After I Died in My Dorm, the University Gave My Mom a Job in the Cafeteria to Keep Her Quiet.

After I suddenly collapsed and died in my dorm room, the university, desperate to avoid a scandal, offered my mom a job in the cafeteria to keep her quiet. Then, one by one, my roommates started dying. When the police reopened the investigation into my death, my mom just smiled calmly. "My daughter died of a sudden, natural cardiac event. Why would you be looking for a murderer?" 01 Rumors were spreading around campus that Dorm Room 332 was cursed. In just one month, three girls from that room had died. Bed 1: Me, Chloe Miller. Dead from sudden cardiac arrest. Bed 2: Ashley Parker. Strangled to death in the woods behind the library. Bed 3: Madison Reed. Brutally dismembered, her limbs missing. The only one left alive was Bed 4: Emily Carter. She dragged Ashley and Madison's parents into the university cafeteria, pointing a shaking finger directly at the busiest food counter. "It's her! That lunch lady! She's Chloe Miller's mother! She's the murderer!" Then, she screamed at the top of her lungs hysterically: "Stop eating! You're eating human flesh!" Amidst the screams and the sound of students gagging, my mom didn't even look up. She scooped up a ladle of braised pork, casually shook half of it back into the tray, and slammed the rest onto a student's plate. Only then did she drop the heavy metal ladle, wipe her calloused hands on her apron, and point right back at Emily. "If you have proof, go call the cops! If you don't, shut your damn mouth before I break your legs!" Ashley and Madison's parents lunged forward, trying to drag my mom out from behind the counter. My mom casually picked up a massive meat cleaver, instantly freezing them in their tracks. "Cowards," my mom muttered. She turned to the terrified students in the cafeteria and yelled: "Sit back down! Nobody leaves until they finish their food! You're college students, act like it! Don't waste food!" 02 The police arrived at the cafeteria shortly after. During a search of the staff locker room, they found evidence. A thick rope tied into a hangman's knot, and a bloodstained butcher knife. The detectives placed the evidence on the table in front of my mom. She scoffed and defended herself: "That rope is what I use to do pull-ups in the morning. I didn't strangle Ashley. "And that knife is what I use to chop pork ribs. What does that have to do with Madison? "I'm not a murderer. I'm a good person." Nobody believed her ridiculous explanation. The murder weapons from the recent killings had never been found. Now, they were sitting in my mom's locker. The police identified her as the prime suspect and took her away in handcuffs. But what absolutely no one expected was that the DNA on the rope belonged exclusively to my mom. Just her skin cells. And the blood on the knife? Laboratory tests confirmed it was 100% pig blood. The evidence didn't match the crimes at all. The next day, my mom was back behind the cafeteria counter. She scowled at the students whispering and pointing at her. "Why is everyone hiding from me?! Come get your food! I told you I'm a good person, why won't anyone believe me?" 03 My name is Chloe Miller. I lived in Bed 1 of Dorm 332. A month ago, I died silently in my dorm room. By the time my roommates found me, rigor mortis had already set in. Everyone believed I had died from a sudden cardiac event. Even I—who was now floating around as a ghost—believed that was what killed me. All I remembered was waking up that morning feeling dizzy and violently nauseous, before completely blacking out. When I woke up again, I was a ghost floating in the night sky, watching my mom scream at the university administration. "My daughter died at your university! You are going to pay me a million dollars in compensation!" My mom was throwing an absolute tantrum on the lawn outside my dorm building. Dozens of students gathered around, whispering: "Who is that crazy lady?" "That's Chloe Miller's mom. The girl who died this morning." "Chloe Miller? Why does that name sound so familiar?" "Oh, remember the leaked photos on the campus forum? That was her." "Ohhhh, the girl who was exposed by her roommate for being a sugar baby? No wonder her mom is acting like trash. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." 