Christa Kelly, Certified Nerd

“THE CHAMBER HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM . . . BEWARE.”

This was the troubling message Augsburg students woke up to find painted in dripping blood outside of the Honors lounge on Monday morning. The blood was confirmed to be leftover pig blood from the freshmen’s Scholar Citizen course.

If the message was meant to inspire fear or disconcernment, it was less than effective. When told about the incident, Honors students were predominately unfazed.

“A chamber?” Kelton Holsen said. “Yeah, sounds about right. I mean, given everything else going on, this might as well happen.”

Cal Denson Lehman reacted similarly. “That checks out. I don’t know why anyone’s surprised. That room is cursed. I don’t go in there. I just don’t trust like that.”

Ashley Kronebusch was first to find the rumored chamber. After accidently knocking Professor Crockett’s shepherd crook from its place on the wall, a foggy staircase rose from the floor, leading to a dark abyss.

“Oh, I just shrugged it off and left,” she said later. “I thought it was just one of those Honors things.”

No one on campus denies that strange things have been happening since the chamber opened, but there is disagreement about whether the events are caused by supernatural forces lurking under the Honors lounge. There have been reports of a spontaneously moving statue in the lounge, clanking through the pipes, and a disgraced honors professor wandering forlornly through campus.

“I’d say that it’s likely that there’s a monster down there,” Holsen mentioned. “Something’s got to be eating all the snacks in the lounge.”

This article was originally published in the April 5, 2019 issue.