Spooked - Room 10E

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Rebecca moves into the dorms at the Fashion Institute and her roommates' outfits go missing. Everyone is mystified, but the answer… is terrifying.Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing your story with Spoo...ked!Produced by Erick Yáñez. Original score by Nicolas Marks. Scouted by Vanessa Golembewski. Artwork by Teo Ducot. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Starting point is 00:00:01 Tick-tock Break the glass Tick the lock Snatch the bag Make the drop Count the cash Split the pot Watch your bag
Starting point is 00:00:23 Mark the spot Who to snitch Make him cop Who to snitch Make him cop Think he's un? No he's not Think you're free No you're not
Starting point is 00:00:35 No you're not No you're not No you're not Lost over the spooked stay 11 years old we moved to a new apartment
Starting point is 00:01:07 and somehow and all to hustle and bustle confusion I don't know how it happens but a brother and I we wind up with an extra brother my Italian brother Rocky
Starting point is 00:01:19 he technically lives in the apartment underneath ours but mostly he kicks it at our place and Rocky's got the down syndrome right blaze it for all it's worth he'll run in start rummaging through the fridge
Starting point is 00:01:36 tossing leftover potatoes to the ground my mama won't say jack to him she'd have smacked this upside the head in the minute Rocky steals ketchup on her living room carpet no problem Rocky practices juggling the eggs while jumping up and down on her bed
Starting point is 00:01:58 just don't do it again okay Because Rocky is a great guy He extends his life license to his pals We throw pain Like the nice he dressed people outside And right when they get big mad Rocky! He comes running to take the blame like a champ Oh, I'm sorry
Starting point is 00:02:26 Grinning Knowing full well he ain't getting in trouble He knows what he's doing We know he knows everybody knows, but he gets away with it anyway, because he's Rocky. I hadn't thought of Rocky in a long time. He was just kids. We moved.
Starting point is 00:02:56 They moved, moved again. I didn't do a great job keeping up. Not too long ago, my brother gets sick, really sick. Starts remembering things that didn't happen. for remembering two very clearly things that did happen in one day right after ranting about
Starting point is 00:03:28 billions of bearabonds he's got buried in the bottom of the ocean his fog clears he says man we should kept in touch with Rocky man you know like he was our little brother man that's not right man but tell him
Starting point is 00:03:43 bra you know I kept tabs on Rocky he's in clear Even. Fat little apartment. Overlooking the park, Rocky's got the best life, man. Because he's the best dude. The smile that lights up my brother's face, the happiness, the joy. It's so pure. So pure, I would have repeated the same lie to him a million times over without a touch of regret. New beginnings. Let's meet Rebecca. Rutgers just started college at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, pursue a career in photography. It's a magical spot. People arrived from all of the world to study everything there is to learn about arts and fashion.
Starting point is 00:05:52 It's exciting, right? Right? I moved into the freshman dorms, and I got put in alumni hall. It's an 18-story building, and they had me on the 10th floor. in room 10E. I was very nervous to move in. I'm a homebody, so it was just a new place,
Starting point is 00:07:07 kind of scary, intimidating, all new people, but the moment I walked in, I was like, this is actually very nice for a college dorm. It was a sweet setup. So when you walked inside, you're in the kitchen, which was directly next to the bathroom.
Starting point is 00:07:26 And straight ahead, there's two different bedrooms. for two girls each. To me, it was like, oh my gosh, we're having this cool little mini apartment with girls my age in Manhattan. All three of my roommates were all very much into fashion.
Starting point is 00:07:48 They always had cute outfits put together. But I definitely felt a little bit like the black sheep. I was really more of like a punk emo kid growing up. So I was wearing like flannels and ripped jeans. and whatever to fashion school. Being a photography major,
Starting point is 00:08:08 I actually used a lot of them as models in my projects. I was still pretty shy, but they brought me out of my shell a lot. They would invite me to parties, and we would go out all over the city together. Around four months after we moved into the dorm room, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, working on my laptop late at night. And I just start feeling this tingling down my spine or like the hair on my neck standing up.
Starting point is 00:08:50 And I just get this feeling of dread. It was almost this feeling of being watched from the bathroom, which was directly across from the kitchen table. I'm staring directly in the bathroom. It's pitch black. I'm trying to play it off in my head that I'm just psyching myself out. It's late at night. So I get up.
Starting point is 00:09:17 I run over and shut the door hard and run back to the table and sit back down. And I'm like, do I feel better? No. I try to continue working on the rest of my homework, but I just can't sit there anymore. I end up just going into my bed and pulling the covers over my head and waiting for the morning. I'm just telling myself, maybe you're creating something in your head that isn't really there. Put your head down and move on. One night, I'm just looking for one of my favorite sleep t-shirts, and I can't find it anywhere. I'm looking in my dresser, I'm looking under my bed,
Starting point is 00:10:09 I'm looking in my laundry basket, I just can't find it. I asked my roommates, no one's seen it, granted, it's just like a pajama shirt, so no big deal. After maybe a week or two, one of my roommates notices that she's missing something. She asks us, hey, like, has anybody seen my skirt? We all pulled everything out of our dressers and closets, and we're looking through. No one can find this skirt. Over the course of the week, everyone started missing something, a tank top, a t-shirt, a dress. Being fashion students, they're clothes.