04 When the gossip reached my mom's ears, she threw an even bigger fit. Finally, the Dean of Students, Richard Stone, arrived on the scene. Looking absolutely furious, Dean Stone pulled my mom aside to negotiate. He offered her a one-time settlement of $250,000, plus a permanent, union-protected job in the university cafeteria with full benefits and a pension. The conditions: My mom had to stop causing a scene, she could not file a police report, she could not request an autopsy, and she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to help the university sweep my death under the rug. My mom agreed immediately. She signed the paperwork with a massive grin, practically drooling as she counted the zeros on the bank transfer. After that, she went up to my dorm room. Humming a cheerful tune, she started packing up my belongings. Students from the neighboring rooms crowded the hallway, watching in disgust. My mom completely ignored them. She greedily peeled the decorative wallpaper off my walls, stuffing it into a trash bag, muttering to herself about how much she could sell the scrap paper for at the recycling center. A girl from the room next door whispered loudly: "Her daughter's body isn't even cold yet, and all she cares about is how much money she can make selling her dead kid's stuff? What kind of mother is that?!" Another girl gossiped: "I heard Chloe had to take out massive student loans and work three off-campus jobs just to afford tuition. Is that true?" A senior who knew me nodded: "It's true! Her mom didn't give her a single dime. In fact, her mom constantly harassed her and demanded Chloe send her money!" Even the dorm RA couldn't watch anymore. She yelled: "If Chloe could see this, it would break her heart!" 05 After my mom left campus, things went quiet. Until the day of my funeral. A few of my close friends from high school traveled to my hometown to say their final goodbyes. My cheap casket lay on the ground, surrounded by white paper flowers. The quiet, muffled sounds of my friends crying drifted through the cemetery. The only thing ruining the somber atmosphere was my mom screaming curses at me. She rested one foot on my casket, spat on the ground in disgust, and yelled loudly enough for the whole town and all my friends to hear: "Spit! Useless burden when she was born, and a short-lived disappointment when she died! "She died before she even made enough money to take care of me in my old age! What an ungrateful bitch!" Under the horrified stares of everyone present, my mom kicked my casket hard. She yelled at the gravediggers holding their shovels: "Hurry up and bury this bad luck! Whoever digs the fastest gets an extra fifty bucks!" After we got home, my mom acted like nothing had happened. She went to the local market to buy groceries. Some neighbors recognized her and tried to offer their condolences. But my mom just smiled smugly: "She was just a girl, who cares if she died? If she lived and got married, I'd probably only get a few thousand bucks for the dowry. She died and the school gave me a quarter of a million dollars AND a union job with a pension! That's a massive profit! "Hey, is this beef fresh? I don't want it if it isn't! I have money now, I'm buying the good stuff to celebrate!" Whether it was the neighbors or my friends, everyone cursed my mom behind her back for being a heartless monster. But I was the only one who knew... the only thing they saw was exactly what my mom wanted them to see. Seven days after I was buried, Ashley Parker died. She was strangled to death, her body dumped in the woods behind the library. The students who found her body said Ashley's mouth was open in a silent scream... but her tongue had been completely severed and removed. 06 Photos of the crime scene and wild rumors exploded across the campus. The university couldn't suppress a murder this brutal, and the police were called immediately. Security cameras showed Ashley taking a phone call, then walking alone toward the woods. Unfortunately, there were no cameras inside the woods, and the cameras didn't capture anyone suspicious following her. The person she was on the phone with was her boyfriend, Kevin Stone. But Kevin vehemently denied making the call. He claimed he had lost his phone earlier that day and hadn't received his replacement SIM card yet. Kevin's roommate, David, backed up his alibi, testifying that they were playing video games in their dorm the entire time. The police interviewed dozens of students, and no one believed Kevin would murder Ashley. They were the campus "It Couple." They were deeply in love, and Kevin was genuinely devastated by her death. I knew Kevin. He was a wealthy, arrogant trust-fund kid, but Ashley had him wrapped completely around her finger. To put it nicely, he was incredibly devoted. To put it bluntly, he was a brainless puppet who did whatever she wanted. 07 After Ashley's death, Kevin locked himself in his dorm, getting blackout drunk every single night. His roommate, David—his closest friend—stayed by his side, patiently comforting him. One night, I saw Kevin sitting on the floor of his dorm balcony, surrounded by empty liquor bottles. David was consoling him: "Bro, I know it hurts. Losing someone like that... anyone would lose their mind. "Cry it out. But once you're done crying, you have to let it go. If Ashley is watching you from heaven right now, seeing you destroy yourself like this would break her heart." Kevin grabbed a bottle, chugged a massive gulp of whiskey, and burped, the smell of alcohol heavy in the air. "Dave... didn't you used to have a massive crush on Chloe? "When you tried to ask her out, Ashley totally blocked you and