By Teresa Fang, Stentorian Editor-in-Chief
As the Class of 2025 prepares to graduate on May 23, they leave behind not just textbooks and PFM cookies but the spectral remnants of Watts Tunnel, now sealed behind sterile plaster walls like a tomb.
Once the artery of campus chaos, covered in neon ducks and strange student prophecies (“Don’t trust the ceiling tile”), the tunnel was abruptly entombed earlier this year. No warning. No ceremony. Just a wall, like the end of a horror movie where the haunted house wins.
“I heard it crying at night,” said one senior. “Or maybe it was just the HVAC. But it felt personal.”
Now, the tunnel lives only in legend. Seniors speak of it with the reverence of war veterans. Juniors stare blankly, like villagers in a ghost town who don’t believe the mine was ever real.
“My roommate once got lost in there for three days,” whispered a senior. “She came out different. Quieter. She only eats from vending machines now.”
Other stories persist: The Phantom of the Tunnel, who rollerblades silently at 3 a.m. The ducks that move when no one’s looking. The forbidden mural that predicted this very blockade, right next to the drawing of a suspiciously wide-mouthed ogre in a lab coat.
Juniors scoff. “What tunnel?”
But we know.
As we walk the graduation stage, we honor not just our class—but a sacred passage beneath our feet. The Watts Tunnel is gone. But its spirit lingers.
And sometimes… it honks.
Leave a Reply