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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Theeaglestrikes on 2024-10-18 14:44:33+00:00.

You might be shouting, “They’re just pranking you, dude!”

That was what I thought when I first arrived.

One hour later, I’m boxed in an en-suite with nothing at my disposal but weak phone reception and weaker ideas. I’ll make this post brief, as I very much doubt I have a lot of time before the bathroom door parts with the frame. Before the formless man makes his way in here. I’ve already seen him do things that defy explanation.

I’m praying that one of you knows how to save me. Please.

“Aston!” Jack joyously announced, greeting me at the door with open arms.

He was the only person I knew at the party, but most of the faces in that common room were familiar. I joined a tightly-packed cluster of students by the kitchen counter. A circle of ten people, once Jack and I had joined the group — ten people to my eyes, anyway. I know that because I counted each of us again, again, and again. I wanted to ensure that I hadn’t lost my mind after Jack introduced an invisible eleventh person wedged between Alexandra and Teagan.

“And that’s Lucas,” he said.

Still, after twenty or thirty minutes of conversation, I’d forgotten about my friend’s gesture towards the empty spot — dismissed it as an odd moment. And I summoned the courage to make conversation with Teagan.

“So why did you choose Law?” I asked her.

Teagan smiled. “Overbearing parents. Dad said I’d be putting my brain to waste if I were to take Journalism. But I’m not planning on becoming a lawyer, so I’d call this a bigger waste of time.”

“Shit,” I said. “That sucks.”

She shrugged.

“What about you?” I asked the other girl.

Alex answered, “Well, unlike Teegs, I do want to be a lawyer, but… Ah, my story’s boring. You should hear why Lucas has taken this course.”

Then the other visible people in the circle all turned to face that gap between Alexandra and Teagan. Once more, I was left dumbfounded.

Sure, I’m aware that we’re all still young and immature — everyone at this party is a first-year university student, after all. But we hardly know each other. This is a socialising event for freshers. A mixer. Whatever you want to call it. And I doubt that so many people would be this cruel.

Why would a group of fifty-something Law students collaborate to torment, at random, a stranger named Aston? It’s not as if I’ve done anything to warrant such mistreatment. We’ve only been studying here for a little over a month, and I’ve been sitting quietly in lectures.

Those were the thoughts coursing through my mind in a simultaneous jumble as the other visible folk listened to a silent story. Listened and laughed as an unseen person told them something. Something that they all heard, but I did not.

“He cracks me up,” Jack whispered to me as members of the group had a one-way conversation with air.

I nodded my head slowly, unsure as to what I should say. I must’ve turned a ghostly shade because my friend frowned at me.

“You all right, man?” he asked. “You’re usually a bit cheerier than this. Too much pre-drinking before we arrived?”

I cleared my throat, speaking quietly whilst the others communed with a ghost. “I don’t understand this ‘Lucas’ thing. Is it a game?”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Fucking hell, Aston. You really are wasted. Maybe have a glass of water or something, pal.”

Then all eyes in the circle turned to me. There followed an awkward pause, and Teagan started to match Jack’s frown.

“You okay, Aston?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Teagan nodded, then she and a few others turned back to the Lucas-shaped hole — the missing link in the chain. A couple of seconds later, those heads had returned to face me, as if waiting for my response. Several members of the circle were scowling at me.

“Why are you ignoring him?” a student named Colin asked. “Lucas asked you a question, Aston.”

I tugged at my shirt, feeling my perspiring neck start to redden. The fabric was coarse, but fear was the thing that had slithered under my collar. Irritated my skin. This wasn’t social anxiety. There was something entirely wrong about the room’s atmosphere.

I’d felt that way before Jack even introduced me to Lucas. Felt off. Even the dozens of people who weren’t standing in the kitchen — weren’t making conversation with Lucas — seemed to converse and chortle with an erratic, unstable energy. I caught snippets of conversations that I shouldn’t have been able to hear, but every voice in the common room was unbearably loud. And a key word kept spilling out of mouths from all corners of the party.

Shrine.

Jack was right. I’m often an extroverted, sociable chap, but not tonight. Since showing up at this place, I’ve felt only the primal urge to run.

