Room 313
“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” ~ H. P. Lovecraft
In the University District of Seattle, there is a peculiar little bookshop. It is a haven for bookworms and comic enthusiasts alike, tucked away on a side street lined with charming stores.
On a sunny spring afternoon Sarah, a college student, was walking through the Quad, feeling restless. She had been dumped a week ago by Bob, her now ex-boyfriend, and she was now going through a bit of a melt-down. Not a full-blown meltdown, for Sarah was not the type to display emotion, just an uneasy feeling. Bob had a habit of criticizing her for her neatness, “Do you even live here?” he had said about her dorm room. Sarah had always taken pride in her organizational skills, and if Bob didn’t like it she thought it was his problem, not hers. “If it bothers you so much you can leave,” she had said. Still, a seed of doubt had been sown in the well-cultivated garden of her psyche.
“Perhaps,” she thought, “
something off-beat would help me get back on track.” She left the Quad, crossing over to a side street with a diverse jumble of small shops and restaurants. She rounded a corner and a book shop, one that she didn’t remember seeing before, caught her eye.
“This looks like a good place to explore the esoteric.”When she entered the scent of old books seemed like insence.
Wandering through the aisles, Sarah pondered the garish covers of comic books and graphic novels. Nestled amongst this trashy pop was an old leather-bound tome. It seemed out of place among the colorful books. Its spine was adorned with faded runes and symbols. Intrigued, she took it down and gently traced her fingers over the ancient markings. Upon opening it, Sarah felt a shiver of energy pulse through her hands. “
This might be just what I’m looking for.”
There was no penciled-in price on the flyleaf, so Sarah took it over to a bewhiskered clerk at the checkout desk.
“Excuse me, do you have a price for this book?”
“Huh,” said the clerk, flaring his nostrils as if the book stunk, “I don’t recognize it, let me see if it is our computer.”
“Is there a problem?” Sarah said, experiencing a mini-panic attack seeing the clerk frown as he looked his computer’s screen.
“No, sometimes books aren’t in the system,” said the clerk, “There is no ISBN, no date or publisher either. It’s probably from a vanity press… How about eight bucks?”
All Sarah had was seven dollars. “I can’t do it. Maybe five?”
“Seven,” he said with a grin.
Still too much. “Six?”
“Six and a quarter. My last offer,” said the clerk, with a pained grimace.
“Okay…”
“With tax it comes to $6.66”
Sarah paid for the book and when she picked it up she again felt a strange tingling in her fingers. It seemed to faintly vibrate, as if trying to communicate to her through her fingerprints. Stepping outside, the world around her had began to warp and shift; colors bled together and the familiar sounds of the bustling U District had now become cacaphony. A sense of unease gripped her. Once-familiar streets had now turned strange. Shaken, Sarah headed back to the campus quad, normally a serene place, now a spot where she thought things might be calmer. But when she got to it she was greeted by a raggedy busker strumming an out-of-tune guitar.
He began to sing in a raspy monotone:
Strange faces in the city collide
With little girl lost, trying to hide
Every street corner a symphony of LOUD
Disturbing dreams of a restless crowd
Sarah slowed, her grip tightening on the book, which was now vibrating in sympathy with the sound of the busker’s guitar. Each strum sent a tremor through the book.
The troubadour was looking right at her, his next lines were meant for her and no one else:
Chaos is breathing, chaos is knowing,
Life’s hidden currents is always flowing
The book in Sarah’s hands was really humming now. The runes on the cover had begun to glow a deep red. The usually tranquil quad, had been transformed into something unsettling. The trees seemed to be hunched over with twisted limbs reaching out in her direction. The air, suffused with an inexplicable tension, the sound of rustling leaves had become sinister whispers.
Crows, perching above in the trees lining the quad, had erupted into grating cawing as they took wing. Black forms with eyes gleaming, malevolent intelligence, sharp beaks in malicious grins. As they circled above her menacing shadows swirled below. Shrubbery, lining the edges of the square, began to gyrate as if possessed by some demonic force. Sarah, unnerved, dropped the book and immediately the scene returned to normal: busker gone, crows contently perched on branches, the vegetation once again benign. When she touched the book with the tip of her boot nothing happened but when she touched it with her fingers, the red glow returned to the letters on the cover. She dug a pair of gloves out of her bag and put them on. Picking up the book again, the book and the world remained normal.
