A Storm of Ice - Chapter 1

This is the first session of the Pathfinder RPG game that I'm running. I'm going to post the storyline here so that my players can look back and follow along.

The wine is flowing, the food is decadent, and all around you are the prominent socialites of the Eastern Frostwaynes. This party is turning out to be one-of-a-kind, with hundreds of guests from all walks of life and social groups in the city of Magelake, all of whom were invited personally by the well-known and well-liked bard Hallistra Silvertongue. You’ve spotted Hallistra a few times this evening, dancing with any number of male suitors and looking resplendent in her cream-colored gown with pink and purple jewels sewn into the fabric at seemingly random intervals. As she dances, she sometimes sings, and the magic of her voice can be felt by everyone in the room.

The music fades as Hallistra takes the small stage, the band behind her being offered refreshments, resting as they await their patron’s speech. “Good sirs and ladies,” Hallistra begins, “I thank you all for joining me tonight to celebrate my paltry accomplisments in the world of theatre.” Hallistra had been honored the night before with the Performer of the Year award, presented by the local performer’s guild. “You are all welcome in my home at any time, and it is wonderful to see you all in such splendid attire, dancing and eating with me! If you will all indulge me for a moment, I would like to perform a song for you, to thank you for being my friends.”

The band begins to play a slow, sweet melody, and Hallistra starts singing, her voice sweet as the mulled icewine you’ve been enjoying all evening. You find yourself swaying to the music along with the entire crowd, lost in the depth of her song. The song is a sad one, telling the tale of a lonely soldier, the sole surviver of a huge battle, trying to find his way home. As the ballad ends, you feel such a profound sense of loss that you are brought to tears, and you can hear many a noble lady in the room weeping openly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is no time for crying and wailing!” Hallistra says, a mischevious smile on her face. “This is a party! Wipe those tears away and join me in a dance!” A fast-paced song begins playing and Hallistra jumps down from the small stage, grabbing a strapping young lad who had been weeping moments ago, and pulling him into a quick-stepping dance. The sorrow of the song forgotten, the crowd begins dancing along.

Later, as the party is beginning to wind down (though Hallistra shows no signs of slowing), you are approached by a butler who tells you that Ms. Silvertongue has requested your presence in her solar. You see other butlers asking the same of several guests, none of which you know personally, though you think you might recognize one of them as another well-known performer in Hallistra’s troupe. You are led from the great hall where the party was taking place through several corridors to a smaller, but still grand room with a large rectangular table carved of cherry. You and the other guests are beckoned to sit, and are told by one of the butlers that Ms. Silvertongue will arrive momentarily.

Looking around the table, you see that there are six others who were summoned along with you.

At the far end of the table sits Fjorn Whitefeather, a human druid from the order of Clan Stormeagle. He looks dissheveled and wears mostly animal pelts, but under the pelts you can see a breastplate of darkwood, an ancient, extremely strong wood. He also carries a heavy wooden shield. Behind him stands a creature made of ice, with a head carved into the shape of an eagle. Cold emanates from its body, but it stands eerily still, awaiting its master's instructions.

To Fjorn's left sits a cloaked, shadowy figure. He does not provide a name, and in fact says nothing while others around the table are introducing themselves. At his sides hang dual kamas with intricate carvings on the handles, obviously well-made. Though his face is well-hidden, you can see that the flesh around his eyes has a reddish tint, and the eyes themselves are black as night.

Next to the cloaked man sits a surprisingly handsome, lean half-orc wearing chain under a flamboyantly-colored tunic and breeches. He introduces himself as Jorthan. At his side hangs a handcrafted whip. Though he currently looks jovial and curious, you can see that his bulk and visage could intimidate the best of his foes.

Across the table from Jorthan sits another half-orc, however his looks are almost the antithesis of the other. Introducing himself as Qua'mang, he is huge, hulking, and speaks little, though when he does, he expects those around him to listen. Strapped to his back is a large battleaxe with intimidating carvings in the haft and head. A breastplate and breeches are all the attire he requires. Standing behind him and kneading his shoulders absently is his companion Trinna, a willowy woman with stark white hair, entrancing blue eyes, and slightly blue-tinged skin. She wears simple and subtly revealing leather armor, and a dagger hangs at her side. Her distant look gives the feeling that while here in body, her spirit is roaming far from here.

To Qua'mang's left sits a middle-aged elven woman who introduces herself as Marileth. She wears only robes and jewelery, but has a few rods hanging from her belt. Her hair is black with many streaks of gray throughout, but her green eyes are those of a much younger woman. Perched on her shoulder is a tiny fey woman wearing a revealing leather outfit over her buxom frame. Her small wings resemble those of a butterfly, and she carries only a tiny lute and several small wands strapped to her belt.

Next to Marileth sits a stout dwarven man who introduces himself as McJuggerson the Unsmackable. Though his haughty nature makes him seem brash, he can obviously back up his title of Unsmackable given the heavy full plate and shield that he carries. Across the left side of his face is a birthmark in the vague shape of a broken chain. The heavy morningstar strapped to his back suggests that he is quite capable of defending himself and others.

The final guest is the young man that you recognized as a bard in Hallistra’s troupe. He strikes up a conversation immediately with the rest of the group, introducing himself as Symon Xarn. “Do any of you know what this is pertaining to? I wonder if my sweet Hallistra requires something of us? I would suggest that we were all simply dashing enough to have... how shall I put this... a PRIVATE party with the beautiful Ms. Silvertongue, but looking around the room I... seriously doubt that now.” It is clear that Symon is as full of himself as he is handsome. Just then, the door at the far end of the room opens and Hallistra sweeps in. Her face, so bright and welcoming during the main party, now only shows fear and apprehension.

“My friends. I do not wish to spoil your night of revelry, but I had an ulterior motive for inviting you all here tonight.” She sits down at the head of the table. “Some of you I know very well, and others I’ve only met recently. Each one of you is a hero of unimaginable ability and incredible skills. I have need of each of your particular talents. My young sister, Faith, has been kidnapped. A heinous white dragon who lives in the nearby hills has stolen her.”

“Lovely Hallistra, what could a white dragon want of a young girl?” asks Symon. “Whites, from what I know of them, are solitary and stupid, caring only for food and solitude.”

“Quite right, Symon,” Hallistra begins, “but this particular white is more cunning that most, and he has good reson to want my sister, or me for that matter.” Hallistra’s expression changes, showing that mischevious grin you saw earlier after her song. “Would all of you like to know a secret about me?”

Without pausing to hear answers to her rhetorical question, Hallistra stands up, takes a few steps back from her chair, and promptly transforms into a dragon! Bronze-colored scales cover the lean body of a Large dragon, and Hallistra’s sweet voice issues from the dragon’s mouth as she continues. “You see, my friends, I am not of the human species. My sister and I are of the few bronze dragons left in this part of the world.” Hallistra reappears as her former self.

“Now, back to the task at hand. This white is young, conniving, and manipulative. He has stolen my sister for two reasons, lust and greed. He finds her beautiful, all the more so because she is vulnerable. She is very young for one of our kind, and the cold of his lair will weaken her. I cannot hope to fight the bastard in his lair because the cold will weaken me also. I am asking you to rescue her, and if you slay the beast, all the better. I can offer you gold and jewels if you wish, or any other boon that I can give. Please, help me.”

You glance at the other guests, most of whom look as stunned as you are, but one or two who are just looking greedy.

Symon looks at Hallistra with fear and loathing in his eyes and says “I’m sorry, but I can’t be a part of this. You... you’re not even human. I’m leaving now!” He gets up to walk out, but Hallistra sings a quick riff and he becomes mesmerized, sitting back down. After a minute or two, he gets up and walks out.

“I apologize to the rest of you for having to see that, but I’d rather my secret stayed hidden for the time being, and that loudmouth would have told the whole party. He won’t remember any of this discussion now. So, will you all help me?”

Each remaining member of the group consents, naming their price as they go. Marileth humbly requests only a wand of Hallistra's favorite spell. The hooded man with no name simply states "You know my price."

Fjorn asks Hallistra only to donate to his druidic order, and McJuggerson and Qua'mang similarly state that monetary compensation will be sufficient.

When Hallistra turns to Jorthan, he says "My beautiful Hallistra, I only wish to become as famous and well-loved as yourself. Would you consent to composing a duet with me, and perform it at the theatre?" "Of course," Hallistra exclaims, beaming at Jorthan. "Nothing would make me happier than to further your career by singing with you, good sir."

Hallistra gives them a map with the approximate location of the white dragon’s lair on it. He lives high on a snowy mountain peak, about four days’ ride from the city.

She pulls aside Marileth. “The white will be vulnerable to fire. If you find yourselves in mortal danger, use this. It has only a single charge left in it, but still could be a powerful tool for you. Please return it to me after you’ve saved my sister.” She hands Marileth a staff with the head of a dragon on top of it.

“Please hurry, my friends. I fear that the white will tire of my sister quickly, and if he has no use for her he may kill her just for the thrill of it.”

The group departs on their quest, borrowing horses from Hallistra's stables for the trip. A few scuffles along the way occur, including a fight with a territorial Rune Giant, but after a few days travel they round a craggy corner, and a large opening in the rock comes into view a few hundred yards away. At the top of the cave’s opening hang hundreds of icicles, some much larger than others. The snow in front of the cave has been recently disturbed, though any prints have been covered in a fresh white blanket. As the party approaches the cave, they hear distant growls from within.

The ninja sneaks forward and notices a mechanical trap set behind the icicles, rigged to crush any intruders with sharp icy spikes. He then notices a switch mostly hidden under a snowdrift that he can tell will deactivate the trap. He flips the switch and the party continues unmolested.

Passing under the mouth of the cave, you see a weak blue light being reflected off of the ice-covered walls. The temperature dips and chills you to the bone.

