The Roommate’s Death
Since the 1960s, this urban legend has been told on many numerous college campuses with fear. It begins with two female college roommates who are left alone in their dorm room during a school vacation. One girl leaves to use the restroom, get food, or run an errand while the other stays. After some time, the girl hears a thumping in the hallway and scratching on the door. Scared, she locks herself in the room until morning. She then summons help from a deliveryman or a mailman by shouting out her window. Her roommate is found outside the door of the dorm, stabbed to death, in a pool of blood, with some versions having a hatchet embedded in her head. Scratches are carved into the door by her fingernails during her dying agonies.
There are more recent versions of this legend like the one in the 1998 movie Urban Legend. Same characters, two college girls, but the victim is the girl who is left behind. The girl comes back to the room without turning on the light, believing that her roommate must have her boyfriend in bed with her. She falls asleep despite hearing heavy breathing and movements from across the room. She wakes up the next morning, seeing her roommate in a pool of blood with a message on the wall written in blood saying, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?”
(Source: Brunvand, Jan H. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. 2001.)
