The clipboard made a hollow sound when it tapped against the metal doorframe, not that anyone was around to hear it. The hallway smelled like Pine-Sol and the ghost of microwave popcorn, with abandoned flip-flops and half-collapsed cardboard boxes lining the baseboards like casualties of war.
Liam adjusted his polo shirt collar, though no one was there to see him fuss. The dorm was a skeleton now, stripped bare of its usual chaos. No laughter bled through thin walls, no bass-heavy music vibrating the ceiling tiles above. Just the hum of vending machines down the hall and the occasional creak of a door swinging slightly ajar in the draft was left.
The clipboard's top sheet fluttered slightly as Liam exhaled. Room 204 first, then the rest in numerical order. Standard procedure, but something about performing it in this hollowed-out building made him feel like a trespasser. He rapped twice on the door with his knuckles, the sound too loud in the empty corridor. "Dorm check, RA on Duty!" His deep voice bounced off the linoleum, echoing down the hall.
Silence.
The keycard's magnetic strip slid into the reader with a dull click, the sound too clinical for the moment. Liam pushed the door open slowly, and the door swung inward without protest, revealing a room frozen in mid-abandonment.
The first thing that hit him was the cold. Someone had left the window cracked open, and December air coiled around his ankles like a living thing. A single sock dangled from the sill, caught between the pane and the frame, fluttering like a surrender flag. Liam stepped inside, his sneakers leaving faint impressions in the carpet's crushed fibers. The room smelled like old pizza and fabric softener, with an undercurrent of something metallic, maybe the ghost of a spilled energy drink.
Liam's eyes swept across the room. It was a classic setup with two beds, two desks, two lives pressed into this cramped rectangle of institutional carpet. The bed on the left was stripped bare, the mattress naked and vaguely guilty-looking under the flickering overhead light. Its counterpart on the right still had sheets tangled in a half-hearted cocoon, one corner trailing onto the floor like the tail of a retreating animal. The desk beneath the abandoned bed was pristine, save for a single sticky note clinging to the edge: "See you Jan 10th -J". The other desk was a museum of collegiate entropy with three empty Red Bull cans in a defensive formation around a laptop, a highlighter uncapped and bleeding neon yellow onto a calculus textbook, and a crumpled bag of Cheetos spilling its orange dust like a tiny crime scene.
The window between them was a rectangle of washed-out winter light, its glass streaked with the ghosts of old rainstorms. That dangling sock twisted lazily in another gust of wind, tapping against the frame with a sound like a muted metronome. Liam nudged a stray sneaker out of his path with his toe. The closet doors stood slightly ajar, one hanging crookedly on its track, revealing a single hoodie slumped on a hanger like a forgotten guest at a party.
He clicked his pen and marked "window left unlatched" on his clipboard, the sound absurdly loud in the quiet. The radiator under the window hissed softly, fighting a losing battle against the December chill. Between the beds, a single power strip snaked across the carpet, its outlets bristling with phone chargers and a lone desk lamp still glowing faintly as evidence that someone had left in a hurry.
The left desk held a plastic organizer tray with pens standing at attention next to a closed planner. A sticky note on the monitor read "BIOL 204 LAB DUE TUES" in crisp block letters. The right desk looked like a hurricane had hit a tech store, with headphones draped over a laptop screen, a USB drive dangling precariously from its port, and three different half-empty water bottles marking the stages of some forgotten all-nighter. One had a green algae bloom creeping up its sides.
Liam's gaze drifted upward to the walls. Left side: A single framed photo of a family at Disneyland, all matching Mickey ears and sunburned smiles. Right side: Concert posters layered like sedimentary rock, the bottom one peeling at the corners to reveal a corner of the one beneath it- some indie band's logo half-visible under the current headliner. Someone had drawn a cartoon penis on the lead singer's forehead in Sharpie.
He stepped further into the room, the carpet muffling his footsteps. Something crunched underfoot and he lifted his shoe to reveal a single Cheeto, ground into the fibers like orange shrapnel. The closet doors creaked as another gust came through the window, making the abandoned hoodie sway as if shrugging.
Liam's fingers brushed against the icy window frame as he pushed it shut with a decisive click. For a moment, his breath fogged the glass, three quick clouds that dissipated almost immediately in the dry winter air. He wiped a streak of grime from the sill with his thumb, leaving a clean line like a finger drawn through dust. The radiator hissed louder in protest as the cold air's escape route vanished.
