Upon my very knees, I implore you, heed my message! The curse of knowledge, dear reader, has taken root in my soul, and I can but hope that I can deter some foolhardy wanderer of William Jewell College from exposing themself to the dangers which I, unwittingly, have stared in the face. The ancient evils are awakening, and I would not have you endure their hunger; none of us have the strength to defeat them. Heed this brief warning, and should you be held at bay by some malevolent being, you may yet escape that monster intent on your very marrow. Though it may be too late for me to escape the voracious oblivion that awaits, have courage; you may yet live. 

Perchance you have already taken note of the immortal ascetic who wanders William Jewell College by night. More specifically, she roams Gano Chapel when all the lights are out: you may see her silently admiring the lifeless organ, coaxing faint, faint sounds through its massive dusty pipes; you may observe as she paces the rows of the sanctuary, eyes fixed upwards. Her brown robes, in the corner of your eye, have perhaps flowed past the historical exhibit on the first floor, or maybe you have thought you could see the stage curtains quietly opening and closing; she is pulling the ropes in the attic. But the only place you can catch a glimpse of the Anchorite by day is in the prayer room lower by a floor. Here, on the angular wooden bench, you may watch her meditate, or see, in your peripheral vision, her somewhat translucent shape methodically saying the rosary, perching for hours on the low metal stool. Although she will not cause you any harm, the Anchorite may be displeased should you disrupt her studious prayer. If you wish to share in her wisdom and sanctity, ask politely, to the tune of Ave Maria, that the anchorite will play a game of Uno with you. She will teach you the ways of humility and poverty, and you have a good chance of winning, since she has taken a vow of silence and thus cannot announce when she is down to her final card.

​Some places at William Jewell College seem pleasant and full of light, and indeed I have spent many happy hours idling away my time on the blood-red seats of the amphitheater, which you may find halfway down the Trail of Tyranny behind Marston Hall. Why, I wondered, why call the path by such a nasty name? For indeed the sun shines brightly upon the half-circle, casting the seats into a most marvelous hue. But wander not down the Trail of Tyranny near midnight! I did so, merely wishing to study in my oft-visited haunt of semesters past, but I met with such ghastly guardians that I can no longer so much as pass the place without being taken by a violent trembling in all my limbs. For I nearly faced death that night; walking past the iron lamp, I was suddenly met by a spectre which had six eyes and a jaw so wide that its teeth, set in numerous rows, seemed ready to chew me whole. I have, of course, been beset by supernatural perils before, as my readers may know, but at this sight I could move neither hand nor foot, but stood staring as the Tyrant shambled forward. Casting a glance over his bony shoulder, I saw the seats, formerly so brilliant and cheery in the clearing, now dark as obsidian and occupied by others just as horrible. Some had gangling arms and legs that rested at acute angles in the short-legged chairs: some had such flattened and stretched skin that I seemed to behold a skeleton wrapped in tarpaulin, and all emitted ghastly gargling noises at the sight of me. I stumbled backward into the light of the lamp, at which some of its dim rays hit a mirrored trinket upon my backpack, blinding the Tyrant for an instant as I came to myself and sped off for the safety of the better-lit pathway behind me. Go, enjoy the Amphitheater by day, but stay not past the setting of the sun! I fear lest some intrepid explorer of the night should perish at the many hands of the Trail Tyrants and come no more to that resting place so favored by day.

​The ulterior intentions of William Jewell College’s architecture are not always clear. You may wander a hallway a thousand times, and on the thousand-and-first, it may swallow you whole without apology or explanation. It has upon occasion been necessary for me to enter the traveling box which transports a person from one floor of Curry Hall to another. This elevator has served me faithfully several times, if with uneasy mechanical groans of protest, but I thank the kindly spirits that I did not enter it this week past. Perhaps I did learn something playing cards with the Ancient Anchorite, for on that day my heart was set against entering that small prison, and I could not bring myself to set foot in its metallic embrace. I thought myself a coward, however, and pressed the button, waiting for its arrival. I had nearly stepped into the elevator when I saw a strange dark forest within, blanketed in gray mist that seemed to stretch for miles. I felt as if I were inside a reflection and upside down. This time my wits were less frozen, and before I could answer the deathly pull of that dark landscape I had taken a large step backwards and pulled out the red reverse card that the Anchorite bade me to carry always: and no sooner did I do so than the doors of the elevator slammed with such a force, that my ears rang for a good few hours. I had passed the test. The card smoked and withered, and I was left wondering before those superannuated double doors.

I urge you, beware of the buildings you trust, dear reader, for they may turn on you with such temptations that you fall into the depths of the abyss, leaving this life behind in its entirety. Still I am haunted by the sound of that clear cold wind in my soul, and I would that no other need feel the same terrible weight. Still my dreams lurch at me with the disfigurement of a Tyrant of the Trail, my sleeping hours as haunted as my waking. Still I can find no comfort sitting with the Anchorite in silence, for the evils I have seen are unraveling the knot of my sanity. I beseech you who read this, take my warning not lightly! For there are no safe places in this ravenous world; even William Jewell College will betray you by night, take you as a small morsel into its gaping maw, if you have not the wisdom and wherewithal to run before it is too late.

Due to a medical accommodation, my roommate and I live in a Resident Assistant (RA) room, which has a bathroom, in Mathes Hall. One day, I walked into our bathroom and heard very light tapping noises. When I lifted my head to look for the noise, I was met with a hoard of gnats in and around the light fixture of the bathroom. The noises I had heard were from the gnats flying into the light fixture. Seeing a few gnats fly out of the bathroom and into the main room, I immediately exited the bathroom and closed the door behind me to prevent more from entering my room. The infestation must have happened in the last few hours because I had used the bathroom without a hitch earlier that day. 

I frantically called my roommate to fill her in on the situation and went to find my RA. The RA and RD for Mathes both came into my room to gauge the situation and were in shock from how bad the infestation was. They explained that they would put in a work order and that maintenance should come by to take care of the situation as soon as possible. In an attempt to do damage control, they sprayed the bathroom with a disinfectant spray and opened the window. However, the gnats were still there the next morning. 

Upon returning to my room later in the second day, I found that maintenance had come by while my roommate and I were away. They killed all of the gnats, but they didn’t clean them up. Our bathroom was full of dead gnats. The bugs were all over the floor and the toilet seat cover. The majority of the dead gnats were in the light fixture, so my roommate and I were hesitant to clean it up ourselves. Neither of us wanted to risk damaging anything while cleaning the bugs out of the fixture, as further damage could have resulted in possibly being fined by the school. 

Our RA put in another work order for maintenance to clean up the bugs, But, three days went by without any action. After another two work orders were placed, the bugs were still there, and our RA received an email saying that maintenance had ordered fly traps for our room. The email said that Amazon had initially delivered the wrong item and that maintenance should receive fly traps in the next two days. At this point, it had already been about a week and the dead bugs were still there. Five days later, our RA got an email saying that maintenance had installed a fly trap in our room, although no one found evidence of this being true. Not that the trap would have been much help at this point anyway. Eventually, our RA came into the room to clean out the gnats in our light fixture. We cleaned up the rest ourselves. To this day, we still have not received the fly traps that had supposedly been ordered.

I understand that maintenance gets a lot of work orders from all over campus, which can pile up very easily and make it hard to keep up with the workload. Despite this, the quality at which they complete their tasks matters. Sacrificing quality of work to achieve quantity of work orders completed will lead to more work orders being put in due to the shoddy work done for the sake of completion. This is a problem I hope Jewell will be able to address moving forward for the benefit of all students, faculty and staff.