“Listen, guys,” I eventually said, whilst backing out of the circle. “I just need some air.”

As I walked towards the door, I heard a couple of students chuckle at something the invisible, inaudible man had said.

“I’m sure you’ll get your answer eventually,” Colin whispered to thin air in an odd tone.

Once outside, taking in the crisp autumnal breeze, I seriously considered going home. That was about thirty minutes ago, and I wish I’d just done it. Run for my life.

That was my only chance.

Things had changed when I re-entered the building. The eerie atmosphere had been polluted with something new. Everything was quiet. Not quite silent, but hushed. And the thought of a practical joke — some grand conspiracy to humiliate me — returned to my mind. The possibility that everybody was laughing at me.

That would’ve been simpler. Just some light hazing. But I returned to find the fifty-or-so party guests clumped together, all facing a white wall at one side of the large room. A wall with nothing at all displayed upon it.

Jack beckoned me over, before lifting a finger to his lips.

“What’s happening now?” I whispered.

“Just watch the film,” Jack quietly replied with a heavy whisper.

But there was no film. Only that empty wall which had transfixed every person in the common room.

Chest thumping, I noted that Alexandra, a few rows ahead, was facing the wrong way and twitching vigorously. Her nostrils bled, but that wasn’t why I moaned in terror. It was the gunk oozing from her eye sockets. Not blood, but lumpy waves of pinkish-grey wrapping around her eyeballs and spilling down her cheeks — as if Alexandra’s very brain were itching to escape from her skull.

It’s not that, I lied to myself, mouth half-open in some state of paralysis.

Then I began to croak, “What the fuck is—”

A hand slapped against my lips, clamping them tightly together. And I turned to find Jack silencing me, though he still looked at the wall ahead. Still sobbed and sniffled with joy as he and dozens of others watched an imaginary film at the front of the room. I released a muffled gasp as I noted the trickles of grey spilling from his own orifices.

“Lucas wants quiet,” Jack whispered.

I was too frightened to move. Too frightened of what the hypnotised members of the crowd might do to me. Frightened of my own innards fleeing from my body.

Then, after half an hour of watching nothing, there came a new horror from the front of the crowd.

Directly ahead of me, in the front row of the ‘audience’, two side-by-side students crumpled to the ground. Their bones shattered. Bodies imploded. The sounds of crunching and splashing. I don’t know how else to describe whatever the fuck I saw. A spectre scrunched their very skeletons inwards like balls of paper.

And then the same happened to two audience members in the second row. The third followed. Something was flattening bodies to create a path. Parting the crowd and forming a direct line towards me.

“He asked you a question,” Jack groaned.

My friend had finally turned to face me.

I ran towards the building’s still-ajar front door. Ran as fast as my legs would carry me, but it was no use. A gust slammed the door shut.

And it wouldn’t open, no matter how hard I tried. No matter how forcefully I tugged. I was trapped in the hallway.

When the crunch of compressing carpet sounded behind me, I stopped rattling the door handle. Stopped and turned to see recesses forming in the carpet. The shapes of loafers or misshapen feet. These were the only physical indicators I had seen of Lucas’ existence, other than the trail of crumpled corpses and the supernatural door-slam.

But as he walked towards me, the man’s form remained unseen. His voice remained unheard. And I saw only the dozens of party-goers standing in the common room behind him. Tightly huddled together. No longer watching Lucas’ invisible film on the white wall. Their heads were turned to the right.

Were turned towards me.

I dashed upstairs. There was no other way past the thing in the corridor, and no escaping out of the front door. I entered a hallway with dorm rooms on either side, and I hurriedly tried handle after handle. Stairs creaked below. One after the other. Slowly.

By some miracle, I eventually found an unlocked room, so I scurried inside and locked the door behind me. That didn’t feel safe enough, of course — I locked myself in the en-suite for good measure.

I don’t know what Lucas asked. Don’t know what Lucas might be. All I know is that he’s still out there, either searching or waiting, and I need help before he finds me.

I think death would be more merciful than hearing Lucas’ question.

Than seeing his face.