He crouched by the power strip, its orange LED still glowing like a tiny warning light. The cables resisted as he yanked the plug from the wall, one of the phone chargers swinging wildly before settling against the carpet with a soft thump. The desk lamp's bulb dimmed slowly, as if reluctant to let go of its faint illumination. Liam scribbled "unattended electronics" on his clipboard, the ballpoint's scratch unnaturally sharp in the quiet room. He hesitated, then added "only one power strip" beneath it in smaller letters.
The vibration hit Liam's thigh like a horsefly bite through denim, sudden and insistent. He straightened and fished the phone from his pocket with fingers still stiff from the window's cold metal. The screen cast a blue-white glow across his face as he swiped to answer: sharp cheekbones catching the light like runway markers, stubble darkening a jawline that hadn't seen a razor in three days, lips chapped from breathing dorm heater air.
"Yo," Liam said, tucking the clipboard under his arm. His voice sounded alien in the empty room. His free hand rose instinctively to push chestnut-brown hair out of his eyes, strands that always escaped the lazy side-part no matter how many times he raked them back. At six-one, he had to duck slightly under the bed frame when standing beneath the bunk beds, his broad shoulders momentarily eclipsing the rectangle of winter light from the window. The polo shirt stretched tight across his back as he shifted his weight.
"What's up?" He pivoted on the ball of one foot, scuffing the carpet with his worn Vans. The caller's voice buzzed tinny through the speaker while Liam's gaze drifted to his own reflection in the dark laptop screen across the room. Hazel eyes bracketed by laugh lines that didn't match his twenty-one years and a nose that had been broken during a high school soccer game and never quite set right gazed back at him.
"Just doing final dorm checks now that the freshies have gone home for winter break," he said, nudging a stray Red Bull can with his toe. It rolled halfway under the bed before hitting a dust bunny the size of a small mammal. Through the phone laughter erupted, sharp as a firecracker, and Liam grinned without meaning to, his teeth straight except for one incisor that twisted slightly, a detail that escaped most people.
"Yeah, it's boring as hell," Liam admitted, kicking at a loose corner of carpet with his sneaker. The frayed edge flipped up like a disappointed tongue. "But free room and board beats scrubbing dishes at the dining hall for minimum wage."
The laughter on the other end of the line morphed into static as his friend said something about campus being a ghost town. Liam leaned against the doorframe, the clipboard digging into his ribs. "Down for dinner later?" he asked, eyes tracking a spider making its way across the ceiling tiles. "Maybe see if the gym's got a pickup game going afterward?"
Static crackled an affirmative, and then a question. "Nah, I'm stuck here all break," Liam continued, nudging the Red Bull can the rest of the way under the bed with his toe. It vanished into the dust bunny's embrace. "Couple kids staying over and us RAs gotta babysit the stragglers."
Liam straightened up just as the radiator gave a violent clang, sending the spider scurrying back upward. "Seven sound good? Cool." He pocketed his phone, the screen casting one last blue glow across his chin before darkness swallowed it whole. The radiator settled into a grumbling simmer, its pipes groaning like an old man shifting in his sleep.
He shouldered the door open wider, the hinges protesting with a sound like a cat being stepped on, and stepped back into the hallway.
"One down, twenty-one to go," Liam muttered under his breath, clicking his pen against the clipboard's edge as he stepped back into the hollowed-out hallway. The overhead fluorescents buzzed like a swarm of disgruntled wasps, casting long shadows behind the abandoned flip-flops and forgotten textbooks littering the baseboards.
Room 206 surrendered without protest. The door swung open to reveal twin beds stripped down to plastic-wrapped mattresses, their crinkled surfaces reflecting the streetlight glow from between half-drawn blinds. Liam's sneakers left temporary prints on the vacuumed carpet as he moved through the space, noting the single neon post-it stuck to the mirror: "Jenna, took your extra shampoo. Will Venmo you $3.50. Happy Hanukkah ♡". He snorted, jotting "all good" on his form before backing out, the door clicking shut with finality.
208 smelled faintly of burnt popcorn and regret. The desk under the left bunk held a miniature Stonehenge of empty Monster cans, their aluminum sides crushed inwards as if whatever energy they'd contained had violently escaped. A single sock dangled from the ceiling vent like a makeshift distress signal. Liam reached up, tugging it free with a soft rip of Velcro and it landed in his palm smelling of fabric softener and teenage boy. He tossed it onto the bed marked with duct tape that read "DYLAN'S SIDE (RESPECT THE TAPE)", then paused at the sight of a half-assembled Lego Death Star abandoned mid-construction on the floor. The instruction booklet lay open to page 37.
