My bedmate used o wake me up to do Satanic rituals at 3am

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The humid Lagos air clung to Brian like a second skin as he tossed in his bunk bed. It was Sunday, 3:15 am, and an unsettling feeling gnawed at him. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself back to sleep, but the prickle of movement above him sent a jolt through his body.

Brian peeked over the edge of the thin mattress. A sliver of moonlight illuminated the face of his bedmate, Deji. Deji's eyes were wide open, an unnatural glint replacing their usual playful sparkle. A shiver, cold despite the sweltering night, snaked down Brian's spine. This wasn't the first Sunday Deji had been awake at this ungodly hour.

It had started subtly a few months ago. A cough, a rustle of sheets, then silence. But lately, the pre-dawn ritual had become more elaborate. Deji would sit up, muttering under his breath, his gaze fixed on a corner of the dorm room that seemed to unnerve even the resident geckos. Tonight, though, was different. Deji wasn't muttering; he was chanting.

A low, rhythmic hum vibrated in the stale air, sending goosebumps erupting on Brian's skin. He wanted to call out, to ask Deji what he was doing, but a primal fear kept him rooted to his mattress. The chanting grew louder, punctuated by sharp clicks of Deji's tongue against his teeth. A pungent, unfamiliar odor filled the room, acrid and unpleasant.

Suddenly, Deji stopped chanting. He reached under his bunk and pulled out a small, ornately carved wooden box. Moonlight glinted off something metallic inside. Brian's heart hammered against his ribs. He knew what those shapes were – knives. Panic coiled in his gut, sharp and suffocating.

Deji beckoned Brian with a single, sharp finger. "Come," he rasped, his voice rough and unfamiliar. Brian's breath hitched. Every instinct screamed at him to refuse, to scramble out of bed and flee the room. But a strange paralysis gripped him, his body frozen in terror.

He inched towards the edge of the bunk, his eyes glued to Deji's every move. Deji opened the box, revealing a collection of gleaming knives and a handful of dusty black stones. He gestured to the space beside him. "Join me, brother," he said, his voice no longer raspy but smooth, almost seductive. "It is time."

In that moment, a dam broke within Brian. A surge of adrenaline coursed through him, snapping him out of his paralysis. With a strangled cry, he threw himself off the bunk and scrambled towards the dorm room door. He didn't dare look back, the chanting and the metallic clinking of the knives spurring him on.

He burst out of the dorm room, the cool night air a welcome shock against his clammy skin. He didn't stop running until he reached the familiar, flickering light of the dorm supervisor's office. Breathless and trembling, he pounded on the door.

The events of that night became a blur. The stern-faced supervisor, the hushed whispers among the other students, the police questioning. Deji was gone by morning, his bunk stripped bare. The carved box and the knives were never found.

Though the authorities found no evidence of wrongdoing, the whispers in the dorm persisted. Some students claimed to see fleeting shadows darting through the corners of their vision, or hear disembodied chants echoing in the dead of night. Brian never slept soundly again. The memory of Deji's chanting and the glint of the knives remained etched in his mind, a constant reminder of the darkness he'd glimpsed that night in Lagos.

Brian left the dorm shortly after, the experience leaving an indelible mark on him. He never spoke of what happened that night, the weight of the secret a heavy burden on his young shoulders. But the memory lingered, a chilling reminder of the unseen forces that can lurk in the shadows, even in the supposed safety of a high school dorm.