Epoch

The Blue Room

In Trancoville, Baguio City, a two-story Dormitory and a convenient place for any student to live in exists. August 13, 2017, Friday, a male student from SLU, Lee, went to the dormitory and had an agreement to the landlord for a room that’s very cheap but wide enough for even a family of four to live in. His room was located at the rooftop of the building where only one neighboring room was present. On his first night at the dorm, he heard someone sweetly humming from the other room, his heart rate increased as he first assumed that he was a lone occupant at the rooftop, the humming continued and he eventually enjoyed listening to it until he fell asleep. He woke up early the next morning and prepared for school; he got out of his room and heard the same voice again, the man humming was indeed from the neighboring room. So, he thought the guy might really like music and paid no more attention to it as he proceeded to school.

After an exhausting day at school, he went back to the dorm. As he passed by his neighbor’s room, music was again heard like the humming never even stopped since the day he heard it. He was hearing it for two months already but he never got tired of it and as if a lullaby, he loved listening to it before he sleeps. Lee, at the back of his thoughts, had always wondered why was he unable to meet or even just see his neighbor, not even once. Thinking about this, he decided to greet this man first thing in the morning. The night passed; Lee was eating his breakfast as he heard his neighbor’s door open so he immediately rushed out of his room with the thoughts of greeting the man on the other side of his walls. But no person was seen, “that was fast,” he thought.

Another day has passed and Lee was on his way back to the dormitory when he thought of buying a picture frame which he intended to hang on his wall. He arrived on the rooftop and, again, heard the same music. Gathering up courage, he went in front the singer's door and knocked on it. As soon as his hand landed on the door,  the humming stopped and for the first time in his experience living in that dorm, silence happened.  Lee waited for a while but the door never opened, he thought the person might not be interested in meeting new people. This bothered him a little, he entered his room and remembered the picture frame he bought. After sliding his family picture in the frame, he drilled a hole in the wall. His mind was too occupied about his neighbor that he accidentally drilled the wall too deep, it passed through his neighbor’s room. Out of curiosity, he looked through the hole and saw nothing but blue: no bed, no sofas, no kitchen, nothing but the blue, empty room. His wondering heightened when he realized the music never continued the whole night.  The next morning, Sunday, Lee saw the landlord opening the room of his neighbor.  When the door was unlocked, he took a peek and apparently, he was looking at an empty room. He was slightly shocked by this but what really intrigued him more was the color of the room; it wasn’t blue, the room was purely painted gray. He asked his landlord about it so he told Lee that a musician occupied the room, but that was way back when Lee wasn’t still around. Lee asked for the whereabouts of this musician, his landlord answered with a puzzled tone, “son, he’s dead, 4 years ago”. Lee was surprised and speechless, he wasn’t able to process what he just heard, after all, he knew that what he has always been hearing everyday was not just his imagination. Desperate for answers, he  rushed to his room, removed the frame and looked through the hole again. He, again, questioned reality, the view behind the hole showed no drop of blue paint, the color was the same as what he saw from the door, it was really gray. With a lot in his mind, he went back to the landlord and saw him looking at Lee as if he knew what was going on. Lee was silent trying to figure out the mystery of the blue paint which he strongly believed he has had seen last night. Then, his landlord broke this silence, “the musician that lived here was an American, he had blue eyes.” Lee turned pale and got paralyzed from the realization.

A/n: The idea of this story is from our place that was shared verbally. If the story is somewhat similar to yours, it was not my intention to copy any stories.