Room 36
Submitted by: Anonymous
When my sister Sofia was in the first year of her degree, she thought university was
going to be the end of her.
It all started when she and her new friends – Martín, Clara, and Diego – were trying
to find Room 36 for their General Psychology class. They didn’t want to look like
freshmen, so instead of asking a professor, they decided to approach a group of
older students who were chatting near the entrance. With overly friendly smiles,
these students assured them that Room 36 was on the third floor.
What they didn’t know was that there was absolutely nothing on the third floor, just
a construction site and a cruel prank at their expense. Confident, they climbed the
stairs without suspecting anything, and upon arrival, they realized the floor was
deserted, with unpainted walls, scaffolding, and construction materials everywhere.
They looked at each other in confusion, but the worst was yet to come.
As they turned to go back down, they heard a metallic sound – the stairway door
had closed behind them. Sofia tried to open it, but it was stuck. Diego took out his
phone to call for help, but they quickly realized there was no signal. Suddenly, the
joke wasn’t funny anymore.
To make things worse, it was cold. Not exactly Arctic cold, but enough for them to
hug their arms and regret not bringing a jacket. On top of that, hunger started to
take its toll. They searched their backpacks and pockets, hoping to find some food.
Their treasure: three mandarins and a piece of gum. Like true college students in
crisis, they decided to ration them. Clara, with her natural leadership, divided the
mandarins into segments, and each person received their portion as if it were a
gourmet meal. Diego offered to chew the gum first and then share the flavor with
the others in an extreme act of solidarity (an offer that was unanimously rejected).
At first, they took it with humor. “At least we’re not in class,” joked Diego, but
twenty minutes later, desperation started creeping in. Clara worried about losing
attendance points, Martín kept trying to force the door open with no success, and
Sofia kept repeating that someone had to come up at some point. But time passed,
and no one appeared.
Then came the existential phase: What if they never got out? What if they starved
to death there? (They had been trapped for less than an hour, but student drama
knows no limits). To distract themselves, they started sharing the best things that
had ever happened in their lives. From first loves to the day Sofia won an essay
contest without even realizing she had entered. Diego confessed that he once pretended to be his twin brother to get out of trouble at university. Martín told the
story of how he almost burned down his house trying to cook an egg in the
microwave. Between laughter and absurd anecdotes, the tension eased a little.
Two hours later, just as they were considering writing farewell messages on the
walls with a pen, they heard footsteps. They exchanged hopeful glances and ran to
the door. It was an electrician who had come to take measurements for the
construction. He looked at them in surprise, and with a simple turn of a key, he
freed them from their suffering.
As they walked down the stairs, the four of them swore revenge against the older
students. Though, of course, first, they had to find the real Room 36.