refused to let you near her. You two got into a huge screaming match over it, right? "Now Chloe is dead, and you're acting like nothing happened." David let out a cold, disgusted laugh. "Chloe told me she didn't want to date in college. "I thought she was this pure, innocent girl focused on her studies. But the truth? She was whoring herself out as a sugar baby to some rich old creep! "Even if she was standing butt-naked in front of me right now, I wouldn't look twice at a cheap slut like her!" The night wind carried their nauseating conversation directly to me. Ghosts don't have physical ears. I couldn't cover them to block out the sound. If I could, I would have turned into a vengeful demon and ripped the people spreading these lies into shreds. But I still didn't know who originally started the rumors that destroyed my reputation. A few days later, the police released an update. The cybercrime unit had recovered the data from Ashley's hard drive. They found a critical, undeniable piece of evidence: The anonymous user who posted the fabricated "sugar baby" rumors and deepfakes of me on the campus forum... was the victim, Ashley Parker. 08 A few months ago, deepfake photos of my face edited onto explicit images were posted anonymously on the university forum. The post claimed I was a gold-digging sugar baby sleeping with married men, and even attached a picture of my student ID card. I went to the police, but they couldn't do anything. They told me cyber-defamation was a civil matter. I would have to sue the forum platform to get the IP address of the poster, and then file a private civil lawsuit against the individual. Or, I could just ignore it and pretend it never happened. Filing a lawsuit and hiring a lawyer required money. And I had absolutely no money. The post was eventually deleted by moderators, but the harassment, the insults, and the slut-shaming lasted for months. Even after I died, people were still passing around the fake photos. And the source files for those fake photos were sitting right on Ashley's laptop. After Ashley died, the police questioned my mom, asking if she knew about the cyberbullying I endured. My mom didn't even look up from snapping green beans. She spat angrily: "Of course I knew! That ungrateful little bitch! I starved myself to pay her tuition, and she goes off and becomes a whore for some rich old man?! "Officers, you tell me! She was living the high life, sleeping on piles of cash, and she never sent a single dime back to her own mother!" The two female detectives were visibly stunned. As they left the cafeteria, I heard them whispering to each other: "That poor girl. How did she end up with a monster like that for a mother?" But I didn't feel sorry for myself at all. Because absolutely no one knew what happened on the night Ashley Parker died. My mom snuck past all the campus security guards, hiked out to the town cemetery in the dead of night, and placed a small glass jar on my grave. "Chloe, watch closely. Every single person who hurt you is going to pay with their blood!" Inside the wide-mouthed glass jar, floating in preservative fluid... was a freshly severed human tongue. 09 The police couldn't find a single shred of physical evidence linking anyone to the crime. It was as if an invisible hand had meticulously wiped away every clue. With Ashley dead, Dorm 332 only had two girls left: Madison and Emily. Emily was completely paranoid, constantly terrified someone was coming to murder her, jumping at her own shadow. Madison, on the other hand, was entirely unbothered. She strutted in and out of the cafeteria every day, completely ignoring the campus rumors that the "Cafeteria Lady" murdered Ashley. In fact, every time she got food, she specifically went to my mom's counter. She would look my mom dead in the eye and say loudly enough for everyone to hear: "Hey, lady. My name is Madison Reed. I was Chloe's roommate. "I don't care if you murdered Ashley or not. Just know this: I never bullied Chloe. If you're looking for revenge, look elsewhere. Don't come looking for me." My mom rolled her eyes aggressively and snapped back: "What the hell are you talking about, you crazy brat?! I don't have a slut for a daughter!" The students waiting in line were amazed by Madison's sheer audacity. Madison walked away with her food tray, scoffing dismissively. "If you didn't do anything wrong, you don't have to be afraid of ghosts. Move, I'm eating." But did Madison really not do anything wrong? A few nights ago, I watched my mom sneak out of the staff dorms, perfectly avoiding the blind spots of the campus security cameras, and break into the administrative building. I have no idea how my mom bypassed the electronic security doors. All I know is she picked the lock to my academic advisor's office, rummaged through the filing cabinets, and pulled out two manila folders. They were the applications for the Federal Pell Grant and the university's Needs-Based Scholarship. One folder had my name written on it. Wearing rubber gloves, my mom gently, tenderly traced her finger over the letters of my name on the folder. But when she opened the folder and pulled the documents out, she completely froze. The folder was empty. It contained nothing but blank, white printer paper. 