29 Day Writing Challenge - Day Two

Figment is having a 29 Day Writing Challenge for the month of February. I am a few days behind (okay, two weeks behind), but I am going to catch up. Here is Day Two

If we assume ghosts are real, whose ghost would you like to meet?

Thirteen students huddled together in the frigid room, trying to keep each other warm. The paper thin walls did all they could to keep out the bitter night air but the old building was built in a time when students could be used for manual labor, even if they had no architectural background and were consumed with thoughts of impending finals while constructing a three story building for the first time.

The students weren’t required to be in the arctic room as midnight was approaching, but they were curious. The professor said he has never been able to catch them, but these thirteen students wanted to see.

Professor Haroun scurried into the classroom, quickly slamming the door behind to avoid letting the chill into the room. Too late. 

The class shivered in unison as the gust of icy wind rushed past them. Haroun slowly made his way to his desk, shocked at the number of students sitting his room. In his forty-six years of teaching, he has never had a turn out like this. 

The professor doesn’t say anything as he opens his briefcase and puts the supplies on his desk. The students watch as Professor Haroun takes out electrical equipment they had never seen before––a black box with nothing but a blinking red light on top, a wand shaped device with a flashing blue light on the tip, a small handheld device that beeped when it moved and other devices the students had never seen before. Haroun picked a few students and told them to grab whichever device they preferred.

Agatha was the first to approach the desk, she looked around for a short time but decided to pick up the small handheld. The moment she did it started beeping like crazy. Startled she put it back down and decided to try another device. She picked up the wand-like item and that, too, reacted immediately to her touch. Every device she touched, some she only had get near, would react in such a way, it startled the small first year, as well as the rest of the the class.

Professor Haroun was ecstatic.

He told Agatha to wait as he pulled from his briefcase, futuristic looking goggles. They had never seem to work before, but with this one, they just might. As the girl put them on Professor Haroun asked if she could see anything. 

The lenses were tinted, so of course she could see nothing. But then she saw a glimmer. 

Agatha followed the glimmer, the other twelve students following Agatha. They went all through the building––crawling under desks, leaping through stairwells, and climbing into crawl spaces.

The professor, certain the glimmer is a spirit, encouraged Agatha to follow the glimmer wherever it went, even when it took them outside into the raw, December night.

The caretaker found the professor and his twelve students huddled together by the woods, frozen solid.

On the other side of campus, a first year reports her roommate missing. She said Agatha had texted her, saying she decided not to ghost hunt with her class and was on her way home.