210 was colder than the others, its window glass frosted at the edges where the seal had failed. Someone had taped a printout of the periodic table over their bed. Probably not for studying, given the crude mustaches Sharpied onto half the elements. The radiator beneath it wheezed asthmatically, its metallic innards clanking like a pocketful of loose change. Liam's pen checked off "heating unit malfunction" before he noticed the tiny succulents lined up along the windowsill, their soil dry as chalk. He hesitated, then poured the dregs of a nearby water bottle into each pot, the droplets sinking instantly into parched earth.
Liam rapped his knuckles against the door of 212, the sound sharp and hollow against the quiet. "Dorm check, RA on Duty!" His voice bounced down the empty hallway, swallowed by the thick silence.
Silence.
The keycard slipped from Liam's fingers and clattered to the floor, not that anyone was there to hear it. He cursed under his breath, bending to retrieve it with the exaggerated weariness of someone who'd spent too many hours checking empty rooms. The hallway light flickered overhead as he straightened, casting his shadow long and distorted against the door of 212 like a funhouse mirror reflection.
The plastic card felt slippery between his fingers as he jammed it into the reader again. This time the light blinked green with a chirp that sounded obscenely cheerful in the tomb-quiet hallway. Liam turned the handle, the cold metal biting into his palm, and pushed, and the door opened with a sigh.
The door swung inward to reveal a classic dorm room, two beds pushed to either side of the room and flanked with regulation issue desks, all brightly lit by the fluorescent lights beaming from overhead. As Liam blinked the spots out of his eyes from the sudden blast of brightness, his eyesight focused on the area in between the bed frames and the student there on the ground.
Kent, one of the freshman residents of the room, was glossed with sweat under the overhead light, his bronze skin sheening like he'd been oiled for a wrestling match. His blond undercut was mussed where the headphones had mashed it flat, the longer top strands sticking up in chaotic tufts. The headphones themselves were enormous, matte black, and framed a face that was contorted in pleasure.
Kent's back muscles rolled like tectonic plates as he lowered himself onto a suction-cupped toy, the motion making his shoulder blades flare like wings. He was lean but densely built, the kind of guy who looked like he could bench-press a horse but preferred doing yoga shirtless in the quad. A constellation of freckles dusted his traps, trailing down his spine like someone had flicked paint at him. His arms trembled slightly where they braced behind him, biceps flexing with each controlled descent, forearms corded with veins that stood out against his golden skin.
A laptop screen positioned on the ground in front of him bathed his thighs in blue light, a video playing of a naked lumberjack getting railed against a tree. Kent's own thick thighs quivered as he hit the base of the toy with a wet slap, his breath stuttering. "F-fuck, yeah, just like that." His voice cracked on the last word, completely unaware of Liam frozen in the doorway.
A red gym towel was wadded beneath Kent's knees, the fabric dark with sweat. His hips pistoned with a lazy, self-indulgent rhythm, the swell of his ass flexing each time he took the full length. The toy itself glistened under the dorm's unforgiving fluorescents. The suction cup had failed slightly on one side, making a faint smacking sound with every thrust.
Kent moaned louder, tossing his head back so the tendons in his neck stood out like rigging wires. His throat worked around another syllable, something between "harder" and "yes", as his hips rolled in a slow circle. The dildo was streaked with lube that caught the light every time Kent lifted himself almost entirely off it, only to sink back down with a wet squelch that echoed off the cinderblock walls.
Liam’s clipboard hit the linoleum with a crack like a gunshot, sending pens skittering across the floor, as it slipped from his grip. Liam startled backward, his elbow catching the edge of a hockey bag propped against the doorframe, and suddenly the world became a cacophony of falling gear. Sticks clattered like dominos, shoulder pads bounced with plasticky thuds, and a single skate blade screeched against the tile before coming to rest against Liam's sneaker. His jaw unhinged.
Kent's head snapped up so fast his headphones slid off, exposing ears that turned crimson in real time. The laptop's audio, now clearly audible, blared "FUCK ME HARDER" as Kent's hips stuttered to a stop mid-thrust.
Kent's head whipped around with the grace of a startled deer, his pupils blown wide as they locked onto Liam's face. For a suspended second, the only sound was the laptop's enthusiastic pornstar panting "Yeah, take it deeper, big boy!" Then the dildo slipped free with a loud squelch that echoed off the cinderblock walls. Kent's entire body shuddered, his spine arching involuntarily as his eyes rolled back in terror-turned-pleasure. A low moan escaped his throat before he could choke it back, his hands scrambling for purchase on the sweaty gym towel as his hole clenched around nothing.
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