Starting point is 00:10:56 were all, like, pretty trendy, like, fashionable items. So it felt more special than me just losing a pajama t-shirt. The tensions got a little weird for a minute. Everyone's like, who's taking the clothes? Is someone lying? Is someone hiding these things? Everyone just wrote it off as, okay, well, it just got lost. And ha, ha, ha, ha, maybe this is like a hon.
Starting point is 00:11:26 dorm room and a ghost took it. It was just kind of a running joke. I'm sitting at the kitchen table again, doing my work late one night. Everyone else was asleep, and the feeling comes over me again. The feeling of being watched from that dark bathroom. The hair standing up on the back of my neck. Pit in my stomach just panic. All of a sudden, I just hear the shower.
Starting point is 00:12:29 turn on in the bathroom. Full blast. I'm frozen in my seat at the kitchen table. If someone was going to go in there, I would see them. I'm thinking to myself, what do I do right now? Do I run into my bed and just let the shower run all night? I run into the bathroom. I try not to look anywhere, but I see that the shower handle is pulled all the way to the right. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just just in shock. What the fuck is going on? I just as quickly as possible, pulled that shower handle back to the left, turned it off, and slammed the door shut, run so fast into my room and jump into my bed and pull the covers over me. Like a little kid that's scared running up the stairs at night. I'm mostly up through the whole night. I felt like the other things could be written off.
Starting point is 00:13:43 as anxiety or someone stealing clothes, but this was just weird. I tell the story to my roommates the next day, and I don't know if it's a nervous response, but they laugh. That's so crazy, but also, ha-ha, what? They didn't really think much of it beyond the moment of me telling them, and that was kind of isolating. So a few weeks later, I'm just getting out of class around dinner time, and I'm just going up to my dorm room to make some dinner and take a shower. There's no one else home at this point. None of my roommates are home. I step into the bathroom and turn on some music to just
Starting point is 00:14:42 start winding down and I step into the shower. All of a sudden, I just start seeing stars. And my vision is just going almost black and purple. What's going on? Is it temporary? I'm starting to get scared. And my vision is just going darker and darker and darker. I'm just absolutely panicking. I'm just in my mind spiraling. I really hope I'm not permanently blind. I'm a photographer. Am I going insane? I'm realizing I'm in the shower, in my dorm room, naked and alone. I'm like, well, I can't have this happen here. This is dangerous. I have to get out of As I'm reaching along the wall to feel for my towel, I realize I'm 100% blind. I can't see a thing.
Starting point is 00:16:01 I put the towel around me, carefully step out. I'm holding onto the wall for dear life until I exit the bathroom. My logical thought was the best thing I could do right now would just be to ask my neighbors for help. I'm feeling the left-hand wall of the dorm room hallway until I feel my fingers press up against the next doorway. And I knew I was at my neighbor's dorm room. I knock on the door and someone opens it and I recognize their voice. Are you okay? What happened?
Starting point is 00:16:46 And I tell them I can't see anything. just please let me stay here. Let me stay for a few minutes until I feel better. They bring me in and they bring me a glass of water. They ask me if I want anything else. Do I want any clothes? Do you need to go to the hospital? And I'm like, nope, just let me sit here and I'll get myself together. I felt like maybe this was all anxiety related. Maybe this is a fluke thing. I sat there for about 45 minutes, and over the course of nearly an hour, my vision slowly started coming back. As I regained my vision, my neighbors slowly helped me up, made sure I was okay, and walked me back over to my dorm room.
Starting point is 00:17:45 I just put some pajamas on and got into bed. When I woke up the next day, I was still exhausted. I skipped all my classes, and I decided to just call my mom to tell her about the experience I had in the shower. I ended up just confiding in her about what I had been feeling and experiencing over the last few months. And she said, oh, you know, your aunt actually went through something like this. You should give her a call. So I call my aunt. I tell her all of the details of what had happened.
Starting point is 00:18:33 She immediately is pretty concerned and tells me her story. One night, she was woken up by sounds in her apartment, and she saw a light emanating from her living room. She got up to go look, and there was an angelic figure. standing there. She tells me to encourage whoever's in here to move on, to say something along the lines of, this isn't where you're supposed to be anymore. You have to move on to the next place.
Starting point is 00:19:16 I hang up with my aunt. I feel so silly listening to this. I don't know that I really believe her. I also felt kind of embarrassed to just start talking out loud to next. nothing. So I held on to that information. I had still just been so exhausted for three days at this point. And I'm just feeling like, you know what, I'm just going to say it. I said out loud, you don't belong here anymore. This isn't where you should be. It's time for you to move on. And in that moment, I felt a breeze in the room.
