"Have you guys heard about what happened in Dormitory 401?" A child’s voice came from Bed Number Three, his head poking out from the covers as he looked towards the other beds in the room.
"What happened? I only know that several dorms on the fourth floor have been sealed off, and it seems like they’re not letting anyone live there," a kid’s voice came from Bed Number Two.
"People died in 401, all four girls in the room are dead." The boy on Bed Number Three lowered his voice, "The adjacent dorms were sealed off because of 401. The school doesn’t dare to let the news out and has arranged a story with the dorm supervisor and the girls living nearby."
"Why do they need to arrange a story?" The kid on Bed Number One seemed very timid. After speaking, he covered his head with the blanket.
"If they had died normally, there wouldn’t be a need, but the way those four girls died was too strange." The voice from Bed Number Three grew lower and lower, "Have you heard of the ’Back-to-Back’ ghost story? It’s about two very close friends, one night one goes out and doesn’t come back, and the other keeps getting phone calls talking about good friends, back-to-back. Later, she discovers her friend nailed dead under her bed; they had been back-to-back the whole night."
"Can you just go to sleep? Stop telling these ghost stories!" The kid under the covers on Bed Number One shrunk further into his covers, clearly disgusted by ghost stories.
"Ignore him, keep going," said the kid in Bed Number Two, actually attracted to the story from Bed Number Three.
"The first girl to die in 401 was tied up under Bed Number One, she slept in Bed Number One and was the first to die, but supposedly she was the last to be found," said the boy on Bed Number Three in a sinister tone.
"My god, does that mean they spent the whole night with that corpse? They didn’t notice something under the bed?"
"If it were you, would you have noticed? Do you lift the covers and check under the bed every night before you sleep?" Right after Bed Number Three finished talking, rustling sounds came from Bed Number One. The kid sleeping there seemed to have peered under the bed after climbing out from under the covers.
"I guess even if they heard the sound of blood dripping, they might think it’s a water pipe leak, after all, the old house I live in leaks all the time," said the kid in Bed Number Two. He was braver and very curious, "How did the other three girls die?"
"The second to die was the girl in Bed Number Two, her death was the most bizarre. She suddenly sat up from her bed in the middle of the night, as if sleepwalking, just sat there. Then, it seemed like she heard someone calling her name, and she went out of the dorm barefoot."
"Was she summoned by a spirit?"
"Who knows, when the girl from Bed Number Two opened the door to leave, she woke up the girl in Bed Number Three. Initially, Bed Number Three thought she was just going to the bathroom. But after a long time, when she noticed Bed Number Two hadn’t returned, she got up to find her in the bathroom," the pace of the kid on Bed Number Three began to slow down.
"The bathrooms in our school are all on the far left, the room 401 is very close to the bathroom. The girl from Bed Number Three took a few steps and arrived at the bathroom door."
"The bathroom was very quiet, without a sound. She slowly opened the door and saw the girl from Bed Number Two with her head under the tap, as if washing her hair."
"The girl from Bed Number Three, kind-hearted as she was, thought that the girl from Bed Number Two was sleepwalking, so she softly called out her name, but the other girl didn’t respond at all."
"Feeling puzzled, she walked over to the girl from Bed Number Two. When she put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, she was shocked to find her hair and shoulder were wet."
"She thought Bed Number Two had just washed her hair, but then she realized, from the beginning to the end, she had not heard the sound of the faucet being turned on."
"She brought her hand slowly to her face and a fishy stench hit her, and that’s when she saw her hand was covered in fresh blood," the kid on Bed Number Three paused for a long while.
"Come on, keep going! What happened to the girl from Bed Number Three?" The kid on Bed Number One was getting curious too.
"She was so scared she turned silly, she wanted to scream but no sound came out. She tried to run towards the bathroom door, but the girl from Bed Number Two was standing by the door, her face nearly splitting open."
"The girl from Bed Number Three felt her body growing heavier and heavier, she used all her strength to hide in a stall."
"She locked the cubicle door, her heart pounding in disorder as she summoned the last of her strength to take out her cellphone and dial for help."
"Before the call could connect, she felt the light from her cellphone growing weaker, as if a pair of hands were covering her own eyes. She looked up and saw the girl from Bed 2 squatting on her shoulder, watching her with laughter."
The child from Bed 3 was adept at telling these stories, his delivery vivid and evocative. A story that wasn’t very scary in itself became spine-chilling as he told it.
"In Dorm Room 401, the girl sleeping in Bed 4 was suddenly awoken by the vibration of her phone."
"Woken in the middle of the night, she sleepily answered the call, only to hear the sound of water droplets ticking away on the other end."
"Thinking it was a prank call, she was about to hang up when she heard the voice of the girl from Bed 3."
"It was very faint, as if urging her to run away quickly, but within a few seconds, the voice disappeared, leaving only the laughter of the girls from Bed 2 and Bed 3. They seemed to have encountered something hilarious, just laughing non-stop."
"The girl from Bed 4, already annoyed at being woken up, thought it was a practical joke and was about to speak to the person on the other end of the line when they hung up suddenly."
"Right after, the door to Dorm Room 401 was opened; in the darkness, three figures crawled into those three empty bunks," the voice of the boy from Bed 3 lowered.
"And then what? How did the girl in Bed 4 die?" Bed 2 was growing more curious.
"The girl in Bed 4 thought it was her roommates coming back, and she didn’t pay much attention, but she gradually realized something was wrong."
"Those three dark figures kept watching her as if something about her was intriguing to them."
"She couldn’t sleep at all, growing more and more frantic inside, she pretended to turn her back against those dark figures, eavesdropping on what they were saying." The boy from Bed 3’s voice became more terrifying.
"But what the girl from Bed 4 didn’t expect was that these figures were recounting the experiences of her roommates. The more she listened, the more afraid she became. She was clearly awake, her body trembling non-stop, yet she still gritted her teeth and pretended to be asleep."
The blankets were flipped off, and the children from Bed 3, Bed 2, and Bed 1 had only the whites of their eyes left; they walked to the depths of the room.
"The three shadowy figures that snuck into Dorm Room 401 stood by Bed 4, their faces poking into the mosquito net. The girl in Bed 4 was pinned down as if oppressed by a ghost, unable to move."
"During her extreme fear, a very eerie children’s rhyme started to play from behind her. As the rhyme began, the girl in Bed 4 suddenly felt an intense pain in her stomach, as if she had developed a severe case of gastroenteritis."
The three children’s faces pressed against the mosquito net, all revealing disturbing smiles, then extended their hands towards the girl’s stomach, beginning to hum a children’s rhyme.
"Daddy, look, mommy, see, baby’s little hands are so pretty."
"Daddy, look, mommy, see, baby’s little hands can’t be seen."
"Daddy and mommy come and look, baby’s little hands appear again."
Han Fei hid behind the safety door on the first floor; he had confirmed that there was another person standing beside him. While they were engaged in a battle of patience, a girl’s scream suddenly broke the silence from the fourth floor of the dormitory!