It was my first semester of college and my best friend from high school and I got into the same school and decided to be roommates. We’d already spent so much time together that she felt like a sister to me. It was a dream come true when everything worked out and we moved in together. When classes started, we settled into a rhythm fairly quickly. We were in different programs, so our schedules didn’t overlap. We printed our timetables and stuck them on the wall so we’d know each other’s comings and goings.

At the end of the first week, I already had to give a presentation in one of my classes. I know it’s childish, but I had these lucky socks I would wear that would give me comfort in times of need. They were these white socks with cartoon ducks on them. I had been wearing them for years and would never go anywhere without them. So I knew I had packed them for college, but the morning of, nervous and needing my lucky socks, I couldn’t find them. Discombobulated, with not much time left before I was late for class, I put on regular socks and left.

During the day, the absence of my lucky socks nagged at me. I tried to talk myself down from it, telling myself I might have forgotten them or misplaced them. But there was a part of me that knew I had brought them. One morning the following week, before class, I reached into my sock drawer and while rummaging through it, I found my lucky, duck-covered socks. I examined them in disbelief because they were lying in my drawer in plain sight. Then I noticed a faint stench coming from them, and they weren’t folded the way I do my socks. I then had a feeling that someone had worn my socks and put them back, uncleaned. I threw them in the hamper with disgust, unsettled by the breach of privacy.

Later that week, I wasn’t thinking much more of the sock incident — I was grateful to have them back — when something else happened: one of my shirts went missing. This time, I knew I had brought it with me because I had a picture of myself wearing it the previous week. I looked everywhere for it to no avail. I didn’t want to entertain the thought, but unfortunately my suspicions grew — could my best friend be borrowing my clothes without telling me? I thought it strange because we borrowed from each other all the time. In fact, the previous weekend, she had asked for some clothes to go out, and I had happily lent some to her. So why the sudden secrecy, I wondered. I needed to confront her.

One night while we were doing homework in our room, I decided to mention my disappearing clothes. I was nervous about how she was going to react since I didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship, but her expression said otherwise. In fact, she looked more relieved than anything else. I was confused at first, but it turned out that she had been meaning to ask me the same thing. Taken aback, I listened as she told me her clothes had been going missing and reappearing as well.

I told her about my favorite socks — how they’d gone missing, and the absurdity of them turning up dirty in my drawer. My friend burst out laughing. She told me her underwear had gone missing, and when they reappeared in her drawer — they also smelled rank. She didn’t want to bring it up because she knew there was no way I would do that to her, which made me feel guilty. We laughed about it, probably more than we should have, due to the relief of the situation. But then we shifted from laughter to concern — a realization dawned on us: if it wasn’t us, then who was it?

My friend had a hypothesis, but was too scared to say it at first, as she thought I would laugh at her. After I convinced her, she told me she thought our room was haunted. At first, I thought for sure there would be no way, but as we talked, she began to convince me. She explained that ghosts leave residue around objects they interact with, which explained the putrid smell on our clothes. She also tried to explain the cool air that would suddenly appear in our room — that, she said, was the ghost moving around. I was skeptical, but the more we talked about it, the more I believed, as it was the only plausible explanation at that point.

That night, we slept in the same bed together, unsettled by the idea of sharing a room with a ghost. As we lay in bed, awake but silent, our closet door creaked open and a cold, foul stench filled the room. We yelped, got out of bed, turned all the lights on and stayed up the rest of the night doing homework, refusing to go back to sleep.

That day, I was exhausted and couldn’t go to my last class as I knew I would have just fallen asleep. Instead, I went back to our room to catch up on lost sleep. As I was shuffling through my keys to find the correct one to unlock the door, I heard something coming from inside. I froze. I heard the floors creak and the bed squeak. My heart was pounding as I slid the key in the keyhole, hoping it was my roommate. I turned the knob and opened the door to peer inside — there was no one in our room. Intentionally leaving the door open, I searched the room for anyone or anything, but it was empty. And then that same cold, foul stench reached my nostrils, sending a shiver through me I’d never felt before.

Then I noticed the shirt that had gone missing was on the floor. I picked it up, and that same stench clung to it. I turned around and looked at my friend’s bed, and the blankets were wrinkled, as if someone had been sitting on the bed. As I felt the bed, there was warmth emanating from it — someone had been in our room. But there was nowhere they could have gone. Regardless, I searched and found nothing. I eventually sat on my bed, and just stared at the wall in shock — could there really be a ghost in our room?

