The Dormitory's Short Ghost's Lethal Illusion

The sun had barely risen over the campus, casting a faint glow through the dormitory's grimy windows. Inside, a group of students, each with their own stories and dreams, were waking up to a new day. But for a select few, today would be their last.

It all started with a whisper, a faint voice echoing through the halls. "You can't escape me," it seemed to say, though no one was there to be heard. The students dismissed it as a figment of their overactive imaginations, but as the day wore on, strange occurrences began to pile up.

Mid-morning, Xiao Li, a physics major, noticed something peculiar. The time on his digital watch was stuck at 11:59 AM, no matter how many times he reset it. His heart raced as he realized the time had stopped precisely when the whisper had been heard. He shared his discovery with his roommates, and they, too, found their watches frozen at the same moment.

By lunchtime, the whispers had become more insistent, louder, and more haunting. "You're not alone," they heard, their voices trembling with fear. Xiao Li's roommates, Li Wei and Liu Na, became increasingly paranoid. They decided to investigate the source of the whispers, but their search led them to an old, abandoned storage room at the end of the hall.

Inside the storage room, they found a dusty, cracked mirror. As Liu Na reached out to touch it, a sudden chill ran down her spine. She gasped and stepped back, but it was too late. The mirror began to glow with an eerie, otherworldly light. The whispers grew louder, more desperate.

Xiao Li, driven by a sense of duty and curiosity, approached the mirror. "What is this?" he demanded, his voice barely above a whisper. The mirror's glow intensified, and a figure began to materialize within its depths. It was a woman, her eyes hollow and her skin translucent. She looked directly at Xiao Li, her lips moving silently.

"Leave," she hissed. "Leave before it's too late."

Li Wei and Liu Na, seeing the danger, tried to pull Xiao Li away, but the figure in the mirror was now reaching out, its fingers trailing across Xiao Li's face. Suddenly, Xiao Li's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the ground. The roommates, now terrified, watched as the figure in the mirror vanished, leaving Xiao Li's lifeless form behind.

As the hours passed, more students began to fall victim to the mysterious illusion. They saw the ghostly woman in the mirror, her eyes full of malice, and felt an inexplicable urge to follow her. Some students, driven by curiosity, dared to confront her, only to be met with the same fate as Xiao Li.

The campus was in an uproar. Students whispered about the ghost, their stories growing more bizarre and terrifying with each retelling. The administration, desperate to contain the panic, sealed off the dormitory and began an investigation. They brought in experts, but no one could explain the phenomenon.

Days turned into weeks, and the students who had entered the dormitory to confront the ghost began to disappear one by one. The campus was now a ghost town, with only the occasional sight of a maintenance worker or a security guard.

Then, a new student arrived. He was an outsider, someone who had never been to the campus before. He moved into the dormitory, unaware of the terror that had befallen the building. One night, as he was studying in his room, he heard a faint whisper.

"You can't escape me," the voice seemed to say, echoing through the empty halls. The student ignored it, but as he continued to study, he noticed his watch had stopped at 11:59 AM. He knew then that he had stumbled upon the same fate as the others.

He decided to investigate, hoping to uncover the truth behind the ghost. He searched the dormitory, eventually finding the storage room and the cracked mirror. As he approached it, the ghostly woman appeared, her eyes filled with sorrow and regret.

"You're not the first," she said, her voice breaking. "I was trapped here, and I couldn't escape. I needed someone to help me break the curse."

The student, filled with a sense of duty and compassion, reached out to touch the mirror. The ghostly woman's eyes lit up with hope, and she began to speak, her voice echoing through the room.

"I was once a student here, like you. I fell in love with a professor, and he betrayed me. He used his power to trap me in this mirror, and I've been trapped ever since. I need your help to break the curse."

The student, now determined to free the ghost, asked, "How can I help you?"

The ghost explained that the mirror was a portal to another dimension, a realm where she had been trapped for decades. She needed someone to break the mirror, allowing her to return to her own world.

The student, with the ghost's guidance, began to search for a way to break the mirror. He discovered that the key to breaking the curse was a rare, ancient artifact hidden somewhere on campus. With the help of the ghost, he managed to find the artifact, a small, ornate box.

As he placed the box in the mirror, the ghost's form began to fade. "Thank you," she whispered. "You have freed me from this curse. Go back to your world, and tell others about my story."

The student watched as the ghost completely vanished, leaving the mirror empty. He then turned to the mirror, his hand trembling as he reached out to touch it. To his surprise, the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, and the image of the dormitory outside appeared.

He had broken the curse, and the dormitory was no longer haunted. The students returned, and life on campus slowly returned to normal. The student, now a hero, shared his story with everyone, and the dormitory's dark past was finally laid to rest.

The Dormitory's Short Ghost's Lethal Illusion had come to an end, but its legacy lived on. The students who had once been trapped by the ghost now lived their lives with a sense of purpose and hope, knowing that they had freed a spirit from its eternal prison.