Starting point is 00:20:15 Like this cool, refreshing almost breeze, saw my bedroom door slowly creak. And I feel a weight lifted off my chest. And it immediately felt lighter in the room. I didn't feel so tired anymore. And the feeling of being, being watched from the bathroom was no longer there. But I couldn't explain why.
Starting point is 00:20:50 I didn't want to assume just speaking out loud would work. About two months after that experience, I go back to Long Island for the summer to my childhood home. I went to visit my high school photography teacher because she was actually the one that helped me apply to FIT for school because she had went there in the 90s. So I wanted to just say thank you for helping me get in and just catch up together. She asked me how my first year went, how were the dorms, how was school and the projects. I tell her that I had stayed in the alumni hall dorm building.
Starting point is 00:22:15 She was like, oh my God, that's so crazy. That's the one that I stayed in in the 90s. That's so funny. What floor were you on? And I was like, oh, I was on the 10th floor. And she's like, no way. I was also on the 10th floor. Like, how crazy would it be if we were in the same room?
Starting point is 00:22:32 And I was like, I was in 10E. And she was like, oh, I was in the room next door. I was in 10F. The mood got weird and she got very cold. almost like solemn. And I was like, why did your vibe shift like that? And she was like, well, when I was there, a girl died in that room. She was a partier.
Starting point is 00:23:04 She was a really sweet girl, but, you know, did some drugs. And she unfortunately overdosed in that room and died. It's believed that she passed in the bathroom. I just feel my stomach draw. and I'm in complete disbelief of what I'm hearing. I end up telling her what I had experienced in this room, and she's now in shock. And she says, you know, I tried really hard to find this girl.
Starting point is 00:23:41 I couldn't find anything about her. I know her first name, and that she was really into this, like, fashion of rave culture and, you know, Janko jeans and me. and choker necklaces. I'm in shock. I'm thinking that's the kind of clothing going missing from my fashion student roommates. I tell her the experience I had in the shower
Starting point is 00:24:12 and losing my vision, and she theorized that maybe this girl was showing me what she had went through in this bathroom. Maybe she was upset and, angry still. Maybe I was a doorway for her to communicate through, and she was able to then move on properly and not be stuck in this bathroom. Over time, I've given this a lot of thought, and I think that's what was happening. The next year, I moved to a different dorm building a few blocks down from the school
Starting point is 00:25:03 with new roommates in a new room, a new place, but my classes still took place in the building directly across from Alumni Hall. Every time I would go to class, I would see the building and I would think about that room. I wonder if people are having any weird experiences in there but I'm hopeful that I helped her to move on. I hope that she's in a different place now and is more at peace.
Starting point is 00:25:47 Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing your story with the spooked. That original score was by Nicholas Marks, was scouted by Vanessa Golumbeski, was produced by Eric Yonyes. In 1980s, Miami, Dr. William G. Roll, the leading parapsychologist begins in, investigating a 13-year-old boy named Julio, family, friends, and eventually journalists and investigators,
Starting point is 00:26:36 they report they witnessed objects moving of their own accord. Whenever Julio is nearby. Furniture, dishes, silverware, things just fly about. Whenever he's scared, anxious, or upset. And after numerous tests and experiments and interviews, Dr. Roald concludes that the phenomena is something that he labels recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.
Starting point is 00:27:14 This is what the good doctor concludes, and giving it a name, R-S-P-K. That is all well and good, but to my mind, unhelpful. Julio has since taken his gifts and retreated from the public guide, but if you know someone with R-S-P-K or, dear Spookster, if you have R-S-P-K,
Starting point is 00:27:37 I would love to know so much more about it than the name. So would Spook Nation. Let us know. Spook at Snapjudgment.org because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Book is brought to you by the team that has a very thorough checklist they go through before renting any apartment except for Mark Ristich. In fact, it's best. The landlord has a very thorough checklist in hand before renting an apartment to Mark Ristich. There's David Kim
Starting point is 00:28:13 Zoe Frigno Anne Ford Eric Yannes Tailed Decat Marissa Dodge Miles Lassie Doug Stewart Paulina Creaky
Starting point is 00:28:23 Elizabeth Z. Pardue Adityamatu and Lulu Jemima The spook theme song is by Pat McCready Miller My name's in Washington And it's interesting Isn't it that
Starting point is 00:28:39 So Many Phenomena on this shadow road are tied to remembering. Remembering this battle. Remember this crime. Remember this loss. Remember. Psychic scream of I was here. Please see this. Please. See me. Need so powerful.
Starting point is 00:29:11 It transcends death. Me. Think about that. I don't want to wait for anyone that I know. I care about to pass on imagining they have to come back to ensure they are finally seen. Haunt me later. I want to see you now. I want to hear you now, now, now. Those that look me in my eye now.
Starting point is 00:29:50 Those that insist on seeing me now. That don't let me hide now. That refuse to take no for an answer now. That dragged me, kicking and screaming and sobbing from my own darkness and insolves. says now.

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