The Warden of Vane Hall

I never believed in the stories about Vane Hall. It was just an old building, a relic of a forgotten era, sitting on the edge of Blackwood University’s campus. The brick was crumbling, the windows were dark, and the ivy seemed to be strangling it. But it was the only place I could afford, so I took the room on the third floor.

My roommate, a quiet art student named Elara, was the only other person on our floor. She rarely spoke, but I’d catch her staring at the wall between our rooms with a strange intensity. When I asked about it, she’d just shake her head and mumble about the ‘warden.’

The building had a peculiarity: every door was fitted with a heavy iron latch, not just a lock. The previous tenant, a history major, had told me it was to keep the ‘old things’ out. I thought it was just a quirk of the building’s age, but I soon learned otherwise.

One night, a blizzard trapped us inside. The heat flickered and died, plunging the corridors into a numbing cold. As I huddled under my blankets, I heard a sound from the hallway: a slow, deliberate dragging. Not footsteps, but something being pulled across the floor. I peeked out, and saw a dark shape at the end of the hall, barely visible in the dim emergency light. It was tall, amorphous, and it seemed to be inspecting the doors, one by one. It stopped at Elara’s room, and I heard a faint scratching at her door, like claws testing the wood.

I slammed my own door shut, hands shaking. I heard Elara scream, a sound that was cut short. Then silence. I didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, Elara was gone. Her room was empty, her easel knocked over, and a single red handprint on the wall. The warden had taken her.

I tried to tell the authorities, but no one believed me. They said she’d probably run off, that the storm had made her unstable. But I knew the truth. That night, I found a diary hidden under my mattress, left by a previous occupant. It spoke of a ‘curator’ that roamed the halls, a being that fed on memories, that took residents to ‘preserve’ them. The entries grew frantic, scrawled, and the last one was just a single word: ‘RUN.’

I wanted to run, but the blizzard had buried the campus, and the roads were impassable. I was trapped with the warden.

I armed myself with a fire extinguisher and a butcher knife. I stopped sleeping. Every creak, every groan of the building made me jump. I started to notice things: my pencils were rearranged, my books moved, and once, I found a strand of long gray hair on my pillow. It wasn’t mine.

The warden was toying with me, biding its time. I remembered the diary’s final entry, and I decided to search for a way out. I went down to the basement, which was forbidden by the building rules. The stairs were steep, and the air was thick with mold. At the bottom, there was a door, padlocked. I broke the lock with a fire ax.

Inside, I found a collection: jars filled with a pale, glowing mist, each labeled with a name. And there, on a shelf, was a jar labeled ‘Elara.’ Her essence, trapped. The warden was preserving us, but not in a way we’d want.

I grabbed the jar, intending to smash it, but as I raised it, the room went dark. A cold dread filled me. I turned, and the warden was there, filling the doorway. It was a tall, cloaked figure, its face a void, and from its sleeves extended long, finger-like tentacles. It reached for me, its touch like ice on my skin.

I screamed, but the sound was sucked away. Then, I felt a sharp, psychic pain, as if something was clawing at my mind, trying to extract my memories. I fought back, thinking of every happy moment I’d ever had, and hurled them at it. It recoiled, and in that moment, I smashed the jar. Elara’s mist swirled, and I could have sworn I heard her whisper, ‘Run, now.’

I bolted, up the stairs, through the corridors, and out into the storm. I ran until I collapsed, and when I woke, I was in a hospital bed. They said I’d been found outside, half-frozen, raving about a ‘warden.’ They didn’t believe me. But when I returned to Vane Hall to collect my things, the building was gone. A demolition crew was tearing it down. They said it had been condemned for decades, and they were surprised anyone had been living there.

I looked at the rubble, and among the bricks, I saw a single, intact jar. It was labeled with my name. I didn’t wait to see what was inside. I turned, and I walked away, carrying the weight of that discovery for the rest of my days. That was the last I saw of Vane Hall, but sometimes, in the quiet nights, I hear that slow, deliberate dragging in the hall outside my door, and I know the warden is still looking for me.