The witch casts an Arcane Eye spell, allowing her to send an invisible scout into the cavern and determine the dangers within. About forty feet into the tunnel, another, smaller tunnel diverges to the left, but this leads only to a second exit from the cavern. The witch sends the spell deeper into the main tunnel, and comes upon a disturbing scene.

A large cavern comes into view, and toward the center of the cavern, you see a young brass dragon, shackled with hand and foot fetters made completely of ice, those chained to a huge piton in the floor. She looks defeated and in pain. The white dragon is mounting the poor bronze, breathing icy mist onto the back of her neck, growling in anger and digging his claws into her sides.

The ninja uses his ki to turn invisible and silently sneaks into the cavern, taking up a position to the right of the tunnel entrance. The bard envelops himself and the barbarian in a sphere of invisibility and they sneak in to take flanking positions on the other side of the tunnel. Finally, the dwarven cleric, who has been enlarged by the witch, lumbers to the tunnel entrance and yells at the dragon “The rape-party is cancelled!”

The barbarian rages and in his excitement completely forgets the tactics which had been discussed by the party before engaging the dragon. He charges in and buries his axe in the dragon’s flank. The dragon howls in rage and is about to launch into the sky, when the ceiling of the cavern suddenly begins to cave in on top of him! The druid’s spell has turned most of the roof into mud, causing a cave-in directly above the white dragon and his helpless captive. The white dodges to the side, only getting half-buried by the mud and rocks falling from above, but his poor captive takes the brunt of the force from the cave-in, and is knocked unconscious.

The black dragon shakes the mud off of himself and launches into the air, hissing angrily as he flies to the top of the cavern and circles.
Seeing the state of the poor brass dragon, the cleric charges forward and prays to his deity to heal those around him, channeling positive energy and healing the dying creature.

The bard uses a short-range teleportation spell to appear next to the captive dragon, while the barbarian breaks piton holding her chains into the ground using his axe. Seeing that the dragon was free of her shackles, Marileth swooped in and teleported herself, her companion and Faith away to safety.

The white dragon, enraged at the loss of his captive, begins swooping down and attacking mid-flight, dealing heavy damage to the barbarian and cleric. The cleric fires several beams of force energy at the dragon, weakening him. The bard casts an air walk spell on the barbarian, allowing him to fly up and attack the dragon in the air. Sensing that he is fighting a losing battle, the dragon starts to flee, but one more force blast from the cleric knocks him out of tha air. The party kills the white dragon and McJuggerson makes a show of removing his male parts in punishment for his crimes.

Just the book jacket insert for "Undergrad Elementalist"

Book Jacket Insert
Do all freshmen have to deal with this shit? I mean, classes, dating, ramen noodle dinners, those I was expecting. But magic?
I never planned to be a witch, that's for sure. I'm not one of those wiccan kids, chanting and waving her hands over a nasty concoction, trying to make a love potion. I'm a normal college girl, learning my way around campus and trying not to fail my classes.
I mean, I AM normal, right?
Emma Dawes is getting used to living on campus. She's getting to know her roommate, throwing parties, doing the things that most college freshmen do. She's also been invited into a secret club, where students learn to control and unleash their innate magical abilities.
Learning about magic was great at first, but when people start dying, seemingly killed by magic users, Emma's peaceful college existence gets a whole lot more complicated... and deadly.

Rewritten first few chapters...

Hi guys,
Just thought I'd re-post the first few chapters of what I'm now calling "Undergrad Elementalist". I'm linking to Reddit, so hopefully I get some awesome feedback.

Book Jacket Insert
Do all freshmen have to deal with this shit? I mean, classes, dating, ramen noodle dinners, those I was expecting. But magic?
I never planned to be a witch, that's for sure. I'm not one of those wiccan kids, chanting and waving her hands over a nasty concoction, trying to make a love potion. I'm a normal college girl, learning my way around campus and trying not to fail my classes.
I mean, I AM normal, right?
Emma Dawes is getting used to living on campus. She's getting to know her roommate, throwing parties, doing the things that most college freshmen do. She's also been invited into a secret club, where students learn to control and unleash their innate magical abilities.
Learning about magic was great at first, but when people start dying, seemingly killed by magic users, Emma's peaceful college existence gets a whole lot more complicated... and deadly.

