazel was strong enough to hold that door shut all by herself?”
Mark hesitated momentarily and replied, “I don’t know what exactly happened Mr. Reagan, but what I do know that the only person in this bedroom at the time Olivia Macadam’s arm was broken was Hazel.”
The feeling of bile was rising up into my throat because I knew logically that it made sense to blame me. I was the one who had been in the bedroom when Olivia’s arm was snapped in two. There was no way I could tell this person about the thing in bathroom. I didn’t even know if I could tell Caspar about what had truly happened in case it was something ghostly.
What if my ability had caused Olivia’s arm to be broken- what if I had summoned some kind of ghost?