Anyone who has lived away from home in a hostel will testify to the fact that no matter how cruel the wardens may have been, hostel life was one hell of an experience. Fighting for the bathroom, hiding your goodies stash, chilling with friends after the lights were out and sharing ghost stories in the dead of the night. Oooohhh…I just got the chills. 

Every hostel had its own share of spooky stories. Some of them might even have started as a rumour, but others, not so much. 

We asked people to share spooky stories from their hostel life. And believe you me, this shit is real and super scary! Proceed at your own risk: 

1. 

“All the other hostels on campus had functional basement floors. Ours was the only building with an abandoned basement. Looked pretty much the same as all the others, with rooms and all, except no one ever went there and they used it to store stuff.

2.

“The Loyola Hostel is next to the Nungambakkam railway station. Once a woman committed suicide on the tracks and her body was there for a few hours until the cops came to claim it. They say her ghost is still there on those tracks, waiting for hostellers going to the loo late at night.

3. 

“So my roommate entered our room in the night and I wasn’t at my desk or in my bed. Then she saw that the bathroom door was half open, but it was dark inside. She called out my name, and from inside the loo, someone replied ‘Hmm’, and the door creaked slightly so she believed I was inside. She left the room and suddenly saw that I was out in the corridor coming back to my room.”

4. 

” My hostel was in the middle of a jungle in Gandhinagar. At around 2 AM, a friend from the room next to mine came to my room, sobbing. She told us that they (she & her roommate), very clearly, heard a girl crying at their window. We were on the first  floor and there was no way someone could be at the window. My roommate and I went to their room. The lights and fan were switched off and I actually heard the sobbing too, only for a few seconds. Their window faced the jungle.” 

5.  

“I went to FTII, Pune. There was an old sound studio, which students used to mix and edit music and sound for their films, back in the day. Once a student was doing the same at around 1-1:30 at night. While listening to the dialogues on the clip, he heard a line, which was not a part of the film, and which they never recorded.

6. 

“During my hostel days, my friend and I hung out in my room a lot. After she retreated to her own room each night, I usually forgot to lock my door. One night around 2 AM, in my stupor, I heard the door creak. I shrugged it off thinking my friend was messing with me, so I called out to her. But even after a few minutes, the incessant creaking did not stop. So I stood up and walked towards the door. To my horror, I saw a silhouette swoosh by. I also suddenly realized that it was not windy at all,    which could have explained the creaking. I nearly crapped my pants (and to think I love horror movies and swear by Stephen King). Naturally, I ran out screaming through the hallway, and did not sleep in my room that night.”

7. 

“So my friends in the guy’s hostel planned to do the Planchet. A few days back from then, a middle-aged man in the neighboring area had died and all of us at the hostel knew about it. So apparently, during the Planchet session, the soul of that man visited us. These guys started communicating with him. The soul said, ‘I will not go back, I want to take revenge. My son killed me for property. I want to teach all of them a lesson. My family betrayed me. You have to help me avenge them.’ My friends were shit scared. One of them tried to reason with him, ‘Sir, we are so sorry, it’s not in our capacity to help you here, we are just students, we are sorry for the loss but we really can’t help.’ But the soul was too stubborn. Thankfully, one of my friends knew how to send the soul away if it’s determined to stay. So he somehow managed to order him to go back.”

8. 

” I was in Class 9 and my room faced the basketball court. I was told to never look out the window into the court at night because a lady in white roams around. I got my room changed as soon as possible. I wanted a view. “