Chapter 1
I went home and got myself ready for the party. I took a bottle of gin out of my dad’s liquor cabinet. He’d never miss it, with the spread he’s got in there. I took a shower, straightened my hair, tried on three different tops before I decided on one, and chose to wear the black miniskirt I had just bought the day before. It was short, but not overly revealing. The top I chose was a black tank top with zippers sewn in at random places, one of which was right across my left breast. Easy access much? I switched out my normal nose ring for a jeweled stud, and put a matching jeweled nipple ring in my left breast. I had originally planned to get both nipples pierced, but the first one hurt so much I said I’d just stick with the one. I had really grown to like it, though. The tongue ring was a fairly new addition, so it couldn’t be switched out yet, but it was fine. Nine o’clock came, I put on some slightly provocative hooker boots and was ready to go.
I didn’t have to take the bus, as my friend Tom Downing had offered to drive me to the party. Tom is your typical stoner, and my best friend. He supplies half the school, and always offers to me, but I have a strict policy about drugs. Alcohol, totally cool. Speed, sometimes when cramming for a test. But nothing I have to inhale or inject. Just my choice, and I would never judge anyone else for their choices to the contrary. He came by at around nine fifteen, took one look at me and pantomimed the wolf from those old cartoons, howling and whistling.
“Emma, you slut!” Tom said, winking at me. “You didn’t get all dressed up for me, did you? I’m flattered and all, but you know you aren’t my type.” He put his arm around me as he led me to his car, which is an old, battered Buick that probably belonged to his gangster uncle at one point.
A mutual friend named Carrie sat in the passenger seat. She gave me a thumbs up and told me I should tone it down or she’d never get anyone to look at her at this party. Carrie is a sweet girl, but sort of big. She’s always been good at making herself look good despite it, which I can respect. She was looking particularly slutty tonight, as was I. I guess we both had the same idea.
“So, are you really getting outta this ‘burg next week, Emma?” Carrie asked. “I wish I was… one more year of acting like I care about high school. You guys are so lucky.”
“Here, here,” Tom said, raising an imaginary glass. “To getting out of Nowheresville.”
“Yeah, I’m going to Greenesville State,” I said. “What are your plans once I’m gone, Tom?”
“Get laid a lot up at State. You’re a major cockblock, ya know.” He winked at me, because we both knew that wasn’t true. Tom got more ass than some of the jocks, thanks to his smooth talk and the bags of weed he’d give to girls after a night of sex. He didn’t exactly buy his way into girls’ pants, but he came damn close. I hoped he’d clean his act up just a little bit up in Indiana, just enough to keep him from getting kicked out. I loved the kid the way he was, but you get caught one time dealing and you’re out.
“I’m gonna miss you, Tom. You know, until I find some other stoner to tell me how much weed will change my life.”
“Oh, I’m sure at college you’ll experiment with all sorts of stuff, girl. You give me a call when you’re tripping on acid and watching Sesame Street and tell me it’s not the best time of your life.”
It was only a fifteen minute ride to Rand’s house, even though it’s out in the richest part of town. That tells you how tiny the town really is. We arrived at the house, and there were probably thirty cars parked in the driveway. Rand has always been the type of guy who can bring different groups that didn’t get along together for a party. Another reason to really like the guy… he’s non-biased. Inevitably, several people leave the party early after someone picks a fight, but Rand never lets anything get physical in his house. He’s a big guy, and when he tells you to take it outside, you take it outside.
As we walked up to the house, I marveled again, as I always did, at its size. Three stories, and as wide as four of my own house put together, the place looked like it could be a dorm, as opposed to a single family home. There was, of course, a six car garage on the far side of the huge driveway, unattached from the house, where Rand’s father had his extremely expensive cars stored. At one party last year, someone got into the garage and egged his Hummer. Consequently, Rand’s dad had a security system installed on the garage that will alert the police if even Rand himself tries to touch the place. Everyone knows to stay away, for fear of the party getting busted.
We walked in the extravagant doors into the extravagant foyer, and were instantly assaulted with horrible rap music. Oh well. You have to deal with such a thing at a party. Everyone looked like they were having a good time, and Rand spotted me from one of the couches out of the corner of his eye and gave me a little wink and a nod. He pointed toward the kitchen, where the alcohol was always kept, and we headed there.
Rand is not your typical Kentucky boy. His parents moved here from New York City to “get some fresh air” and liked it so much for some unknown reason that they ended up staying. Rand himself looks like he belongs in a city, not a slum like this. He’s tall, with dark hair that’s always just a bit tousled. His perfect teeth are in stark contrast to the cigarette he constantly has in his mouth, and his eyes always look playful. Truth be told, I’ve always had a crush on the guy. I guess he must’ve known about it, but he always had a girlfriend, all of whom were actually really cool. I was jealous of them, sure, but at least he didn’t date any of the pom-pom brigade. Recently, Rand’s girlfriend had moved out of state, and they had broken up last I heard, hence my outfit choice for the night.
A huge assortment of alcohol, from champagne to Nattie Bo, was arrayed all over the kitchen. I put my gin down and helped myself to a beer. I’ve always been a beer girl, not so much liquor. Since I’m kinda small, it only takes maybe four of them for me to be nicely wasted, so it works out well for me. I was planning to stop at two and a half tonight, so I could enjoy myself and remember it vividly in the morning.
The party wore on, I had my couple of drinks, danced with Tom and with Rand several times. The cheerleader crowd tried to steal him away every couple dances, but he would always just dance with one of them once, and then politely excuse himself to come find me. It made me feel special, and pretty much sealed the deal for him that night.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a slut. In fact, before that night I had only slept with one guy, Pete Donnelly. Pete was a great guy on his own, but when you got him around his football buddies he turned into a real dick. After a night of really great sex, Pete had taken a picture with his phone of me topless. He told me he would delete it as soon as he transferred it to his computer, so he’d have something to keep him going at night. Of course he’d lied, and sent it to Johnny, who had consequently spread it around the whole school. That sure made me a slut in everyone at school's eyes, but I knew better. We girls really can be stupid when it comes to a hot guy.
Eleven o’clock came around, and the party was in full swing. Rand found me and gave my ass a little squeeze under my skirt. “You wanna go upstairs and see my stamp collection?”
I laughed. “What a line. Does that work on all the girls as well as it’s working on me?” I grabbed his hand and pulled him up the stairs.
I’d never seen Rand’s room before, but it was pretty typical of a teenage guy. Posters of mostly naked chicks on one wall, band posters on most others, but his bed was huge! It looked very comfortable too.
He closed the door and asked me what type of music I would like to hear. I told him Saosin. We’d both expressed our love of the band before, and they’re mellow enough not to ruin the mood.
After I took a quick look around the room, I settled down on his bed with my legs crossed and gave him a meaningful look. “So, what happened to Lindsay?”
“She couldn’t handle the distance. Washington State is a long way away. She dumped me about two weeks ago.”
Shit, way to bring up bad memories, dumbass, I thought to myself. “Oh, I’m really sorry Rand. I had assumed it was mutual…”
“No, it’s okay. It’s better this way, because it gives me a chance to test out a theory I’ve had for years.” He moved over to the bed and sat down.
“What theory is that?”
“That you’re a great kisser.” He leaned over and kissed me softly, just testing the waters. “Theory confirmed.”
“Now hold on, science only works by repetition,” I said with a grin.
I know. We’re lame. Nerds. Dorks. I have no shame about that, because I was about to get one of the hottest guys in school into bed.
We kissed for a little while, just enjoying each other, and then we started getting a little more heated up. He found the zipper I had mentioned earlier, and enjoyed very much unzipping it and playing with my nipple ring a bit under my bra. It felt amazing. I was really getting turned on, so I pulled away slightly and pulled off my shirt. I had worn a very sexy VS bra that he could clearly see through. He pulled his shirt off also. My God, did he have a nice body. He kissed me again, more forcefully this time, and then he pulled the comforter down and we lay down together on the bed.
After some more playing through my bra, he reached around and unhooked it. He kissed along my neck and down my chest, stopping at the nipple ring. He stayed there for a minute or so. It was amazing. In fact, I was getting hotter by the second. Hotter… and hotter… and…
Suddenly, I heard a sizzle and he yelped and pulled back. “What the hell?!” he exclaimed.
I looked down. My nipple ring was red hot. I looked at his face, and there was a small burn on his lower lip where it had touched the ring. What in the world? I started to freak out a bit, and then I noticed that my fingertips were also starting to burn holes in his sheets. I brought my hands in front of my face and my fingertips looked like they were about to burst into flames.
Rand yelled “What the hell are you doing?!” and started to run for the door. Then he thought better of it and ran to the bathroom. After a few seconds of me sitting there, wondering what the hell to do, he came back with a glass full of water and tried in vain to put out the little fires that had started on the sheets. Finally he just poured the rest on my chest. My fingers and nipples steamed away water and then went back to looking normal.
Rand stared at me open-mouthed for a few seconds. Never one to panic, however, he said “Holy shit… how did you do that?”
“I… I have no idea. I’m so sorry… your lip…”
He stuck a hand up to his lip and gingerly touched it. “Fuck that hurts.” He went back to the bathroom, presumably to look at the burn.
I was out the door of Rand's room in seconds, grabbing my discarded shirt and purse on the way. I was still wearing my black-and-pink plaid miniskirt and panties, which were now soaked through. I was totally confused but too embarrassed to show my face to Rand. I threw my shirt on as I ran down the stairs and out the door of the mansion, not even bothering to stop and find Tom. I could hear Rand calling after me, but I couldn't stop, couldn't bear to even look back. I kept looking at my hands like they were the claws of some alien being, trying to grab me, smother me, and ruin my entire sex life.
I ran for about a block, alternately sobbing and cursing myself, then pulled my phone out of my purse, which had thankfully been out of range of the bed. I called a cab to take me home.
Chapter 2
By the way, my name is Emma Dawes. Pretty normal name, eh? Simple, southern girl type of name. You can probably picture me just from my name: dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, a little pudgy from my mom’s Southern-fried-with-love cooking, wearing Daisy Dukes and a too-tight button-up shirt and just aching for a cowboy hat.
Wrong. Most days I wear dark jeans, a black top accented with red or white, bracelets and rings on each hand, pink highlights surrounded by black streaks in my blonde hair, and a nose ring. I’m also on the skinny side, since I never eat fried food and go running to burn off steam when mom and dad start fighting, which happens a lot.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the morning after the party I woke up with a horrible headache, and by noon I had convinced myself that one of my “friends” had slipped me something hallucinogenic, and that Rand must have been smoking a cigarette in his room and that’s what caught the bedsheets on fire. The burn on his lip… that had to have been my imagination. Right? Right.
