It was a Saturday. I was in my dorm room procrastinating my homework with some Minecraft. Not the official release though. I barely have enough money for a single meal each day let alone thirty dollars for a luxury. But you can meet very interesting people at college and one of the guys I knew could get you bootlegged versions of pretty much anything you wanted. Movies, music, games, Calvin had it all. He’d told me that he’d never given anything away for free before, but he knew I was in a hard place and he’d give me anything I wanted as long as I brought the flashdrive.

I live above the boilers and my room is always ridiculously hot, so I keep the window cracked to let in some of the cooler winter air. It was snowing. The only people outside were those few rich students who had energetic dogs like huskies, shepherds, or the one Belgian Malinois and needed to take them for a run each day or risk their dogs going stir crazy. It was evening now and all ten or so of them seemed to be outside at once. No doubt they had been waiting for the snow to stop falling quite so heavily, but now with it worse than ever and the sun starting to sink below the horizon, they had no other choice.

I had headphones on, completely immersing myself in the game as I tried to forget about life for just a little while. I’d gotten it last week, but that was the first day that I was able to find the time to play it. The game’s music, the “thunk” of placing blocks, and the vague growling of the zombies outside my base all melded together in my ears. Just outside of my headphones, I could hear the frantic whirring of my laptop’s fan. That was the reason I had picked Minecraft when I could have picked pretty much anything else—anything else would have killed my cheap laptop.

A noise from outside wormed its way through my headphones. It was just on the edge of familiarity and it grated down my spine.

I froze. Headphones still on, Minecraft cows mooing around me, I tried to place what it had been.

Not able to think of anything that could have caused it and not hearing it again, I went back to my game. It was time to stock up on food before my next cave dive.

Amidst the death sounds of the many cows on my farm, I heard the noise again. Louder this time and lasting longer than before. Enough for me to recognize it as children singing.

My eyes flicked to the window. Children singing. Children singing outside. Outside where the snow was falling like a heavy blanket over the sidewalks and the small gardens that the school maintained.

I couldn’t see them. The sun had almost completely set and the banks of fallen snow glowed in what dim light remained. The people who had been walking only a few minutes ago were gone with no evidence left to prove they had ever been there. The footprints along the path outside my window had been erased. I pulled my headphones off my head, trying to tell where the noise was coming from, but the snow swallowed all sound outside my window.

It was weird, but college students do weird things, so I figured it was a prank or something similar and went back to Minecraft.

Everything seemed normal as I continued to play. I finished my preparations for a caving adventure and set out. I didn’t run into a mob for a while, but when I did it was simple to dispatch it and keep gathering resources.

Then I heard the singing again. I slid my headphones off so they hung around my neck. It was closer this time than it had been before. I couldn’t understand the words, but kids were definitely the ones doing it. It lasted a little longer than it had last time before. My heart was beating a rapid tattoo in my chest.

I tried to convince myself that it was fine. Kids came to campus a lot, usually on tours to see what college was like. But never after sundown, my traitorous brain reminded me.

I practically had a heart attack when a zombie hit me in game. The noise shattered the silence even though I wasn’t wearing my headphones. I killed it quickly.

Closer still, the kids started singing again.

My breaths were coming fast. I tried to slow them down so I could hear better, but the air only jolted past my teeth instead.

Trembling, I slipped over to the window. I looked out, and even though I didn’t want to, I scanned everything in eyeshot to find those stupid kids. My eyes lingered on the dark shadows behind the buildings where the street lights didn’t quite reach. My whole body was tense as I half expected something to jump out at me.

I slammed the window closed and wrenched the blinds closed. I couldn’t see out now—perhaps not the best idea for someone living on the first floor—but more importantly, no one else could see in. Shaken, I sat back down in my chair. I strained my ears, trying to hear anything else and desperately hoping I wouldn’t.

Time slipped by. It felt like hours. The whole time I stared at the closed blinds as if something would come through the window if I didn’t. Dread boiled in the pit of my stomach. I had almost convinced myself that whatever it had been was over now and I could go back to playing when I heard the scream.

I found my eyes flicked back to my computer where they were met with the “You died!” screen.

It took me a while to calm down after that. Even after I closed the game and was trying to sleep, I found myself still tense, watching the blinds covering the window.

The next day, with the sun high in the sky, I tried to play again. The main menu screen had just loaded when I heard someone pounding on my door. Full on banging. The sort of knocking you’d hear when a government agency comes to catch you out for doing something illegal.

I ALT F4-ed the game, ripped out the flash drive. As I crossed the room, I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants. But when I opened the door there was no one there.

The same day I deleted any files related to Minecraft off my computer and brought the flashdrive to Calvin.

“I don’t want it anymore,” I said. “You can have it.”

He frowned, eyes glazed over from the weed I could smell on him. “Ok?”

“Here,” I shoved the flashdrive at him. “Take it.”

“You don’t know how to delete something off a flashdrive?” he asked with a laugh.

“Just keep it,” I said. “Keep it contained.”

He gave a look like I was the crazy one, but he took the drive from me and let me go without another word.

​

In the week after I got rid of it, I never experienced anything like that again.

Until this morning when my roommate told me that he’d managed to get some new high-end game that he’d been waiting for from Calvin for free. I tried to ignore it.

But I’ve been hearing the singing all day. Now, I’m sitting in the library, only a few buildings away from our dorm, and I can tell its getting closer and closer.