10 I remember exactly what happened two months ago. My academic advisor posted an announcement in the class group chat: The university had just received funding for an emergency Needs-Based Financial Aid Grant. Any student who met the low-income requirements needed to submit their application packets immediately. I spent hours writing my personal essay and gathering my financial documents. I handed the packet directly to my advisor. But a few days later, my application was officially rejected. "You already received the Academic Merit Scholarship. You cannot double-dip and receive the Needs-Based Grant as well. It's university policy," my advisor told me flatly. But I had read the university handbook cover to cover. The Academic Merit Scholarship and the Needs-Based Grant were from entirely different funding pools. There was absolutely no rule preventing a student from receiving both. But my advisor refused to listen and firmly rejected my application. Left with no choice, I had to give up. Because the grant was highly competitive, each academic major was only allotted two spots. According to university rules, to finalize the selection process, the applicants had to give a short speech in front of a panel of professors and student representatives. The speeches were recorded and submitted to the Financial Aid Board for review. The fifth student to walk up to the podium... was Madison Reed. She shoved her brand-new iPhone 15 Pro into the pocket of her designer jacket, pinched her printed speech, and stood at the podium, impatiently tapping her expensive acrylic nails against the wood. "Hello professors, hello students. My name is Madison Reed. "I come from an incredibly impoverished family. When I was very young, my father passed away, leaving my mother to raise me entirely on her own. "When I was little, to take care of me, my mother couldn't hold down a full-time job. We survived barely scraping by on the money she made working grueling odd jobs. "When I finally grew up, I worked part-time jobs after school to help pay the bills. "However... tragedy struck again. My mother was diagnosed with a severe, terminal illness. To pay for her medical treatments, we not only drained our meager savings, but went into massive, crippling debt..." The students in the audience immediately started whispering. The advisor demanded silence multiple times, but the quiet, confused chatter continued. "Wait, Madison's dad is dead? I literally saw him drop her off in a Mercedes last month." "She gets an allowance of like $2,000 a month. Since when does she work part-time?!" "I literally saw her post an Instagram story last week complaining that her mom went on vacation to Hawaii without her! When did her mom get terminal cancer?!" I was the only person in that room who knew the truth. Madison was reading my essay. Word for word. That wasn't just my pain. That was my life. 11 The whispers in the classroom grew louder and louder until it was a deafening roar in my ears. I grabbed my head, covering my ears, curling into a tight ball in my seat, desperately trying to block out the psychological torture of hearing someone steal my trauma for profit. Madison gave a half-hearted, dismissive bow, walked off the podium, and shot me a mocking, condescending glare as she sat back down. The moment the panel concluded, I walked straight out of the classroom and called the State Department of Education's anonymous whistleblower hotline. The very next day, the Vice Dean called me into his office. "Chloe, the university is fully aware of what happened. "We have decided to officially revoke Madison's eligibility for the grant, and a formal disciplinary warning will be placed on her academic record. As for your academic advisor, the university is issuing an official reprimand, revoking his annual performance bonus, and placing him on strict probation. If this happens again, he will be terminated immediately. "If you are satisfied with this outcome, we kindly request that you withdraw your formal complaint with the State. "You are a sophomore. You still have two more years before you graduate. Escalating this further will only make things difficult for everyone involved. Don't you agree? "I personally guarantee that next year's Needs-Based Grant will have your name on it!" The carrot and the stick. It's the oldest, most effective management tactic in the book. I could afford to offend a classmate. I could afford to offend an advisor. But if I wanted to graduate with my degree, I could absolutely not afford to offend the university administration. I thought the incident was over. I had no idea that Madison would harbor a venomous, psychotic grudge against me for it.

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