Rand tried to call me about thirty times the next day, but I ignored the calls. I was just too embarassed and afraid of what had happened to face him. Eventually he’d give up calling, I figured.
Thankfully, I was so busy over the next few days that I didn’t have time to think more about it. I was about to go off to college, finally leaving my little town in Kentucky to go to one of the most prestigious universities on the East Coast, Greenesville State University, in North Carolina. I had worked hard in high school, and I knew I earned the scholarships that Greenesville gave me. Orientation at GSU starts early, right at the beginning of June, and my graduation had been the last weekend in May, right before the party, giving me one week to get my stuff together. Then it would be time to catch the bus east. I had already gotten most of the essentials for my dorm room from family members as graduation presents… extra long twin sheets, pillows, a coffee pot, shower sandals, all the things that they tell you you’ll need to keep from failing out of college. The stuff I couldn’t take with me on the bus was going to be shipped to me, courtesy of my lazy father who couldn’t get off his ass and get sober long enough to drive me there with my luggage. Not that I’m bitter about it or anything, right?
Tuition and housing was almost completely paid by my scholarships, leaving a small amount that I would have to cover by taking out a small student loan each year. Not too bad for a highly-respected school. Mom and dad’s contribution would be to pay for my meal plan and send me $50 a month as a sort of allowance. That’s cool, I guess. It’s more than a lot of people get. I fully planned to get an on-campus job to supplement my income, once I got settled in at school.
My prized possession, my laptop, would be coming with me of course. I saved up for three summers to buy this laptop, paid $2500 for it, and I intended it to last me through all of college. I had a pretty substantial CD collection which I didn’t want to try to lug with me to school, so I set about copying all of my music to an external hard drive. That took up all of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
The next few days passed in a blur of packing and just trolling around on the web. I checked all my favorite message boards about five hundred times a day, watched a couple instant Netflix movies, and just generally took it easy. I also caught myself searching for things like spontaneous combustion and “fire hands” but didn’t see anything meaningful. Thinking about that night was starting to make my hands shake and make me a bit dizzy, so after a while I just stopped thinking about it all together, without even bothering to make up excuses.
When Saturday rolled around, my dad got me up early, around seven, and told me to pack up three boxes of stuff that he could ship to me. I did, putting anything breakable in my luggage that I’d be taking on the bus. Then it was time to go. I hugged my mom, who was a little teary-eyed. Dad drove to the local post office and shipped the boxes to my new college address, room 362 of Randall Hall at Greenesville State.
Dad then drove me to the bus station. "Is there anything left at home that we need to mail to you?" he asked. Dad is a brusk man, quiet and serious about most things, especially his job. I guess he’s an alright guy, though he drinks pretty heavily at home and is asleep most of the time he’s there. He works as a manager for a construction agency, and does some odd contracting jobs on the side. His hair was at one point blonde, but over the years most of the blonde has turned a light grey. He keeps it cropped short, and always wears a full beard, though he also keeps it short and manageable. He had always kept in shape, but in recent years his beer belly has gotten a bit pronounced, and arthritis is starting to wear him down. I figure he'll retire in a few years, but it's not something he ever discusses.
We stopped at a convenience store and dad bought me snacks for the trip, which lasts about seven hours with all the stops in between. An hour later, we were at the Greyhound station just outside of Lexington.
“I’ll miss you, Emma,” my dad said. “Do well in school, and we’ll see you at Thanksgiving.”
“Love you dad,” I said, gave him a hug, and then lugged my stuff onto the bus.
I sat in an aisle seat with my bags in the seat next to me. The person at the ticket counter had said the bus wouldn’t be anywhere near full, so I figured no one would mind. I had charged my mp3 player to the max, so I settled into my seat, put on some screamo music, and closed my eyes. A few minutes later, I heard the driver’s voice through my headphones mumbling something about having a nice trip and the weather in NC, then I felt the bus moving and I was off.
I knew I would have a lot of time to think on this trip, so I tried my best to focus on the future… classes, how I would make my dorm look, etcetera. My mind kept wandering back to Rand, though. I eventually started thinking about my childhood, growing up in that tiny town with my poor, backwards parents. It was kinda depressing, but not as confusing as other things that kept popping into my head.
When I was growing up, we didn’t have a ton of money. My dad worked at a law firm and was a decent attorney, but never showed the initiative to move up in his job, probably because he drank pretty much constantly. He eventually quit the law firm and took on construction jobs. My mom worked as an amateur tailor, sewing uniforms for the local cheerleading squads and police force, which meant she was around a lot when I was growing up. I remember when she and I were really close, back when I was the prissy little thing that she wanted me to be, wearing all the little dresses and crap that she made for me. That all changed in middle school, when I found that I liked the way I looked in black a lot more than pink, and started going to concerts with my friends instead of televised fashion shows with her. I know she resented that I had changed so much, but she put on her best smile and acted like I was still her princess. That I could appreciate, and it made me realize that I would miss her while I was away.
The bus’s first stop was in Knoxville, TN, and that was only for about twenty minutes. While we were stopped, I looked around for the first time since sitting down, and studied the other faces around me.
Very few of the passengers were anywhere near my age. Behind me and to the left , there were a number of elderly women sitting in a little group, probably gossiping about everyone from their town. There was a forty-something couple with a young boy sitting ahead of me a few seats, and their son made faces at me for a minute or two before getting bored. The kid was a bit overweight. Today’s kids were all starting to look like that. Parents just give them anything they want to shut them up, which usually involves sugar and butter. Then again, who am I to judge?
There was one girl around my age, sitting off by herself behind me. She, like myself, had a few bags with her. Unlike me, she looked like she was a pageant model. She had thick brown hair surrounding her face, huge blue eyes with eyelashes longer than my fingers, and tits like Pam Anderson. She smiled at me when she saw me looking at her, but I couldn’t help but think it was that fake kind of smile, that said You’re no competition to me, so let’s be friends. I smiled back, as genuinely as possible.
She got up from her seat, walked up to me and sat in the seat directly across the aisle from me. “Hi, I’m Stacey.”
“Hey, I’m Emma,” I said. “You headed to college too?”
“Yeah, Greenesville State. You?”
“Same. Where are you from?”
“Texarkana. Been there all my life!” She had the Southern drawl of a girl raised in Texas, but she didn’t seem as dumb as she looked. There was an intelligence in her eyes that made me think she couldn’t be all bad. “What about you? I saw you get on at Lexington, are you from around there?”
“Yeah, a tiny town on the outskirts. Really glad to get outta there. So what made you choose Greenesville?”
We continued the small talk for about a half hour. I found out she’s an Art History major (not the Fashion Design major I pegged her for) and that she would be in the Broadwater dorm complex. From what I understood of the school, Broadwater was a smaller, but much newer dorm than Randall. I also learned that she had three younger brothers, and that she was the first to go to college in her family. The more we talked, the more I felt bad for judging Stacey from her appearance. She might look like a Barbie girl, but Stacey has the brains and the common sense to go to a good school. I was hoping she could be my first new friend at Greenesville.
“Well, I’m gonna go back to my seat and read for a bit,” Stacey said when we got to the next stop in Asheville. “Do you wanna exchange numbers so we can hang out some once we’re there? It would be great to know someone there during the first few days.”
“Sounds great,” I said, honestly glad to have met her. We switched cell numbers and she went back to her seat. I smiled to myself. Hopefully all the girls at the school will be as cool as her. Maybe not as pretty. I don’t want too much competition, I thought to myself. Of course, I knew there would be many people at Greenesville who would definitely NOT be as cool as her, would judge me for the way I looked and dressed, etcetera. Well, at least the place is big enough to stay away from them, for the most part, I told myself.
The rest of the ride was just more of the same. At one stop I walked back to sit with Stacey and chatted with her a bit more. I found that we didn’t have much in common as far as music, but we liked the same style of movies so we had some common ground there. She told me how she had broken up with her boyfriend before leaving for college, because he would be staying in Texarkana and they had never really gotten serious anyway. We made plans to go shopping for things for our dorms, and found that we’d be taking the same shuttle from the Greenesville bus station to the school.
I returned to my seat about twenty minutes before we were supposed to arrive in Greenesville, listened to a little metal, then we were there. The Greenesville station didn’t really look any different from the one in Lexington, but despite that fact I knew that this was the start of a new chapter in my life. I couldn’t wait to get to school.
*************************************************************************************
The shuttle dropped us off on the Greenesville campus at the circle between all of the dorms. I had looked at a map of the campus, and it was shaped like a big circle, with the academic buildings on the bottom left section, the dorms covering most of the top, and the gym and administrative buildings on the bottom right. There was a Greek row at the top of the circle, and we were dropped off just down the street from it.
A couple of the fraternities had set up right there at the drop-off point, offering to carry your stuff to your dorm for you. Stacey and I both took them up on the offer, and so we walked toward our new dorms with two muscular football-types dragging our stuff behind us, probably staring at both our asses. Both guys were from the same fraternity, Kappa Omega Delta, and seemed like decent enough guys. Of course, you don’t know how these guys can be until you get them in a group of their buddies at a party.
Stacey and I parted ways in front of Broadwater. The building actually looked to be about the size of Rand’s house back home, and I was caught by a pang of guilt and remorse about the missed opportunity. Oh well. The front of Broadwater was mostly simple red brick, with a nice-looking entranceway and card-key access to all of the doors. We were given keys to Randall, so I assumed they hadn’t yet upgraded it to card-keys. There were a few people standing outside of Broadwater smoking, and they all politely said hi to Stacey as she walked in. She didn’t notice, but two of the guys checked her out as she was walking by, and high-fived each other once she was past. Well, that’s to be expected… she’s gorgeous, I thought.
