A Nightmare on Third Floor
By: Richard Wu
By: Richard Wu
Whatever happens in the dorms, stays in the dorms, or that’s what they say. But, in this case, I’m gonna have to disobey that rule.
Two of my closest friends in the dorms have always been up to no good, and, when I came to the school, I joined in on that. We all lived on the third floor of Strong Dorm, and that gave us easy access to see each other all the time. It also gave us time to plot on our innocent friends who were just caught in the sport of “pranking.”
The first weeks of preseason before every school year and each snow day are always when the activity in the dorms reaches its peak. Not all of the activity may be good, as some mischief may take place. I am not proud to admit that I was part of the problem at some point. I had two friends whom I considered part of our “gang,” and, for the sake of their privacy, I will call them “Dumb” and “Dumber,” with Dumb being the one who always initiated and came up with the crazy ideas while Dumber dove head first into pranking our peers with no hesitation. Though it may sound mean to say, the names are very fitting, as one decided it was a good idea to swing on the top of the door frame and gave himself a concussion by swinging off of the door, while the other didn’t know that the North Pole or Madagascar were real places. Yes, we have done quite a bit of maturing, but it took us awhile.
It was a hot steamy preseason night in the dorms, and we thought it would be kind of us to cool people down with some better iced-cold water. We walked around with bottles of water in our hands; nobody was safe. Such as our first target, Austin Hsu. The three of us crawled into his room as if we were in the trenches. We camped in there for literally five hours until 5 a.m., waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Eventually, as we hid behind his desk, I decided to make a play. I took a hit for the team in order for us to advance. Dumber dumped the water on Austin as I dumped water on myself to create an alibi and distraction for Dumb and Dumber. Austin shot his head up to the sky gasping for air and looked at me confused, asking me, “WHAT THE HELL?” as I responded,”Yooo who got us bro?” This was just the beginning.
We had gone off the radar for a while as the school year got fully underway, but it was only a matter of time before we would make our long-awaited return to the dorms. Later, during the first snow day we had gotten during our time at Masters, the snow had piled up outside the windows, their frames, and the roof. The three of us made our way upstairs after 11 p.m. to check in, and Dumb decided it would be fun if we got snow balls from the windows and roof and used them as weapons of mass destruction on people who were fast asleep. We scraped the windows clean and made our way to our first victim: our very own pal Andrew Wang. As we tiptoed into his room like we were secret spies, we loaded up our snowballs. 3…2…1! We fired, then dashed out the room and ran down the hallway into our discrete hiding spot and headquarters, the third floor bathroom. That was easy. We were gone just like that, and no one suspected us. We began plotting on our next victim.
Dumb looked at me, holding back his laughter, and whispered, “Did you see the look on his face?”
I responded, “Yes, bro, the way he gasped! He had no idea where he was.”
Dumber added, “He didn’t even see us coming.”
Dumb answered, “Well yea, he was sleeping dumbass.”
“Okay shut up. So who’s next?” I asked.
“I know exactly who is next,” Dumb responded.
Unfortunately for Matthias, he was next. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Matthias, he was quite the villain in the dorms. He was the one who destroyed kids’ dreams. The one who watched the world burn before his own eyes. So we decided it was a good idea to be the brave souls to slay the beast, taking revenge for all the wrong doings he had committed and to protect our home.
We marched into the unfamiliar territory of Thompson Dorm and decided Dumber would take the lead on this one. Dumb and I stood ten steps back, ready to run for our lives. As Dumber snuck into the room, Dumb thought it was a good idea to put snow outside the door so Matthias would slip if he chose to chase after us. That would come back to haunt us. We waited nervously for Dumber to run out and, as he did, he stepped right into the melted snow and, in slow motion, we saw him fall in on his back and slide across the hall into the water dispenser as if it were a “Tom and Jerry” episode. It seemed like he had slipped on an invisible banana peel. Resisting laughter, Dumb and I took off, leaving our fellow friend and fallen soldier behind to face the wrath of THE Matthias Jaylen.
As we sat in our room mourning the death of our buddy, a miracle happened. He was back from the dead! Escaping any danger and any potential threat, we had succeeded once again. We would go back to the scene of the crime and speak face to face with Matthias as if nothing had happened.
“Oh that’s insane! Who would do such a thing???” we would say.
“If I catch whoever did that, it’s going to be a bad night for them” Matthias rejoined.
We all looked at each other. Onto the next one we went.