After a lengthy investigation, The Stute has traced a series of disturbing events in the UCC towers to a single source. Trusted sources assure that strange aspects of the buildings’ elevators have transcended peculiarity and entered the realm of the supernatural.
Residents first became aware that there were issues with the elevators when strange noises began emanating from the shafts late in the night, often reaching a head at the witching hour. Witnesses variously described this noise as a harsh mechanical grinding, a series of tortured screams, and hypnotic organ music.
One Stute reporter was sent to investigate, entering the second elevator in the South Tower on floor three. When the elevator opened at the destination floor moments later, it was empty and the reporter was nowhere to be found. Stevens records indicate that 17 students have gone missing in a similar fashion thus far this year, with almost all of them entering one of the elevators between the hours of three and four in the morning.
A Stevens administrator, who asked to remain nameless, said that an investigation was initiated after the 10th student went missing, and one of the elevators was closed on the pretext of a missing part. After the entire investigation team went missing and no independent contractors would agree to enter, the administration abandoned the effort and reopened the elevator. The administrator said that the decision was made after it appeared that the elevator could only be satisfied by periodic human sacrifices. “Keeping it closed only angered the spirit within,” he insisted cryptically.
The unnatural occurrences have not been confined to the middle of the night. One student said that he entered an elevator in the South Tower, but when the doors slid open he found himself in the North Tower. Another said that upon entering the elevator, it ignored her button presses and instead made an unplanned stop on floor negative 100. Upon stepping out of the door, she found herself trapped in a labyrinthian nightmare of corridors and torture chambers concealed deep beneath Stevens. “I was, like, super late to class.”
The Stute was put in contact with a construction contractor that gave details about why one of the North Tower elevator interiors has been covered in cardboard since the year began. “When we were running tests, our guys noticed that the walls would bleed after more than a few seconds of travel time. We tried looking into it but we couldn’t find any rational explanation. We tried to carry it out in buckets, but samples would disappear in moments once removed from the elevator. We couldn’t find a way to stop it so we just left it as-is.” The anonymous administrator said that the cardboard was installed after Stevens executive board members expressed concern about the quantity of visible wall blood during early tours of the site.
Bringing the truth about these elevators to our loyal readers was not without its challenges. This reporter was trapped in one of the South Tower’s elevators for several days after it refused to stop at floor 18 and kept rising past the building’s roofline. The elevator said that it had reached floor 104,349 before opening its door into the cold vacuum of space, surely ejecting this reporter into the endless abyss were it not for a well-timed smack of the “close door” button. Upon returning to the lobby, this reporter found that only two minutes had passed since the elevator departed.
Students are warned to be wary until more is discovered about the curse or spirit that haunts these elevators, but not all residents are changing their routines. “Eh,” said one student, “I live on the 16th floor. I’ll take my chances.”
Be First to Comment