On our way to Randall, I made a little conversation with my assigned frat boy. His name was Steve, a third year Business/Econ double major, and honestly seemed like a very nice guy. I wasn’t getting a judgmental vibe from him, and he wasn’t checking me out every time I caught his eyes. We passed the dining hall and about five other dorm buildings with names like Portsmouth, Walleye, and Samuels. Random names given by the rich alumni who had paid for them. They all looked as if they were kept up well and there were always a few trees and bushes in the front yards to give the semblance of nature.
We got to Randall and it looked just like I remembered it from the brochure. Large, made mostly of faded brick with some columns at the entrance making it look a bit like a courthouse. To me, it looked like home already. I went into the lobby, which was really just a small entranceway with a desk set into the wall and a large door that served as the barrier between the residents and the outside world. I checked in at the desk and went up to the third floor.
The hallway was decorated in a Snoopy theme, with lots of “Welcome New Residents!” and “Have a Great Year!” It was just a little bit sickening, but I suppose it’s part of an RA’s job to do crap like that.
I passed a bunch of other rooms. A few of the doors were open, with some other Freshmen setting up their new rooms. The upperclassmen wouldn’t arrive for another week. Finally we reached my room, number 362. Steve put my bags down outside and wished me good luck moving in and with my classes. I thanked him and he headed out. I opened the door to my new home.
Chapter 3
My roommate hadn’t shown up yet, apparently, because the room was empty. There was a sink in the back corner with a mirrored medicine cabinet above it. There were two wardrobes with drawers at the bottom of them, and two desks, and two of those extra-long twin beds. Just as expected. The setup of the room wasn’t ideal, I decided, and set to work rearranging things a bit. I’d have to ask my roommate if we could bunk the beds. I wouldn’t mind having the top bunk if she’d be ok with it, and it would give us some more room to work with.
I had a flash of jealousy for the first floor residents. We were on an all-girls’ floor, and right below us on the second floor would be the guys, but the first floor was all mixed suites, with single bedrooms and bathrooms for four people instead of the whole floor. I envied them, but I just couldn’t afford the suites. Maybe once I’ve got a campus job…
I moved my bags into the room then, and started unpacking a few things. I put my red satin sheets, which I love, on my bed and started putting some clothes in the wardrobe that I had claimed for myself. A lot of my clothing would be coming in the mail, so I really only had about a week’s worth to put away. After that was done, I set up my laptop on the desk, plugged it into the Ethernet jack, and started surfing the net. We had gotten our login names and passwords in the mail, so I signed on and checked my e-mail. I was about to start browsing to my favorite weblogs when my roommate walked in.
The first impression I got of her was “nerd”. That’s fine with me, of course, I was a nerd too. I remembered from our orientation packet that her name was Allison and that she was a Computer Science major. Her hair was very dark brown, a bit mousy looking. She had glasses and a bit of a pudgy face, but she could be a cute girl if she put some effort to it. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and carrying a military-issue duffel bag. Must be an army brat, I thought. Her t-shirt, stretched across her chest, said “+5 shirt of smiting”. Hmm… a Dungeons and Dragons kid too. This could be a long year…
She seemed startled to see me at first, but quickly recovered. “Hi, I’m Allie,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Hey Allie. I’m Emma. Need a hand with anything?”
“Oh, no, I’m fine. Thanks though.” She smiled at me.
I let her get a little settled in while I surfed some more. Once she had unpacked a little, I pitched the idea of the bunk beds. “Hmm… I guess we could try it out. I’m afraid of heights though…”
“Oh I can take the top bunk. I don’t mind a bit of climbing. It would give us enough room in here to maybe put a TV stand and a small TV. Maybe even a small futon. What do you think?”
“That could be cool,” she said, still obviously shy. “I’d like to be able to watch Mutants every week.”
“Awesome, I’m into Mutants too. We can have roommate bonding time drooling over Peter,” I said with a wink. She giggled just a bit and we went to work bunking the beds.
About an hour later, after we had gotten pretty well settled in, there was a knock on our doorframe. “Hey guys!” said an enthusiastic-looking girl at our doorway. She looked to be a couple years older, short and muscular. Obviously our RA. She must be an athlete, I thought to myself. “I’m your RA, Natasha. We’re going to have a floor meeting at 5, so if you guys could meet us all in the lounge that would be awesome!” A little too perky. Ugh.
“We’ll be there,” I said.
“Okay, see you soon!” She closed the door behind her.
I gave Allie a look that basically summed up my feelings about Natasha. She nodded her head very seriously and then we both burst out laughing.
I decided to check out the shower facilities before the meeting, so I walked down the hall until I found a restroom. I looked inside and saw some sinks, several showerheads with partitions between them, a small shelf below each to put your shampoo and such, and a little hook on the opposite side of the shower area to hang your towel. Not bad, really. At least they try for a little bit of privacy. None of the showers were in use now, of course, it being the middle of the day.
I saw another opening on the other end of the shower area, and got curious. I walked through and found that there was a hot tub in there! Not a really nice one, of course, and only big enough for two people at most, but it was nice to know that if I needed to soak and veg out a bit, I had somewhere to do it. Finding the hidden hot tub made me curious if all of the bathrooms were that way, so I walked down the hall some more and checked out the other ones. There were four womens’ rooms on the floor, and two for men, surprisingly. I suppose it didn’t make sense for visitors to have to walk down a whole floor.
Two of the other rooms were smaller, with only a few showerheads and no hot tub, but the one all the way at the other end of the hall was identical to the first one I found. I was genuinely impressed with the facilities in Randall, and wondered if the other dorms were like this.
When I got back to the room, Allie had her computer out and was playing WOW. Uh-oh, I thought to myself, she might stay up all night playing that crap. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
I surfed the net for a while more until it was time to go to the floor meeting. Allie closed out of WOW and we locked our door on the way out.
The lounge was toward the middle of the hall, between the two smaller bathrooms. I saw other girls filing into it, looking about as excited as I was. As I walked in the door I saw that there were three refrigerators on one side of the room, with two ranges and some countertop space right next to them. On the other side was a fair sized television with a DVD/VCR combo next to it. In the center, currently, were about 40 chairs placed in a circle, half-filled with girls. Oh God, I knew we’d have to do stupid introduction games. NOT what I had in mind for my first night at school.
I’m not going to detail the stupidity of the next hour and a half. Suffice it to say that the peppy RA had three others just like her, and they made us do stupid name memorization games which would never work.
Several of the girls looked like the type I would want nothing to do with, the cheerleaders/prom queens, but I had learned on the bus that looks could be deceiving. I decided to give every one of them an honest chance.
I didn’t make any new friends at the meeting because there were just too many people, but as Allie and I were walking out we chatted with a couple girls who were walking our direction, Cynthia and Holly. We found out that they lived right across the hall from us. Cynthia has short black hair, a beak-shaped nose, and is a rugby player; tall, lean, muscular and obviously full of energy. Holly seemed to me like the typical girl-next-door; wavy brown hair down to her shoulders, a cute oval-shaped face, freckles, and dressed casually in jeans and a form-fitting tee shirt. Both of them were very friendly and we all decided to go get dinner together at around seven.
During the discussion, Allie hadn’t said too much. She was obviously a bit introverted, so I vowed right then to try to break her out of her shell a bit. You can’t have people over to your place if you have an awkward roommate, so I wanted to make sure she wasn’t one. Despite her nerdy appearance, I could see a lot of potential there for having fun, I’d just have to bring it out.
Seven o’clock rolled around, and Holly knocked lightly on our doorframe. “You guys ready?”
“Yep, let me just put my shoes on,” I said. “Oh, hey, do you mind if I call someone and ask her if she’d like to meet us there? She's in Broadwater.” I had almost forgotten about Stacey.
“Totally fine with us,” Cynthia said, from somewhere behind Holly. I gave Stacey a call, but she didn’t answer. Might be in her own floor meeting, I thought.
We walked out into the hallway, and it seemed as if a lot of people had the same idea… tons of girls were headed out of the dorm. We went with the crowd and made it outside.
“Do you guys mind if I have a smoke on the walk over?” Allie asked, surprising me. She didn't really seem like the smoker type. We all shook our heads, although it looked like Holly made a sour face afterward.
So, we walked and talked over to the dining hall. The dining hall is a low, ugly building set between two dorms about four buildings down from Randall. It didn’t look overly crowded inside, but there was a short line out the door to get in. We got at the end of the line and chatted a bit more, just small talk.
Once we got inside, we were assaulted by the smell of fried food and grease. There were separate stations for different types of food, and a lot of it seemed edible. I went to the vegetarian section first, just because usually veg food is more healthy. I found some really delicious-looking stir-fry and some hummus and pita bread. Then I went back over to the “Home Cookin’” section and got a bit of turkey and gravy.
I got myself some apple juice and found Cynthia already seated at a table. She had nothing but meat and fruit on her tray, which wasn’t terribly surprising. The other girls found us and we all ate, eyeing up guys that walked past and making comments. Typical female behavior, I suppose. I learned that Cynthia was an Econ major, and Holly was a History major, planning to minor in Religious Studies. I told them all that I was undecided, but I wanted to do something in science.
During all this small talk, I noticed a guy sitting at the table next to us, directly across from me. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, dark hair, blue eyes, a bit of stubble on his chin, wearing mostly black… normally my type of guy, I’d say. What I noticed about him, though, was that he was staring at me. It was starting to make me a little uncomfortable, because it wasn’t the “Ooh, she’s hot” type of stare. He wasn’t smirking. He was just staring at me solemnly, and he was creeping me out. I tried not to make eye contact again, but the next time I did, for a brief second, I could swear his blue eyes turned all black. Then it was gone and he looked away to chat with a girl sitting at his table. They got up, and just before leaving he gave me that cold stare again, and this time the girl with him did it too.
“… and I was thinking of taking Philosophy 101, but then I changed my mind… Emma, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Cynthia said, rousing me out of my thoughts.
“Oh, yeah… sorry.” I tried to join in the conversation again, but over and over, that guy’s face came back to me. I couldn’t get him out of my head. We finished our dinner and headed out, but even when I was back at my room later, trying to fall asleep, his face haunted me. Who was that guy? Why was he staring at me? I felt cold, just thinking about him…

