I Broke My Dorm Room Neighbor's Sleep Schedule for Weeks

Hi everyone, this is Alex. I'm in my first year of college and it’s been a whirlwind adjusting to dorm life. I share a room with Kate, who’s pretty quiet most nights but sometimes she stays up late studying or listening to music softly on her headphones. We got along well at the beginning; we have similar tastes in movies and books, and our schedules meshed nicely. But here’s where things went south. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered an app that lets you make eerie sound effects like howling wind, creaking floorboards, and distant screams. It was meant to be for prank calls or scary games with friends, but something weird happened: every time I used it, I felt this inexplicable rush of adrenaline. I started experimenting late at night when Kate was asleep. At first, it was just once a week, harmless enough, right? I’d pop in my headphones and play the sound effects under really low volume so only I could hear them, but still, something about those eerie noises felt exhilarating. Then one Friday night, while everyone else was out, I decided to turn up the volume slightly and left my headphones on the desk. The result: Kate woke up suddenly around midnight, mumbling into her pillow for a few minutes before flipping off the lights again. I didn’t think too much of it then, but after a week or two, she started getting really grumpy in our morning classes. She’d yawn uncontrollably and look exhausted all the time. It was only when I was scrolling through my app one night, just browsing out of habit now that I knew its effects, that guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn’t intentional to bother Kate, but it didn’t occur to me until then how much my little experiment had actually impacted her sleep schedule and mood. So, I decided it was time to put the app away for good. The next day at lunch, I apologized to Kate about the noise, she looked genuinely surprised that someone could mess up her routine so badly with something as small as background sound effects. I feel a mix of relief now that this is out in the open and regret over what I did. Sometimes college life has its unexpected consequences.