Needless to say, I didn’t nap. I tried to keep myself occupied, keeping the door open, as it gave me a sense of security. I was cleaning up the room, and as I did, I noticed more of my clothes missing. Not only that, I noticed some of my stuff was also misplaced. My phone charger had been moved; my pens had gone from my desk to my friend’s desk. In fact, I noticed a lot of my stuff had been moved to my friend’s side of the room. Then a dark, sinking doubt grew in my mind: was my friend lying to me? I panicked and started to doubt our relationship. I had known her for a very long time, but we never lived together or shared a common area for an extended period. We were never in a position where we had to trust each other like we had to in our shared room. I thought, maybe she was using my stuff and planting this idea of a ghost to divert my attention…

I sat on my bed in stillness, going over the possibilities. I broke from my trance eventually as my roommate barged into the room, questioning the open door while closing it, and complaining about how tired she was. There was an amused smile on her face — which made me feel a hint of loathing. I didn’t answer, and I just stewed in my own silence, with my mistrust of her. She unloaded her stuff and went into the bathroom. That was when she let out a screech.

I jumped from my bed and rushed into the bathroom, and there my friend was, staring at a dirty handprint on the mirror. We looked at each other with panic, and both raised our hands to the mirror — the handprint was much larger than both of our hands; it wasn’t ours. My mistrust in my friend evaporated, and I gave her a hug, which she thought was for comfort, but it was much more than that.

We returned to the bedroom, silently, both trying to understand what to do. We sat on my bed, furthest away from the bathroom, both in the fetal position, just staring in its direction. Then we heard something loud from the closet. We looked at each other and back towards the noise. Then we heard the noise again — it was real, and something was definitely in the closet. Looking at my friend, who was petrified with fear, I knew I had to be the one to check.

I got up slowly, trying not to make a sound, and approached the closet carefully. I stopped in front of the closet, grabbed the handle, and swung the door open in one swift motion. Inside was a scruffy, dirty man, squeezed and hunched in the bottom of the closet, attempting to slide a panel back into place to conceal himself. Shocked to see me, he stopped and looked at me. We locked eyes, both in terror, for what felt like an eternity.

I noticed the man was wearing makeup — my makeup. I also noticed that he was wearing women’s clothing — our clothing. Then it hit me: it was this man who’d been stealing our stuff. After a moment, the man began to speak calmly, regaining his composure, and introduced himself and told me not to be scared. I was so frightened by the sight of this man, I couldn’t find my voice to scream. But once my friend heard the voice, she started screaming at the top of her lungs. That was when I snapped out of it and started yelling myself and ran back to my friend.

We were sitting on the bed, holding each other, yelling as loud as we could, while the man tumbled out of the closet, slowly stood up, and approached us. He was wearing our clothes, which were much too small for him, and our makeup on his face as if a child had done it. As he got closer and closer, he held out his hands to calm us down and stop us from yelling, which didn’t work. He told us he was there to admire us, to be friends with us, to compliment our youth, and to promise he wouldn’t harm us. Obviously, that didn’t calm us; it made us yell even louder. As he was talking, he repeatedly looked behind him at the door, concerned someone might barge in.

Then we heard a knock on the door with the knob twisting — it was locked. We started yelling “Help” as the man panicked and began to scramble, not knowing what to do. But then he stopped and looked right at us. Then, tears poured down his cheeks, and he pleaded with us to give him a hug. He spread out his arms and began to approach us, the rancid stench stinging my eyes, more potent than ever. I felt so defenseless and terrified that yelling was the only thing I could do — the man was going to touch us… Then our door burst open, and campus security barged in. They apprehended the man, and some girls we knew ran past to comfort us.

The police eventually came to take the man away and get our statements. Upon examining the closet, they found his hiding place — a makeshift compartment he had been concealing himself in. They looked around for more clues but found nothing else. Later, the man confessed to his crimes. He had been living in there for weeks — a sick man who always wanted to be a college girl. When we were away at classes, he would leave the closet to dress up in our clothes, put our makeup on, and pretend to be a student. When we were home, he would listen to us talk about our experiences, fantasizing and living vicariously through them. He was locked up, and a permanent restraining order was filed for both my friend and me.

We threw out all the clothes he’d worn, including my lucky socks; they only sparked memories of that incident. The school allowed us to change rooms, and we haven’t experienced missing clothes since. We were finally able to experience our college life in peace. But every now and again, when I misplace a piece of clothing I can’t find right away, or when I hear a faint noise in our room, my stomach drops, and I find myself listening for the closet to creak.