One of the most universally dreaded experiences at William Jewell College is the Hill itself, Missouri’s largest mountain. It’s a challenge few students dare to attempt alone, and even seasoned athletes recoil at the sight of it. More often than not, the Hill is traversed by car or by skateboard, but a select group of students have set out to conquer it on foot. Not much is known about them, and they have become the campus’s cryptids, in a way. They are known only as the Sorority Walkers.
Not all sorority members necessarily qualify as Walkers, however. Through the little research we have, one potential theory is that a select group has been infected by a mysterious plague that causes the subject to be spontaneously compelled to walk away from the sorority complex at inopportune times. Symptoms are similar to the dancing plague of medieval Europe, in which those affected would dance until they collapsed from exhaustion. Similarly, these sorority women are compelled to live far away from campus and walk long distances every day. As of yet, there are no cases of collapse, but Campus Safety is carefully monitoring their behavior regardless.
Even then, other theorists have suggested that if a virus had really taken hold of Shumaker Hall, all women living there should be affected. Those who drive to school are either naturally immune to the plague or—perhaps more reasonably—simply do not wish to climb the Hill. Some studies have shown that the act of walking up might be completely voluntary, even though Shumaker is nearly a kilometer away from the Quad. In any case, some groups of women among the Walkers often carry cell phones by their side, and have started using a tracking device known as “Pokémon Go” to chart their progress. We are not yet sure if the two acts are correlated.
Whether it is caused by a disease or by sheer recklessness, more and more women in Shumaker Hall are opting to walk. Progress on their reasoning has been incredibly slow, and the odd phenomenon is spreading at an alarming rate.
Any attempt at an interview was promptly refused, only for the sorority sister to continue with her mysterious walking. We are left only with this cryptic code commonly left by Walkers.
“I wish I could stay and chat, but I have a 7:45. Talk to you later!”