Ranting time... can't handle the idiots in our country anymore...

It's been a while since I've posted anything on here, but I need to get some stuff off my chest. Both before and since the passage of health care reform, the people in our country have been pissing me off to no end. I'll start the post with a video of a woman named Victoria Jackson saying that Glenn Beck has taught her well, "progressive" is the new word for "communist":


Now, you need to understand what irritates me most about hearing anyone make the statements in that video. She's not the only one.

Recently, the GOP has been attacking pretty much anything that involves a Democrat in any way, saying that anyone who supports the health care reform bill is "unpatriotic" and "communist" at the core. I'd like to point out that the health care bill contains very little to actually change the way that our health care system runs right now. The biggest changes it makes are to give an option for health insurance to those who, as of right now, cannot afford it. Here is an infographic explaining the good and bad things about the health care bill, which I find to be very informative. There is also an article on telegraph.co.uk that explains the most important bits of the bill. I especially enjoy the part of the bill adding a significant tax on tanning beds, which New Jersey citizens have vehemently rejected. Honestly, the only problem I see with the bill, which has now passed both the House and the Senate and been signed into law by President Obama, is the REQUIREMENT that everyone in the US have some type of health insurance, or be fined, by 2014. This is considered an affront to our rights by many, and there is a large contingent of states currently working on repealing that section of the bill .

This doesn't stop Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) from blatantly lying that the health care bill will move TRICARE (the military medical care system) out of DoD hands and into the “same department that handles welfare” Here's the video.

I believe that the outright hatred being shown by conservatives everywhere for the health care bill is only a symptom of a much larger, scarier trend that we are seeing recently. What is happening now more than ever before is that the media is showing us only the most radical idiots on both sides of politics. Case in point: A Christian militia group called the “Hutaree” were raided by the Feds in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio for planning to kill several police officers, hoping to “touch off a larger uprising against the government”.
Many of these extremists have been set off by hatred-inciting speech by GOP leaders... Sarah Palin suggested on the evening of the passage of health care that her followers should "reload" rather than "retreat" and has been using crosshair markings on her Facebook page to identify Democrats that she plans to defeat in the upcoming election. Speech like that has also incited direct threats against our congressmen and their families, like the death threats against representative Eric Cantor.

Along with their hate-inspiring language, Republicans have been talking of secession: Republican National Convention chairman Michael Steele defended Texas's right to secede just days before he was found to be using RNC funds to pay for trips to a bondage-themed faux-lesbian strip club .

So, here's what I'm going to propose. Below, I've attached an image simply showing our 50 states. I'm proposing that, if the Repubs really want to make their own country where abortions carry a death sentence and gun control is simply every single person owning and carrying an UZI at all times, let them try it. I've marked the states that they can have in red. Yes, I realize I'm currently living in one of them, Texas, but I would of course come back to my home state of Maryland before this happens.



Here are some reasons for specific states joining the new "Republican States of America":

Texas

This one's the easiest. Texans have been warning of secession ever since we won the giant state from Mexico. Texas currently leads our country in executions, and in fact is 7th in the world for executions in 2009 , falling behind only a handful of countries including Yemen, Saudia Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and China.

The Texas board of education has also been touting their conservative agenda and using it to force their views on the children of our country, as evidenced by the recent legislation requiring teachers in Texas to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of our nations founding fathers . Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic", obviously trying to downplay Democrats.

Texas legislators have also recently passed a bill exempting Texas-made firearms from federal regulations. They tout this as an exercise of "States' rights", but personally I think it's disgusting that they think they can trump federal law with their own. South Dakota and Wyoming have passed similar bills.

Utah

Following along with Texas's board of ed, Utah legislators have passed a bill asking for “independent verification” of climate change before any regulation of carbon dioxide levels take effect passes, despite pleas by prominent scientists at Brigham Young University and U of Utah.

They've also passed legislation “preventing” health care reform from taking effect in Utah without the consent of the Utah state government, and Oklahoma has followed suit.

South Carolina

As you can see above, I put South Carolina and Georgia in the RSA, splitting poor Florida off completely from the rest of us. This is simply because South Carolina is possibly the most white-trash, backwoods group of people on earth, and they don't deserve to be part of a civilized society. Case in point, a woman in SC turned her trailer home into a strip club catering exclusively for teenage boys, charging $5 per lap dance and $20 for a "VIP Special".
South Carolina is also the home of the asshole Representative who yelled "You lie!" during President Obama's speech to the House. Democrats in SC are widely stereotyped as "the black party".

