University Gothic

There is one lab technician who can repair any broken equipment, no matter how badly damaged. The undergrads tell stories about how she once brought someone's pet rabbit back from the dead. Her office is listed as B-28, but there are only 27 rooms on the basement floor. She can only be found serendipitously, by someone who is willing to ask for help.

The philosophy department is on the top floor of the tallest building on campus. The department head is quite old, and no one knows how long she's worked there. No one has ever seen her leave the department. Some say she doesn't sleep, and spends her nights lying on the rooftop, staring at the stars, and contemplating existentialist papers from days gone by.

There is a research group in the mechanical engineering department who are incredibly secretive about their research. Late at night, they can be seen bringing bulky looking objects into the building, wrapped in black fabric. Until the small hours of the morning, the occasional flashes of welding torches can be seen reflected in the windows.

That apple tree by the library always seems to have fruit, but few people ever eat them. After all, the canteen is very close. It's a very old tree, and its roots seem to grow into the walls of the building itself. Occasionally a student sits under it during revision time, casually munching an apple while they read through their lecture notes. That student will always get the highest grades that semester, even if they were previously the lowest.

Underneath the library is the sub-basement. Officially, it's where the library's extended collection is stored. Ancient and dusty books are kept down there, dating back many years. The deeper you go, the older the books become, until they eventually become replaced by parchment scrolls and codices. It's advisable to turn back once you start finding the cuneiform tablets. No one who's walked past those has ever returned.

It's advised that any grad students in the chemistry department avoid the second floor if they find themselves working late. No one ever says precisely why. Everyone has a story about someone who once ignored this advice. Afterwards, everyone said they were different somehow, but no one could properly explain in what way.

There is always a student asleep on the sofas in the Student Union building. Anyone who's paying close attention will notice that it's always the same student. She's sometimes seen clutching a different book in her sleep-numbed fingers, but no one's ever seen her conscious. It's said that a terrible calamity will befall the university if she ever wakes up.

An easily overlooked building next to the medical school has a discreet sign outside which reads, simply, “Human Resources.” It has no windows, and the only door is always locked.

The main engineering faculty building contains seven staircases. Each staircase leads to an identical second floor lecture hall containing several hundred seats. Students frequently walk into the wrong lecture because of how similar each staircase looks. Few people notice that the building itself can surely only be large enough to contain one lecture hall that size.

If you find yourself lost on campus, you may occasionally find yourself at the Computing Centre. Through the windows you'll see an old style computer room with rows upon rows of boxy grey CRT monitors, all displaying nothing but a DOS prompt. Do not enter the building, no matter what the people inside may say to you. Walk away and pray the building does not find you again. Even looking through the windows for too long can be enough for it to learn who you are.

The physics building has three entrances, which all lead to the same large atrium. Be certain to never leave the building by a different door to the one you used to get in. Just to be sure.

Past a certain age, buildings become more than they once were. Given enough time, a library will acquire its own soul, while an administration building full of offices will acquire the lost souls of those who were looking in vain for a certain office on the third floor so they could fill in form 9-13D. This form is no longer required for students who wish to use the parking spaces, but no one realises this. All students who own a car are emphatically told they must submit a completed 9-13D form within one month of registration. None of the admin staff who currently work on campus will admit to having ever heard of this form.

There is a small garden hidden amongst some of the older buildings on campus. Not many people realise it's even there. It's full of colourful flowers with a large sundial in the centre, and when you enter, it seems strangely quiet, as if the rest of the world is somehow further away. It's a lovely, peaceful place to sit for a while, but be careful. Time works differently there. Were you sitting for 5 minutes? 5 days? 5 weeks?

You borrow a book from the library. Inside it, you find a scrap of paper. The word “help” is written on it, in shaky handwriting. The scrap of paper looks much older than the book you found it inside.

You carry your bag to campus every day. You're not even sure what's inside it anymore, amongst the pens and notebooks. You try to tidy it out, and inside one of the pockets, you find old cafeteria receipts, some lip balm, a knotted pair of headphones, and a small metal object with strange writing on it. You put everything back in your bag, and decide not to tidy it again.

All rumours of spacetime anomalies in the cosmology department are greatly exaggerated. They cause very little disruption to day-to-day activities on campus, and no one has ever been permanently lost.

There is construction work going on. No one remembers when it started, or what they're even building. A tall metal fence draped with tarp makes it impossible to see inside. You can hear sounds from the construction site sometimes, but you never see any workers enter or leave the site. Now you think about it, you don't know where the site's entrance even is.

There are signs up all over campus for student volunteers needed for experiments, offering money in exchange for participation. Those posted by the medical school promise only mild discomfort and a relatively low chance of terrible side effects. Students with better survival instincts opt for the psychology department's experiments instead, which are occasionally disturbing but can cause no lasting harm.

There is a large sculpture near the centre of campus. No one is sure what it's supposed to be. The longer you look at it, the less sense it seems to make, with its peculiar angles and exaggerated lines. Sometimes, out of the corner of your eye, you swear you can see it move.

There is a door in the biology building which is locked, and has no sign on it. No one has ever opened the door. You're fairly sure it's the outside wall, from what you know of the building, but the door is on the 4th floor. When you look from the outside, you can find no sign of where the door should be.

There is a greenhouse on campus, illuminated at night by eerie magenta grow lights. The glass is frosted, and all you can see of the interior is a few silhouettes of plants. If you're walking past late at night, you can sometimes see those silhouettes move. But that's probably just a grad student working late. Right?

The literature department is in the oldest building on campus. It's a maze of stone walls, polished floors, and grand looking staircases. On some of the walls hang painted portraits with eyes that seem to look at you no matter where you stand. In the echo filled corridors, you can hear footsteps. You can always hear footsteps. Even when you're sure there's no one else there.

You're looking for a seminar room on the 3rd floor of the maths building. The staircase and corridors always seem to lead you to the 2nd and 4th floors. No matter how hard you try, you cannot find any way to the 3rd floor. But that's secretly a good thing. If you could find your way there, do you really think you could find your way out again?

Physics professors are only granted tenure when they're able to exist as wavefunctions with no single definite location. This ensures they can be in multiple places at once when necessary, but can never be found by PhD students who are looking for them.