_ OC POV _

Saying that I was a socially awkward person is a bit of an understatement. I thought I would grow out of being the shy lonely girl once I joined college but unfortunately it seemed like I was delusional. I could hold casual conversations with people when it was just one person at a time, but when in a group, I would retreat into my shell and just observe. I really envied the ease with which people would joke with each other even if they just met, and how the conversation would flow without any of the uncomfortable moments of silence. By then, I suppose people would forget that I was there, and I would become invisible. That used to hurt terribly, and then I got used to it. I got used to the loneliness and it became sort of a haven for me. I retreated into my own bubble, with my nerdy and weird hobbies and interests and that is how I went through college, studying but otherwise barely existing.

Graduation was only a week away and everyone around me was excited, the whole campus was buzzing with barely restrained enthusiasm. The students couldn't wait for their diplomas to start hunting for jobs, and those who have already secured a position were boasting about it. I wasn't terribly worried about post graduation. I have already received a few offers from companies who said they were impressed with my academic achievements and wanted me to become part of their IT department, I was still comparing the advantages offered by each company and estimating how much effort would take me to relocate to where they were located. I also enlisted the help of some of my professors to ask about their opinion on the companies who reached out to me and even Mrs. Whittle, the campus's librarian gave me some pretty good advice.

Mrs. Whittle was one of the few people I could consider myself being really close to. I got to know her when I started college as I spent most of my free time in the library reading, and we got to chat sometimes about one book or another, from then on, she started bringing me some of her homemade pie and sitting with me in my library corner to read some of the romance novels she was so fond of in companionable silence.

That evening, I was on my way to the library to give her a box of her favorite chocolate as a thank you for the apple pie she gave me the day before. I knew that I would find her alone as the library was always empty that time of day especially that there were no more classes and the only thing keeping people around campus was the wait for graduation. Noticing how dark it was, I was wondering whether she left already when I saw her purse still on her desk so I stepped even further inside and turned on a lamp on the closest desk to me to have better visibility. That was when I saw it.

Mrs. Whittle's body was laying in unnatural angle on the floor. She was in a big puddle of blood, so much blood. Her head was turned sideways and her empty eyes were looking straight at me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, so I tried to blink in case the image would disappear but it was still there. The unmoving body, the sightless eyes, the blood, the scattered books and lamps on the floor. All of it was real.

I thought of calling 911 so I tried to get my phone out of my bag but my hands were shaking so bad that I had trouble grabbing the phone and I even dropped it once before picking it up and starting to dial. My vision was becoming blurry and I had to try a few times before I could type the number correctly. I had no idea what I said or what the operator told me, everything became a blur and I felt my knees give under me.