Georgia

This one was a given, but I just wanted to point out that only in fucking Georgia could someone come up with an all-white basketball league and not be run out of town by those of us who don't like racism.


Alright, I can't type anymore, but you get the gist of my ideas here. Let the rednecks secede and see if they can handle themselves. I'm pretty sure after about a year they'd be crawling back to us, asking us for aid.

Going to Honolulu next week!

Hey all,
It's been a while since I've made a real post. As you can see I've added three more chapters of my novel right below this. Feel free to read it and give me some feedback.
In other news, I'm going to Hawaii next week for the American Society of Human Genetics conference in Honolulu. I'll be there from Monday through Friday, and I know it's gonna be excellent. Especially given that my lab is paying for 90% of the cost of it. :)
Also, Brandi and I are about to have our first anniversary, next Friday. It's been going so well with her, I can't imagine it not lasting. :)
That's it for today!
Tyler

Coed Witchery 101 - Chapter 10

Wednesday was another early morning, so I was up at 6:30 again. This time the shower area wasn’t quite as packed… the line was only just extended outside the bathroom door. As I walked up, I noticed Holly right in front of me.
“Hi Emma. How’s it going?” she asked, clearly still not quite awake. She was wearing just her robe and shower shoes, and carrying her little basket of shower supplies, same as me.
“Oh, alright. Bio 100 again this morning. Good thing it’s only on Monday and Wednesday. I’d hate to be up this early on Fridays.”
“Lucky. My Friday morning will be just as early as this. Photography class involves us going out and catching scenes with morning dew and stuff like that, so they make it pretty early, but it’s only for an hour and then I have a break for an hour and a half before Philosophy.”
“Oh I guess that means we’re not in the same section. I have mine at ten with Anglo. You?”
“Eleven with Walters. She seems pretty cool, albeit a bit behind the times. She uses overhead transparencies instead of Powerpoint!”
“Sucks,” I said. “Anglo seems fine, nothing special.” The girl in front of Holly took a shower as two girls finished up and vacated. “Looks like you’re up.”
“Yep. See you later Emma.” She pulled off her robe as she was walking toward the shower area, giving me a bit too much of a peek at her ass. Ok, seriously, I thought to myself, I know they say that college girls all turn bi, but is it really supposed to happen to me during the first week? First Brenda, now Holly?
I took the next open shower and washed off quickly, hoping to finish up before Holly got done to avoid another awkward, naked conversation. I was in luck, as she was nowhere to be seen when I pulled back my curtain after toweling off. I headed back to my room, got dressed and such, and walked to class.
Dr. Docker’s lecture was a bit more interesting, as he went over the theory of evolution in detail. Our high school was, of course, required to teach evolution, but our Bio teacher was a Christian, and as such she had felt it necessary to also cover “Intelligent Design”, intentionally not telling us much about either theory. I had been forced to learn more about evolution myself by reading a few books on the subject.
Dr. Docker, however, started off the lecture by saying “If you are strongly opposed to the theory of evolution, then you have the option of leaving the class today. However, the material covered here WILL be on the midterm, and you will be responsible for it whether you believe in it or not.” When someone tried to protest, he suggested that if she had a problem with it, she could take it up with the head of the Biology department. She left the lecture hall, making a scene by stomping her feet like a five-year-old, and most of the class chuckled at her.
“I would like to point out, now that only reasonable people are left in the room, that evolutionary theory does not in any way preclude the existence of a higher power or even a creator of all life,” Dr. Docker said. “I myself attend church every Sunday and personally believe in God. If you would like to discuss more with me about the subject, I would be happy to meet with you during office hours. For now, let’s begin.”
The lecture was great, full of colorful images and short movies on the subject of evolution. I got the feeling that I would enjoy this class a lot more than high school biology. I made a note of Dr. Docker’s office hours when he showed them at the end of his talk, in case I wanted to ask him a question.
On my way out of the lecture hall, I recognized Tara, one of the twins from Magic 101, walking in front of me with a small group of friends. She saw me as she turned the corner and winked, then went back to chatting. I suppose that’s how we should deal with each other outside of class, I thought. We can’t make it seem like we’re a group.
Philosophy and Chem were sort of lame again, and both professors assigned a lot of reading for Friday. I went to the Student Center again for lunch and had a pretty decent veggie burger and fries. During the next hour and a half until my Seminar, I went to the library and sat in a cozy corner to start on the Chemistry reading. The material was familiar from high school Chem but much more in-depth than we had ever gone. I got lost a few times in the jargon that the book was using until I found the glossary at the end. I had only gotten three-quarters through the assigned reading before I had to go to seminar, so I vowed to myself to finish it that night.
Dr. Holden’s seminar for the day included scenes from the “Into the Future” series involving Doc Brown and his portrayal as a “mad scientist”. He went on to point out that there were real scientists who disliked the stereotype. “As for myself, however, I embrace my inner mad scientist,” he said with a chuckle. “You should see my office full of beakers and test tubes of all sizes.”
After class, I decided to take the long way back to Randall, as the sun was shining really nicely and I felt like a walk. I started around the circle toward the Greek housing. As I was passing the ADO house, I saw two people enter the woods next to the bus stop where I had gotten dropped off, across from Greek Row. Just before they disappeared into the woods, I realized that one of them was Yaseiko, one of the girls at dinner Monday night before Magic 101, along with a tall guy wearing shorts, no shirt, and a backwards visor. They looked like they might have been sneaking off for a quickie or something, so I smiled and kept going.
When I got back to Randall, Allie was there, actually doing some homework for the first time that I had seen. “Hey,” I said as I walked in. “How was your day?”
“Eh, not bad I guess. Classes seem simple enough, I’m just trying to get used to the way the professors lecture. My Comp Sci prof just reads off of his Powerpoint, so he’s pretty boring. I may not even go to most of the lectures and just download them myself and go through them.”
I thought that was a bad idea, but didn’t say that. “So far my professors are pretty good. At least, I don’t have any specific complaints. But it’s still the first week. Who knows what fresh hell they may have waiting for us?” We both laughed at that.
Since I didn’t have anything else specific to do for the evening, I decided I’d take a run before it got late. I hadn’t gotten to exercise at all really since arriving, so it would be nice to stretch my legs again. I put on some bike shorts and a tight t-shirt over a sports bra, clipped my mp3 player to my shorts, and walked out of Randall.
I hadn’t really decided where I would run yet, but once I got outside I realized it would be easiest to just follow the large loop around campus, maybe making a detour into the gym for a little cardio on an elliptical machine or something after a lap or two. I put my headphones on, started up some up-beat emo music, and got up to a nice pace. I jogged past Fraternity Row and got a few catcalls from some guys smoking on the porch of the LXA house. I gave them a small wave and kept going, passing Frat Row and going toward the academic row. I passed a couple of people I recognized, including Crystal from the diving class, who gave me a little wave.
I went past the gym and the dorms, finishing my first lap, and started on my second. I was just about to pass the LXA house again when I saw the guys from the porch running across the road toward the bus stop. I couldn’t hear what they were yelling with my headphones in, but as soon as I removed them I heard a girl’s scream coming from the woods behind the bus stop. I saw that one of the LXA guys was already talking to someone on an emergency call box in front of their house, so I decided to follow the others and see what was going on. I ran across the road and into the woods where I had seen the guys enter.
I could still hear the girl screaming, over and over. Once in a while she would get out something like “Oh my GOD!” in between screams. She finally stopped screaming, and within a minute I could see the LXA guys standing in a sort of semi-circle in a clearing ahead, with two of them holding onto an extremely frantic-looking girl wearing ADO letters. I ran up and asked the guys “What the hell happened to her?”
One of the guys turned around, looking pale and sickened. “You may not want to see this,” was all he said before falling to his knees and retching. As he bent down, I got a glimpse of the scene behind him.
At the foot of a large oak tree lay two bodies, mostly naked. I could see some of their clothing that had been thrown off to the side, presumably in the throes of passion. However, their bodies were almost entirely burned, head to toe. Just as I saw them, the stench of burned hair and flesh hit me, and I gagged and retched. The tree behind the poor couple was also burned, which made it seem like someone had simply turned a flamethrower in their direction and held it on them until they were dead. It was a horrible thing to see, and all of my instincts were telling me to run away as fast as I could.
“Wh-who would do something like this?” one of the guys asked. “Why would anyone… oh God…”
After losing my lunch, I was able to bear the stench enough to look more closely at the bodies of the poor couple. I realized that the skirt and tank top that had been thrown off to the side were the same ones that Yaseiko was wearing when I saw her sneak off into the woods earlier, and then I realized that, even with her hair burned off and her face indistinguishable, this must be her lying dead, next to the guy she went into the woods with. “I… I know that girl,” I said, feeling a deep sickness at what I was seeing. “Her name’s Yaseiko… and I saw her going off into the woods with that guy earlier. Oh God… this is…”
“Oh God… oh no… Yaseiko. That means this is…. Jason? Oh God no! Jason!” One of the LXA guys was on his knees weeping now, and the others looked even more distraught. The girl who had been screaming was just sobbing on the shoulder of one of the other guys now, unable to bear looking anymore.
“No way man, that couldn’t be Jason. That guy’s too tall… it looks like Yaseiko was out here with someone else man. Look at the shorts he was wearing…” he picked them up, “this guy was a Gamma.”
“Hey man, you shouldn’t touch anything here,” I said, still trying to keep from screaming bloody murder myself. “The cops will need to… like… see all of this. Oh God, this is just… horrible…” I couldn’t come up with any more words, and just doubled over, weeping.
A campus police officer showed up a few minutes later, wide-eyed at the carnage, and told us all to back off. He radioed back and asked to have the state police contacted, and set up a perimeter with some “CAUTION” tape he had on his belt.
The next two hours are a blur in my mind, giving statements to the police and signing documents. I told the police about how I had seen Yaseiko and her mystery man going off into the woods on my way back from class, and described him as best I could remember. The police had apparently contacted the Gamma Delta Pi house to see if any of their brothers were missing, but the body had not yet been identified. The officer in charge said they would try to keep the local news away at least for a few hours, but to expect them to try to get interviews the next day, and advised all of us to stick with “no comment” until the investigation was concluded.
I went back to my room after an exhausting time with the police, numb from everything I had witnessed. After I got to my room and saw that Allie wasn’t around, I decided that what I really needed was some time in the hot tub to try to relax. I stripped out of my running outfit and put on my robe, not bothering with a bathing suit this time, and walked down the hall to the bathroom.
No one was in the bathroom, as it was only around 5:30, so I entered the hot tub area, turned on the jets and heater, and sat for a few minutes waiting for the water to heat up. Once it was up to ninety-seven, I hung up my robe and sank down in the hot water, willing the day’s events away.
I don’t know how long I was actually in the hot tub, because I think I may’ve fallen asleep for a time, but I was awoken by the water level going up a bit and the feeling of something brushing past my foot. I opened my eyes to see that Holly was there, naked again, but with her chest submerged. “Sorry Emma, didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, smiling.
“No problem. I didn’t really mean to fall asleep in here. What time is it?”
“About six. You know it's dangerous to fall asleep in a hot tub... what’s wrong? You look… well, terrible, no offense.”
“None taken. I actually had about the worst day possible. I… umm… well I saw a murder scene today.”
“What?? Where? Are you okay?” She was obviously alarmed, but seemed really worried about me, which I found sweet.
“I mean, yeah. I’m not supposed to talk about it much yet until the investigation is like… finished or whatever. Basically, I was one of several who found a couple dead in the woods today. I was out jogging… and… sorry, I just don’t want to talk about it right now. It was really horrible.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about it, I understand. My God… I’m so sorry you had to go through that. If you ever want to talk about it, I’ll be around, okay? Do you want to be left alone? I can go back to my room…”
“No, not at all. Let’s just talk about something else…”
“Would you like another back massage? You know… anything that will help.”
“Umm… actually, yeah, that would be great.” I moved to the other side of the tub and turned my back to Holly, grateful for anything that could possibly take my mind off of the day’s events. She began massaging my shoulders and neck, and it felt great.
“So were your classes okay today?” she asked, obviously just trying to make conversation.
“Yeah… wow I had almost forgotten I had classes today. Yeah they were fine. I don’t even remember my Bio class anymore.” She had moved down to the middle of my back, massaging while the jets helped also, and it felt really amazing. I leaned my head against my arm on the side of the hot tub, just reveling in the feeling of the massage and the jets.
There was some chatting, and I mentioned the party in my room on Friday night, then I started trailing off. Holly was still speaking softly, about her classes, but I was beginning to lull off to sleep again. Her hands felt really amazing on my back and shoulders, and she just kept going for what seemed like forever. I settled in closer to her so she could do a better job.
“Umm, Emma?” she asked.
“Mmm?” I could barely answer, totally caught up in the moment.
“I can’t tell from your reactions, so I’m just going to ask. Are you into me?”
I sat up straighter, but didn’t turn around, letting her continue her massage. “I… I’m not sure. I’ve never really had feelings for a girl before or anything… you’re really good-looking though… I don’t know.” I was stammering, surprised and flustered and turned on all at the same time.
Holly started massaging my back a bit slower, putting more work into each stroke. “Well, see, I think you’re really hot, and I don’t want to mess up our friendship or anything, but…” She moved up to my shoulders again, and then moved her hands forward a bit, moving down toward my breasts. It felt so amazing, I couldn’t help but lean back and let her keep going.
“Alright girls, it’s time to take that to one of your rooms,” a voice said from the doorway of the hot tub room.
“Aah!” I yelped. I looked over and there was Natasha the RA, to ruin the fun as only an RA can.
“S… sorry Natasha,” Holly said. She jumped out of the hot tub and pulled on her robe. I did the same. “Come on Emma, let’s umm… go to my room. No one’s there.”
Without even thinking about what I was doing, I followed Holly down the hall to her room. She unlocked and opened the door, and beckoned me through into the dark room. As soon as the door was closed behind her, she dropped her robe, turned toward me and kissed me. For some reason, my dumb ass wasn’t expecting it and I started tipping backwards, and ended up pulling us both down onto the hard floor. “Oww!” I yelped, as my elbow hit the wood. Holly made a matching sound as her knee hit hard. We lay there on the floor and burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
“Ok, let’s start over,” Emma said, leaning over me. She untied my bathrobe and pulled it back to expose my chest. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
I nodded my head, not trusting my words. I was about to have sex for the first time at college. I just never expected it would be with a girl.

