Witching Hour
By Darling of the Darkness
During the wee hours of the morning, the main study area of a university campus library is empty, except for a young woman nodding off at her desk. A spread of notebooks, pens, highlighters, and a thick textbook overwhelm the space before her. The woman’s name, “Sharlene,” is embroidered onto a small fabric pencil bag, unzipped and lying beside the array of study materials.
The sensation of falling forward jolts Sharlene back to consciousness, and she continues where she left off in her reading.
An eerie silence permeates the room, chopped up by the subtle hypnotic ticking of a large clock, scratches of pen over paper, the rustle of turning pages, and the smacking clicks of Sharlene’s dry, sleep-deprived eyes sticking against her lids as she blinks.
When she reads a paragraph for the fifth time without comprehending the words, she rubs her eyes and slams the book shut.
Well, enough of that. She decides to call it a night, stretching her arms out and letting out a breathy yawn. The noise she makes doesn’t echo. Instead, the quiet that surrounds her swallows the sound. Sharlene becomes aware that she is the last and only person left in the library.
The emptiness is unsettling, as there were usually at least a handful of other people who would engage in late-night study sessions. However, it is the first weekend of Spring Break. A majority of her fellow students left campus to go on Spring Break trips, travel back home, or just generally take a much-needed rest from their academics.
Sharlene isn’t particularly studious. In high school, she was the type to rely on her raw intelligence to get her through most of her classes, and she did exceptionally well. Now at university, she has to put in a lot more effort. Simply “being smart” isn’t enough to make A’s and B’s. She did well enough during her freshman year when motivation was high, classes were easier, and the thrill of responsibility and independence were fresh and novel.
However, she spent the past few months partying and numbing her feelings while she grieved the painful breakup of her long-term relationship. The master plan was to medicate her early night heartaches with late morning headaches.
As a result, the knowledge she acquired during the first several weeks of the semester were either obscured in a haze of smoke, the free weed generously shared with her by sexually-charged frat boys— or washed and vomited out of her brain, thanks to all of the alcohol she forced down her throat.
She is behind on schoolwork, and her grades are now slipping after a dismal round of midterms. If she slacks off any more during this Spring Break, her time and tuition would go to waste, not to mention the tremendous hit to her GPA.
As an undergraduate sophomore, she is almost halfway through her degree. Most of this semester’s classes are prerequisites for upper-level courses. Simply put, failing now will lead to a downward spiral of always feeling behind the curve.
This week is her time to catch up and perhaps even get ahead, if she works hard enough. She owes it to herself to succeed. She also worries about disappointing her parents, who sacrificed everything to provide for her growing up and were now also funding her education and even her housing.
Sharlene feels the weight of the pressure on her shoulders, amplified by how drained she was from today. She silently curses her inability to be productive in the comfort of her home, which was a ten minute walk from the library.
Whenever Sharlene attempts to study or do assignments back in her apartment, she somehow ends up staring slack-jawed at her TV, or swapping her textbook with a romance novel, or just sleeping her stress away in her comfy bed.
Sleep sounds like heaven right about now.
She exhales audibly and rubs her temples to relieve the eyestrain, courtesy of being at the library for almost eight hours. Massaging near her eyes has the effect of distorting her sense of sight. When she opens her eyes, she catches a glimpse of movement on the left side of her peripheral vision. She whips her head in that direction, but all she sees are bookshelves in a darkened corner of the room.
Great, lots of high shelves for murderers and monsters to hide behind, she jokes to herself. The paranoid part of her does not find it funny, and the idea injects her mind with unease.
She hears a loud thud coming from the same direction. Any sleepiness in her system is replaced by a distinct alertness. It’s probably nothing, but I better go. Now.
A chill runs down her spine and her heart lurches in her chest. She scrambles to pack up, tossing her things haphazardly into a bag.
Sharlene finishes packing up the last of her study materials. She fumbles with her bag’s zipper until it closes. The pack bulges from the utter disregard for organization within.
Sharlene doesn’t care. She begins speed walking toward the exit, slinging her lumpy backpack over tense shoulders. She stumbles from the weight, but powers forward. She frantically scans the shelves as she passes by, ready to throw her heavy bag at an assailant and sprint off at any moment.
Illuminated by the harsh glow of fluorescent lights, she quickly glances up at the clock. It is almost two in the morning, which worries her.
At least she will be able to make it back to the safety of her apartment and avoid being outside during the dreaded “Witching Hour” between three and four in the morning. Supposedly, this is the time when the veil between the world we know and another unseen realm is at its thinnest. This means that entities could sometimes cross this invisible, fourth dimensional barrier.
Growing up, Sharlene was warned never to be out and alone during this window of time because someone— or something— would be more likely to follow her home undetected as it hid under the cover of darkness.
Urban legends of cryptids and ghosts were a staple growing up in her Filipino household, and her university had its share of creepy tales about its many resident phantoms.
While she isn’t superstitious, and she certainly stays up frequently when she parties, she still feels apprehensive about being out so late without a friend or classmate in a deserted college town.
She nears the exit door. As the thought of walking by herself in the dark streets enters her mind, she hears the clock begin rapidly ticking on the wall behind her. Sharlene, by reflex, snaps around and looks up.
Sharlene is ready to bolt out of the building away from the cursed clock, but instead, the hairs on her neck bristle, and her feet freeze in place.
The minute hand is rattling unnaturally, almost shuddering, as it rotates around the clock face. It was as if an invisible hand was toying with the clock, spinning it around for fun. All she can do is watch helplessly as the long hand gyrates, dragging the short hand behind it.
Finally, the minute hand stops at the twelve, and the hour hand has shifted firmly to the three.
She is paralyzed with terror. Someone, please help me. I’m scared.
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There is a reasonable, logical explanation for this occurrence. What is the reason?
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That’s right, it’s Daylight Saving Time, when time will spring forward. Additionally, the clock is of the atomic analog variety.
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Sharlene hears a voice of reason in her mind, reassuring her that there is a very ordinary, non-supernatural explanation for the clock’s strange behavior.
Sharlene suddenly remembers that it’s Daylight Saving Time, and lots of clocks automatically set themselves. Her body becomes free from its paralysis. However, the relief is short-lived.
She hears a shuffling noise from behind the front desk, just to her right. It turns out, she wasn’t completely alone.
~end of part one~
Links for future parts (will be hyperlinked once I have them published)!
[Part 2] [Part 3] …
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Author’s Note:
Thank you for reading my short story!
The thought of ghosts and evil spirits respecting arbitrary rules about modern society’s construct of time is funny to think about, so I wanted to highlight the absurdity of a lot of time-specific hauntings.
I often feel like the uncertainty about the future is scary as a young adult. You can screw up a lot and feel like you’ll never amount to anything. The world feels like it’s against you, and this is the main theme behind this story.
I’m still working on further developing the atmosphere in the coming parts and having more creepy things happen.
The story is meant to be a gradual decay into terror for readers. Akin to a demonic possession, encounters will begin with mild annoyances that can be written off logically, but these occurrences might get malicious over time.
I’m planning to incorporate more puzzles and riddles in future installments, sort of like an interactive adventure story game!
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