I thought I have insomnia, but it’s worse…
I(20 y/o Male) haven’t slept properly in three months, and it’s ruining my life.
Before this, I was doing really well at university. Good grades, good attendance, always studying, all that stuff. I used to be the kind of person professors trusted with group projects and presentations.
Then I moved into the dorms.
And no, this isn’t one of those “my roommate was insane” stories. If Mike had just been loud or creepy, I think I’d be doing a lot better right now.
Mike was normal. Weirdly normal, honestly. Friendly, outgoing, always up at sunrise. The kind of guy who could go jogging at 6 AM and somehow enjoy it. I was the opposite. I stayed up late studying, slept through half the day whenever I could, and practically lived off caffeine.
Even with completely different schedules, we got along well. No fights. No drama. Nothing that should’ve caused problems.
The problems started after I changed my routine.
My friends convinced me to take morning and afternoon classes with them because seniors said it made first year easier to manage. They were right. Group tutoring at night, classes during the day. And it worked.
At least at first.
Every night after tutoring, I’d come back to the dorm exhausted and try to sleep.
And every single night, right as I was about to drift off, I’d hear it.
*Scratch*
*Scratch*
*Scratch*
Right above my head.
Then whispering. Soft. Fast. In some language I couldn’t understand.
At first, I ignored it. Big university, thin dorm walls, international students everywhere. I figured someone nearby was gaming late at night or talking on the phone.
But weeks passed.
Then months.
And the sounds never stopped.
I started showing up to class looking half dead. I couldn’t focus. My grades dropped so hard one of my professors pulled me aside to ask if I was taking drugs.
One night, I noticed tree branches outside my window scraping against the building whenever the wind blew.
I almost cried from relief.
The next morning, I found the janitor and begged him to cut them down. After one look at the bags under my eyes, he didn’t even argue.
By evening, the branches were gone.
I remember laying in bed that night thinking,
Finally. I can sleep.
Then the scratching started again.
Closer this time.
Directly above me.
I froze.
Slowly, I turned on my phone flashlight and pointed it upward.
That’s when I saw the marks.
Long scratches carved into the underside of the top bunk above my bed.
Not old marks. Fresh ones.
At first, I thought someone on the floor was hiding a pet. A raccoon, maybe. A cat.
I have severe allergies to animal fur, so I panicked and started searching the room. Under the bed. Closet. Cabinets. Nothing.
The next day I went door-to-door asking if anyone lost a pet. I even promised I wouldn’t report them.
Nobody knew what I was talking about.
That night, I decided I was done being scared.
I put my allergy medication beside my pillow, pulled on a medical mask, and stayed awake waiting for the scratching to start.
Around 2 AM, I heard it again.
*Scratch*
*Scratch*
*Scratch*
I grabbed my phone and switched on the flashlight so fast I nearly dropped it.
I checked under the bed.
Nothing.
Then something whispered directly into my left ear.
Not through the wall.
Not across the room.
Right beside me.
I felt every hair on my body stand up.
The whispering was frantic, almost desperate, words spilling over each other too fast to understand.
I pulled the blanket over my head.
Then the mattress dipped beside my legs.
I stopped breathing.
Another dip near my stomach.
Another near my chest.
One.
Two.
Three.
More and more until there were six different points pressing into the mattress around me.
Different sizes.
Like hands.
Or knees.
Something invisible was crawling onto the bed.
I could feel its weight shifting around my body, trapping me in place.
And then I smelled it.
Rotting garbage mixed with rusted metal.
The whispering became louder.
Angrier.
Something sharp hooked into my mask and tore it off my face hard enough to cut my cheek.
I felt warm blood running down my skin.
The smell got closer immediately after the mask came off, like it had been waiting for it.
I think I started crying at that point.
I remember screaming Mike’s name.
And right before I blacked out, I saw him sitting upright in bed across the room.
Wearing earplugs.
Just staring at me.
The next morning, I woke up alone.
My cheek was cut open badly enough to stain the pillow.
But what scared me most was my shirt.
I always wear a small silver cross my grandmother gave me when I was a kid.
The fabric around it had burned away during the night.
Not torn.
Burned.
Perfectly in the shape of the cross.
Mike finally talked to me after that.
He admitted he’d been hearing the scratching since the first week he moved in.
And he’d seen it too.
Not clearly. Just eyes.
Low to the ground.
Reflecting light like a fox staring from the dark.
Every night, it whispered in his language.
At first, he thought it was nonsense.
Just random numbers repeating over and over.
Small numbers mostly.
Then one night, it whispered “168.”
The next morning, 168 people were confirmed dead in the skytrain crash near campus.
After that, he started writing the numbers down.
Every single one matched a death count from accidents, fires, murders, suicides.
Always after the whispering.
Never before.
I asked why he never warned me.
Mike looked genuinely confused when I asked.
He told me everyone who acknowledged the whispers eventually started hearing them clearly.
And once you understood them, the thing got closer.
So he wore earplugs every night and pretended none of it existed.
He thought my headphones were doing the same thing.
I moved out that weekend and went back to my parents’ house.
I haven’t slept much since then.
But for the first time in months, it’s quiet here.
No scratching.
No whispers.
Nothing.
I thought maybe it was finally over.
But while writing this post, I heard something behind me.
A whisper.
Soft enough that I almost convinced myself it wasn’t real.
Except this time…
I understood it.
“Five.”
There are five people in my family.
Should I be concerned?