Coed Witchery 101 - Chapter 9

The next morning, after being disappointed to find Allie still playing WOW and just going to bed wishing I didn’t have a roommate, I woke at nine am, since my first class on Tuesdays wasn’t until eleven. Allie was already gone. I made a mental note to ask her for her schedule and then post both of them up in our room somewhere. I got showered and dressed without incident and headed out at about 10:30 for my first class of the day, Physics.
The Physics and Chemistry building was directly behind the student center, so I walked through the middle path across campus, past the library, as I had for my classes the day before. As I passed the student center I saw Brenda walking with a group of ADO girls toward me, and flagged her down.
“I’ll meet up with you guys at lunch,” she told her girls. “Hey! How’re you doing today? Still reeling?”
“Yeah, I mean it’s all pretty hard to take in, ya know?” I was speaking a bit quietly, given that there were so many people around.
“Well hey, if you want to talk some more about it, I’m free after lunch until like 4, so we could sit down somewhere quiet and discuss it a bit.”
“That would be awesome, Brenda. How about three o’clock in the library? I’ve kinda got a ton of questions and wanted someone to tell about the weird stuff that happened to me recently.”
“It’s a date! I’ll see you at three in the entranceway.” She waved and headed toward the student center.
I headed to Physics class. The professor ended up being the same one that Allie had, Dr. Jacobs. He was a younger guy, probably early thirties, with an excited way of talking about Physics that made me think he must not have been a professor for very long yet.
“Today, we’ll just go into some introductory stuff. I know that a pre-requisite for this class is to have taken a Physics class before, but I want to make sure everyone is on the same page. We’re going to go through chapter one of your text, going over each formula that you should all be familiar with already. For Wednesday’s class I’ll be assigning a short quiz that will tell me if you’re adequately prepared for this course. If you do badly on it, I will recommend that you be placed in Physics 101. However, I don’t really expect any of you to do that poorly on it, because it’s pretty straightforward. Let’s get started.”
Of course, class was boring since it was just a review of stuff I’d already mastered in high school, so I sat there acting like I was paying attention and thought about other things, as I could tell most of the class was doing. At the end of class, Dr. Jacobs gave out his quiz like he’d promised and sent us on our way to “becoming the physicists that this world needs”. Right.
Noon was lunch hour for me so I stopped in the student center for some pizza then pulled out my laptop and surfed the net until almost one. Then I headed over to the A&H building again, for English 101. As I expected, it was boring and monotonous and we were assigned to read the first two acts of Romeo and Juliet, which I had read a long time ago, and write a three-page critique of it by next Tuesday. The professor, Dr. Yantz, reminded me of that guy from the eye drops commercial… “the study of the English language is awesome,” he had declared at the beginning of the class, in the most monotone voice possible. Okay, maybe not that exact phrase, but you get the idea. The guy sucks.
English got out at 2:30, so I headed to the library to wait for Brenda, surfing the net for a bit longer before she came in and smiled at me. “Where should we go?” I asked, not sure if anywhere was really quiet and secluded enough for the conversation we were going to have.
“Follow me.” She led me to the elevator and then up to the ninth floor, which was marked on the elevator as “Conference rooms”. We walked past about four large rooms with projectors and whiteboards in them and then came to a small hallway with three doors on each side of it. Brenda led me to the last door on the left and we entered a tiny room, almost a cubicle, with a chalk board on one side and a desk with a chair on the other. She pushed the chair over to the wall, motioned for me to sit in it, and then sat on the desk across from me. “So, what kinds of questions do you have?”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess I could start with my own stories.” I detailed each of the incidents for her, even the embarrassing one with Rand. She laughed a bit about it but I could tell she felt bad about it too.
“Those things happen after we turn sixteen. That’s the age when magical ability starts manifesting, it seems. It sounds like you have natural ability with all three lower magics, which is rare and impressive.”
I blushed a little at her use of the word “impressive”. “Thanks,” I said, “but I just can’t see it as anything but a deterrent to my life being normal. I mean, who has nipples of fire?”
“Well I mean, I started manifesting cold a bit when I came of age, including a very uncomfortable incident with an ex-girlfriend, but once I found out about nature magic, I decided I had to focus on it. It becomes easier to control your powers as you start to understand them more. That’s the point of the Magic 101 class… to teach you how to NOT accidently hurt yourself or someone else.”
Ex-girlfriend. The word stuck in my brain. So she’s gay.
“Why nature magic?” I asked, trying to get images out of my head that would shame a pornstar.
“Well, I guess I’ve always been kind of a hippie. I love plants and animals, and really like being able to talk to them. You’d be surprised the conversations you could have with a squirrel.”
“So you can actually hold a conversation? In words?”
“No, not in words. And conversation is probably a bad term for it. You really can only convey and understand feelings, except for really intelligent creatures like dolphins. Oh man, swimming with dolphins becomes a whole new experience when you can actually speak to them. They really are almost as intelligent as us.”
“Wow… what else can nature magic do?” I was intrigued by her, but I have never been the type to go all mushy over fuzzy creatures. Dolphins though… that’s a whole different ball game.
“Well, as you saw I can help things grow. That’s a manipulation of metabolism more than anything… I’m not actually speeding up the life of the plant or anything like that. Really strong nature mages can actually take on aspects of animals, like the werewolves you read about. The book sort of demonizes that side of it, but I hope to one day be able to grow wings and fly.”
“Has anyone ever been able to DO that??”
“You’ve heard of angels, right? That’s a nature mage playing a joke on some poor sap. So far, though, all I can do is this.” Brenda closed her eyes and suddenly her hair reshaped itself into a cascade of scarlet and white feathers. “Pretty neat, eh?” She smiled a brilliant smile and changed her hair back.
“Wow… you look beautiful like that…” I stammered.
“Aww, thanks Emma. You’re cute. So what have you read about the other magics?”
“Well so far just the basics of heat and cold, and that thought magic is basically telepathy. And that life magic sounds scary.”
“Well, Vince may look a bit dark, but he’s really a sweetheart. Life magic is extremely hard to learn, and his focus on it is mostly because of his father dying of cancer. He wants to find a way to keep that from happening to anyone he can help.”
I felt a stab of regret for thinking Vince was creepy. “What exactly can life magic do? That mouse that he revived… was it really alive, or just some type of… undead creature?” I had a horrible mental flash of a zombie mouse eating its way through a carcass.
“Oh no, it was truly alive. Small animals can be brought back completely. Scholar mages think it’s because they have no souls. Larger animals are tougher, but can be done. More intelligent creatures, like whales, dolphins and primates, can be returned to life, but stay in a catatonic state after that. There IS such a thing as ‘undeath’ though, which is a perverse mix of life and death. Only the most depraved life mages try it, and it almost always ends with them being killed by either their own creations or other mages.”
“Wow… heavy stuff. So how do you keep from just giving up and going completely loony?”
“Eh, same as anyone else. By partying.” She smiled. “We have some fun times together.”
“Speaking of, I’m thinking of having a get-together in my dorm room this weekend, would you be interested?”
“I would love to, but I’m an RA, so I can’t drink in the dorms.”
“Oh, that sucks. Which floor are you on?”
“First floor. I’m in charge of one wing of mixed suites, so I’m sure you can imagine the kind of crap I have to deal with down there. This is my second year of it though, so I guess it must not be too bad.”
We chatted for a while longer about partying and a little about ADO. She was very adamant that they weren’t the typical sorority girls, and given how awesome she was I couldn’t help but believe her. At around quarter ‘til four, Brenda said she had to head out to a TA session that she was giving for Chemistry 102, which I would have the following semester, so we parted ways outside the library and I headed back to Randall to get a head start on reading for Bio and Chem before my last class of the day, Beginning Scuba.
Allie was back in the room when I got there, reading some type of fantasy novel or something. I laughed to myself as I realized that if she knew that I was going to be actually practicing magic this year, she’d be extremely jealous. If anyone should have had these weird things happening to her, it should be Allie, not me.
“Hey Allie, would you be ok with a party in our room this Friday night?” I asked.
“Umm, sure I guess. Who all would be here?” She sounded a bit apprehensive.
“Just some girls from the floor and any guys they might want to bring, and Stacey from Broadwater. I promise it won’t get out of hand or anything.”
“Sure, that sounds like fun. How are we going to get booze, though?”
That’s a good question, I thought. “I’m not sure. I have a fake ID but I’m not sure how well it’ll work here. I always used it at the same place back home. Maybe I’ll ask Brenda…”
“Isn’t Brenda an RA?” Allie looked a little fearful again.
“Yeah but she’s really cool, I know she won’t cause us any problems. I’ll tell people to show up around 8 or so, is that ok?”
“Sure, sounds good.”
I laid down on my bed and read my Bio book for about an hour, getting through the first two chapters easily since it was very much a review for me. After that I played around online, learning about the newest stupid internet memes and which friends on Facebook had gone from “In a Relationship” to “Single” today.
At 5:30, I got changed into my one-piece and put on shorts and a t-shirt over it. Then I headed to the dining hall and had an early dinner before it was time to be at the gym at seven for Scuba. I picked Scuba because I’ve always wanted to try diving but I don’t want to have to pay out the ass for it. The equipment is all included so the only thing we have to pay for ourselves is a bathing suit, so I figured, why not? The only bad thing is that it’s from 7-10 on Tuesday nights, but I figured it’d be worth it. There would also be a few Saturday afternoon excursions to lakes to try diving in a more realistic setting, and the final exam would actually be a trip to Myrtle Beach, which we had to pay extra for, of course. We have the option of taking our final in the pool if we don’t want to pay for the trip. I hadn’t yet decided which I would choose. It would probably depend on whether I had the $150 available when it came time to sign up.
The pool was really easy to find in the gym, so I was actually there about twenty minutes before class was to start. There were a few people doing laps in the pool, and a couple of girls sunning themselves under a huge sunroof at one end of the pool complex, but it was starting to get dark so I figured they would head out soon. At the other end of the pool I saw a young woman bringing out diving equipment from a closet and setting it next to the pool, so I figured she must be our TA. I walked around the pool, admiring one guy that was doing laps in the lane right next to where I was walking as I went. He was doing the backstroke so I had a great view of his washboard abs. Sigh. I need to get laid soon. My night with Rand wasn’t very fulfilling…
When I reached the other end of the pool I saw that the girl bringing out the scuba equipment was actually older than I she looked from afar… probably in her early thirties. She must be the instructor, I thought. I walked up and said “Hi, I’m Emma. I’m in the scuba class.”
“Emma…“ she pulled out a clipboard. “Emma Dawes?”
“That’s me. Are you the instructor?”
“You got it. I’m Angela Akers. I’m not a professor or anything, so you can call me Angela. You excited to try out diving?”
“Yeah, definitely. I’ve always wanted to try. Any big tips?”
“Yeah. Don’t drown. That would look bad on my record. Mind helping me pull out some of this stuff?”
“Sure.” I put down the sports bag I had brought and helped her carry out three more sets of gear. There were nine total, arranged in a line along the edge of the pool. I assumed that meant I would have eight fellow classmates, or maybe seven if Angela used a set to show us how to put it on or something.
A few minutes later, other people started showing up, and Angela set about kicking everyone out of our half of the pool. The hot guy I had noticed moved over to a lane on the opposite end and kept swimming, this time freestyle.
“Alright, I think everyone’s here,” Angela said. “I’m Angela Akers. Call me Angela… I’m not a professor or a doctor. I’m actually a part-time nurse, and just teach this course on Tuesdays and the advanced course on Thursdays at the same time. I’m sure you all know that the equipment is provided, but if you have any of your own equipment, you’re free to use that instead. I see that you brought a wetsuit, Mr…?”
“Collins. Andrew,” said a tall, lankey guy who had come in wearing a full wetsuit with the hood pulled back to reveal curly brown hair. He had a round nose and some strange looking eyes, but all in all was a nice looking guy. “Yeah, my dad’s had me diving for years, but I never got certified officially, so I can’t take the advanced class yet.”
“Quite right, Mr. Collins. All of you will get certified in diving by the end of this course, as long as you are willing to pay the certification fee, which I think right now is $75. Don’t quote me on that.”
The other students were a fairly nondescript group, probably because we were all wearing simple swimsuits that we could fit under a wetsuit. Angela pointed us toward men’s and women’s changing rooms, where she had hung up wetsuits of various sizes for us to try on. I found one that fit me very well, although the constriction on my chest was pretty uncomfortable at first, and you could see my nipple ring even through the wetsuit. The other two girls in the class found some that fit them as well. One girl was short and Latino, and she introduced herself as Maria. The other girl was tall and sporty-looking, with her hair back in a ponytail beneath a visor, and she said her name was Crystal. We chatted just a bit while we changed but I got the feeling that the three of us wouldn’t really become friends.
Back out at the pool, the five guys in the class had gotten changed also, and Angela showed us first just how to put on our flippers and strap on the tank. She said that today we wouldn’t actually be doing much, just getting used to treading water with the tanks on. She assigned us each a spot in the pool and told us to jump in, using the flippers to get ourselves back up to the surface. I jumped in, expecting to sink way down because of the tank, but I suppose the natural buoyancy of the air in the tanks was enough to keep me pretty close to the surface. I barely had to kick to keep my head up.
Maria wasn’t quite so lucky. She came up sputtering after about ten seconds, grabbed the side of the pool and coughed for a minute before calming down. “I wasn’t really expecting to go under,” she said. I rolled my eyes to myself. What exactly did you expect, then?
“Excuse me! Who said that?” She was looking at each of us. “Who just made fun of me? I will rip you a new asshole, whoever it was.”
Well, she’s easy to piss off. But did she just hear me? That was weird. Maybe I have a little bit of thought magic in me. I told myself to be careful what I was thinking AT people. Maria was still looking very sour, but Angela got us started on breathing exercises to calm down during a dive, and it was forgotten. Angela let us go early instead of keeping us for the entire three hours that night, so at about 8:30 we finished up, put our equipment away and changed out of our wetsuits.
As we were all leaving, Angela called me back. “Hey, let’s go in my office just for a second.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, just come on for a second.”
I walked into her office, which really just looked like a converted broom closet, and sat down. She closed the door and sat across from me. “You can’t be pulling that telepath shit around here.”
“What?” How in the world…?
“I know about you magic kids, and I have a pretty good sense for it. I could tell you said something to Maria with your mind, and you can’t be doing that in regular classes. I’d suggest you talk to Dr. Holden about how to control that as soon as possible. That’s all. See you next week.”
“Umm… ok, thanks. And, sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just something we have to deal with at this fucked up school. Have a good week.”
I walked out, wondering how she could have known what happened. Maybe she was a magic user herself? But she had said “you magic kids” like I was of a different breed or something, like I wasn’t human. It creeped me out, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it all the way back to Randall.