24/05/2026
BEFORE 3PM - Episode 1
I was a Christian, but I never really took prayer seriously.
I believed in God because that was how I was raised, but prayer was never something I thought much about. To me it was just another religious routine people did every day. I never imagined that one day prayer would be the only thing standing between me and death.
What happened to me on February 19th changed everything.
At that time, I was a fresher on campus, still trying to adjust to hostel life and the strange things people said about the school. Every day someone had a new story or rumor to share, so I had already learned not to believe everything I heard.
But there was one rumor that everyone seemed to take seriously.
Three days before February 19th, a warning began to circulate around the hostel. People were saying that on that particular day nobody should leave their rooms from morning until exactly three o’clock in the afternoon.
Nobody explained why.
Some students said it was an old tradition on campus. Others whispered that something terrible usually happened on that day. According to them, anyone who stepped outside before three o’clock would not survive it.
To me it sounded ridiculous.
Why would an entire hostel hide inside their rooms because of a rumor?
My roommate believed the warning though. She kept talking about it the night before she travelled for a wedding ceremony. By the next morning I was the only one left in our room.
When February 19th finally came, I decided I was not going to stay locked inside all day because of some silly story.
Around ten o’clock that morning, I opened my door and stepped into the hallway.
Immediately I noticed something strange.
The hostel was unusually quiet.
There were no voices, no footsteps, and no sound of people moving around like a normal morning. Even the doors that were usually open were all tightly shut.
I walked a little further and looked outside the building.
The compound was empty.
Not a single person was outside.
For the first time, I began to feel slightly uneasy. The rumor suddenly came back to my mind, and I wondered if everyone had actually decided to obey the warning.
That was when I heard it.
A strange hissing sound coming from somewhere behind me.
Slowly, I turned around to look.
At the far end of the corridor, something was standing there.
At first my mind refused to understand what I was seeing. But the longer I looked, the more I realized that whatever it was did not look human.
Fear gripped me immediately.
Without thinking, I turned and ran back to my room as fast as I could. I rushed inside and quickly tried to lock the door, but for some reason the lock refused to turn.
My hands began to shake as I tried again and again, but the door simply would not lock.
Then I heard it.
Heavy footsteps slowly moving down the corridor toward my room.
That was when a terrifying thought crossed my mind.
Maybe the rumor was never a joke after all.
Maybe there was a reason everyone had been warned not to come outside before three o’clock.
And by stepping out of my room that morning, I had already made the biggest mistake of my life.
Suddenly, my chest tightened.
At first I thought it was just fear, but then it became harder to breathe. I tried to take a deep breath, but the air would not come in properly.
My heart began to race as panic slowly crept in.
Then suddenly, I began gasping for air.
To be continued…
© Heavenly Twinz Writes ✍️
