By Jasmine Chin Jie Ming

First off, I am not about to throw some shade on this university. For legal purposes, this is fiction. That being said, I am about to tell you about the most haunted encounter I’ve had with this place.

It was the first week after my first semester had ended. As per usual, I went to the classroom with my friend, Kyra. We’ve known each other even before the first semester, during HELP’s Prep course; a pre-foundation program. (Not paid to do this, but the Prep Course is really good for students who want a glimpse of what foundation is. I also got to make a lot of friends before starting college so I highly recommend it.) You know the drill, I was the noisy friend, while she was the quiet one. We just naturally stuck around to each other throughout the semester because of how well we clicked. We were “besties”, as people would call us.

That day, Kyra was really anxious about face-to-face classes since we’ve always been doing online classes. We were standing outside the classroom, waiting for the previous class to end. I tried to enlighten the mood by asking her, “Ky, is my fit okay today? Something about my leggings paired with Vans is bothering me.”

She was on her phone with her AirPods, completely ignoring me, she said “I need to go to the toilet. You wanna come?”

I shook my head and said, “Nah you go ahead, class is starting soon, I don’t wanna be late, I heard Ms. Yong is super strict.”

I watched her back as she hurriedly left for the toilet, and that was the last time I had seen her.

Since then, I can’t count how many times I wish I went to the toilet with her. I still remember vividly; what it was like when I stepped into the toilet.

I was already in class, and Ms. Yong kept asking where Kyra went. I was ringing her phone non-stop but nobody picked up. Then all of a sudden, my phone rang, it was Kyra. I felt a sense of relief, but it was a random man who picked up, “Hello, Ms. Jasmine? You’re the last person our Jane Doe tried to call. Please come to the toilet as soon as possible. Your friend is missing.”

My jaw dropped, and I was trembling in fear. I quickly went up to Ms. Yong to be excused for an emergency. She didn’t put on her best expression, but I could tell she sensed my urgency and allowed me to leave the classroom.

I arrived at the toilet panting, from all that running (I hate cardio). I saw what was in the toilet, and suddenly my world started crumbling down. My knees became wobbly, and I had fell down on my knees at the toilet entrance. There was a pool of blood, the smell stank like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. Something really weird was that all the doors of each toilet were locked, but no one was inside. The tap water was all running non-stop, and the maintenance guy was standing by the side, looking so weirded out about the whole situation. But the worst thing of all, was the fact that Kyra wasn’t anywhere to be found. Actually no, given the situation, it made me glad that Kyra was missing, instead of seeing her dead body there. By the time I had tried to process everything, the police and Kyra’s parents had already arrived. I answered some questions for the police to file an official report and left home early.

Of course, like any sane person would, I couldn’t sleep that night. Thinking of my friend who had gone missing, and regretting not telling her how much I appreciated her existence. All of it was too late, and it felt like my life without Kyra would never be the same anymore.

Rumour has it, she was taken by a friendly janitor who died there. Some say the poor lady was abused by her husband, and died over-bleeding due to a severe head trauma. But it was old news, and people forgot about the incident. The school even renovated the whole place to make it look less eery.

It had been months since that incident, and I was devastated but not enough to give up just yet. Just like any horror movies we’ve all watched; I was actually dumb enough to go back to the toilet to look for answers because I wasn’t about to let my bestie vanish into thin air without any efforts of looking for her.

It was dark outside, I somehow managed to convince the security to let me in and go look for my “lost keys” in the toilet with me. Guess you could say I’m quite persuasive.

As I was pretending to look for my keys with the security guard, I saw a reflection in the mirror, and my face turned blue. I would’ve sworn on my grandmother’s grave that I saw Kyra for a split second. I smiled at the security guard and told him I found my keys. I then quickly hailed a Grab and rushed home.

I never went back to the same toilet ever again, and thank God we had to continue the semester via online classes, because what I saw that day wasn’t Kyra. It was another woman crying at her side, while she mouthed the words ever so softly – “help me.”