Sarah was intrigued. The strange book triggered the memory of a story, a story that she had dismissed as just a campus legend. Years ago an introverted student named Eliza, had been spurned by her lover. She had told her friends that she would “get even with him.” Eliza had always had an interest in the supernatural so she sought to take revenge on him with a curse. Her attempt to summon demonic spirits using an ancient ritual she had found in an old books had gone horribly wrong. Eliza’s cries were heard throughout the dorm but when the other students investigated they found roomto be unoccupied, Eliza had vanished. The old book remained on the floor. It was room 313. Sarah’s room. Sarah had experienced some odd occurrences there: cold breezes; sounds of whispering; even the occasional “thing that went bump in the night.” She had dismissed them then, but now, with a book that obviously had some real power, she thought that perhaps she could use it to solve the mystery of her room by using it as a way to communicate with whatever spirits remained there.
Sarah would conduct her own séance.
After closing the blinds, Sarah placed her bare hands on the book and its mysterious symbols began to glow. She shut her eyes and began to concentrate. At first, there was only silence. But then a chill filled the room and the air grew heavy. Sarah opened her eyes. All of the room’s straight lines were warped and distorted, increasing her sense of unease. Slowly a figure materialized before her—a young woman with hollow eyes and a ghostly aura. Sarah somehow knew that it was Eliza, the woman who had once lived in this room. Through whispers and gestures, the spectre conveyed her anguish to Sarah:
“Help me, recite the spell and free me from this affliction.”
Sarah’s heart was stirred with empathy for the tormented spirit. She would help Eliza find solace and release from the shackles of the curse that had bound her to Room 313. Sarah read the spell aloud:
O! Spirit bound by chains unseen,
In the realms where shadows glean,
I call upon this ancient rite,
To grant you freedom from the night.
Through the veil that separates,
Where spirits linger, bound by fates,
I break the bonds that hold you fast,
And set you free to roam at last.
Release the ties that bind your soul,
Let the energies now make you whole,
From this realm, you shall depart,
To find peace in the endless heart.
Eliza whispere: “Thank you.”
The room was still. The air no longer pressed down against Sarah’s lungs. The faint chill that had haunted Room 313 began to lift and Eliza, like a mist dissolving at dawn, had vanished.
The silence was replaced by the ordinary hum of dormitory life—distant laughter in the hallway, talking students, a door shutting somewhere down the corridor. The room’s distortions were gone. Order had been restored
Sarah looked down at the book in her lap. The runes were dull now, cracked and faded. She touched the cover with her bare hand.
Nothing.
She exhaled.
“It’s done.”
The next morning, sunlight lay across the floorboards in neat golden rectangles. Sarah awoke before her alarm — refreshed, oddly clear-headed. Her room looked… better. Not cleaner, exactly. It had always been clean. More balanced, perhaps?
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and paused. Her gloves were on the floor near the desk. She had a faint memory of dropping them — but not when. Shrugging it off, she dressed and headed to class.
The Quad felt normal. Students crossed the grass in loose, careless diagonals. Crows perched in the trees. A busker played near the fountain She couldn’t quite place his face, and he glanced up as she passed.
Sarah slowed. Had he been there yesterday? She couldn’t remember.
The thought dissolved as quickly as it formed.
Over the next few days, small things began to settle.
Her textbooks lined themselves more squarely on her shelf — not moved, just… corrected. The faint draft beneath her door disappeared. The subtle unevenness in the hallway floor no longer existed. Even the ticking of the clock seemed steadier, more symmetrical. Her classmates remarked that she seemed different: “Calmer,” one said. “Lighter,” said another. Bob passed her once near the library. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then frowned faintly — as though something about her did not quite match his memory.
“Have we—?” he began.
Sarah smiled politely. “No,” she said.
That evening, she returned to Room 313. The door resisted her key for a moment — not jammed, just unfamiliar with the motion. When it opened, the air inside was cool and still. The book lay on her desk. She was certain she had placed it in her drawer.
For a long moment she stood in the doorway, studying it. The leather looked older now. The edges more worn. She stepped closer and opened it and noticed something subtle on the inside cover written in small, careful script:
Eliza Martin, room 313.
Sarah closed the book gently and set it down so that it aligned perfectly with the edge of the desk.
In the hallway, a pair of students were talking:
“Room 313?” one whispered. “Isn’t that the one where that girl disappeared?”
“Yeah,” the other replied. “What was her name again?”
There was a pause. Inside the room, Sarah tilted her head slightly, listening.
“Something with an S, I think.”
After a moment, the voices faded.
The room felt complete.
Perfectly balanced.
And very, very still.
Sarah was alone.
Friday Fiction , YA/AI edition.
