The Day Before: An Island of Budding Knowledge

- October 13, 1997, Monday -

- 6:45 AM -

One of the nicest things about teaching at a university that was a stone's throw from the coast was that every day, the commute to work was punctuated by the rising of the sun. Now that fall had begun in earnest, there was less and less sunlight to be seen, but Dr. Robert Freeman felt there was something of meaning to be gleaned from this phenomenon. While the constructs of man dictated that sunrise on this day was precisely at 7:30 AM, nature cared little for such ideas as quantized time. The sun would rise and set exactly when it meant to, regardless of whether or not mankind would be around to measure the exact moment at which it did so.

Today would be another ordinary day. He would arrive at his office in a few minutes and prepare for the lectures ahead, teaching his students of philosophy. They would have their usual discussions, trying to meander through the morass that was the depths of human thought, and feel that they had made some substantial self-improvement when in reality all that they had accomplished was a further advancement into hypocrisy and self-righteousness. For these days, it was impossible to find a mind that could dive into that dark abyss that was the human psyche and return without succumbing to the bends that would inevitably result, if they ever returned at all.

Today would be another ordinary day. Tonight, however, was a different story. Yes, tonight would be the beginning of a great experiment, one that would prove the folly of men and women alike when forced to face the demons that resided within them. The foolishness of youth, whether presently embodied in the students that attended South Padre Island University or retained solely within the minds of those that grew older yet refused to grow in understanding, would be put to the test.

- 12:20 PM -

"So, Lloyd, have you settled in at school yet?" Astrid Ross asked of her brother as the both of them sat down to lunch at the university's dining hall. The two siblings had different hair colors - Astrid had long, brown hair and Lloyd had short blonde hair. Lloyd dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, whereas Astrid wore a dress and sandals.

"Yeah, I'd say so. I've got this psychology test coming up this Friday, and some senior named Carl is apparently in charge of a study group that's meeting later tonight. I don't need that, though. I'll ace this test no problem."

"Oh? As much as I'd like to believe you, dear little brother, your grades have never been your strong suit in school. If there's a group meeting to study for that test, I think you should go. I even know Carl; he's actually aced the courses you're taking right now. He really knows his stuff." Lloyd took a huge bite out of his grilled cheese sandwich and shrugged.

"I dunno, sis. I think I've got better things to do on a Monday night." Astrid narrowed her eyes at him for talking with his mouth full.

"I'm not going to make you go. You're an adult now, Lloyd. No one is going to be hanging over your shoulder telling you to do your homework or study. I learned that pretty quickly when I was a freshman, and it's even more important now that I'm a senior." Lloyd swallowed his food and washed it down with some water.

"I got it, I got it. Gotta say though, now I'm starting to understand why mom always told me to pick up my dirty clothes off the floor. Not only is my roommate kind of uptight about that sort of thing, but it sucks almost tripping over a pair of socks in the morning." Astrid ate some of the rice that she had gotten.

"I'm surprised you're taking that introductory psychology course. It doesn't sound like something you'd be interested in at all. Did your adviser suggest it?" She asked. Lloyd took another large bite of his sandwich, making sure to swallow it before speaking this time.

"Not really. He gave me a list of recommended electives for freshmen, and I asked him which one was the easiest. He kinda gave me a dirty look before pointing out which courses were considered easier by the student body, and psychology was the most interesting one out of those to me. I mean, think about it - that's what the guys on the cop dramas use to profile criminals, right? So far we haven't learned anything like that in class, but I'd say it's still pretty interesting anyway. Like, inside everybody is an ego, id, and superid, and they all correspond to different parts of their mind. That's kinda cool!"

"That's id, ego, and superego. Are you sure you don't need to study?" Lloyd blinked before sighing in annoyance at his error.

"Ehhh, fine. Maybe I'll go to that meeting later on or whatever. It's supposed to be at 8 in the psych building... forgot which room it was, though. Doesn't matter. It's not that big of a building. I'll figure it out."

"Oh, boy. Just... don't forget that I'm here for you, brother."

- 2:21 PM -

A young Hispanic woman walked down the hallway of the student center towards the pay phones, where a couple of people were already using some of them. She moved her wavy brown hair aside and retrieved a couple of quarters from her pocket to put into one of the open phones. Dialing a certain number, she was on the line for just a few seconds before the person on the other side picked up.

"Hello?" The male voice on the other side of the line said.

"James, it's me, Yola!"

"Oh, hey baby! What's going on? Man, I hope you're ready for our date tonight. You and me are going to do something special. Can't tell you what it is right now, though. Bonafide surprise." Yolanda sighed in frustration. She glanced around her, as if there was someone else listening in on her conversation before continuing.

"Yeah, about that... listen, I really hate to do this to you, but we're gonna have to postpone our date until the weekend. I have-"

"What? The weekend?! Seriously? What happened?"

"You know I'm on academic probation, right? The school's threatening to kick me out if I don't start passing my classes. I took this psychology course because everyone said it was real easy, but clearly I'm too stupid to get it, because it's kicking my ass. It's got a test this Friday, and if I don't pass it I'm really gonna be in for it. There's a study group meeting tonight at 8, and I can't miss it. Sorry..." The fact that James didn't immediately respond made Yolanda hold her breath for a moment, scared that he would get mad about it. Instead, his voice sounded more disappointed than anything.

"Aw, shit. Damn it, that sucks. Okay then. Well... how about Friday night, then?" She was relieved to hear that he was understanding about it.

"Perfect. Sounds great."

"There anything I can do to help you with it? I don't know anything about psychology, but maybe I can ask around, find someone who does. You want me to bring you something to eat later?" He asked.

"No, no, I'm fine. Thanks for putting up with me. I know I must drive you crazy." On the other side of the line, James laughed.

"You certainly do, but that's what I love about you. Did you wanna talk about anything else?"

"No. I'm going to start heading to my next class now. We'll talk later."

"You got it, Yola. Catch you on the flip side."

"See you later. Bye."

- 4:33 PM -

To Carl Smith, nothing rounded off a day of classes better than heading to the gym and working out. Today was running day, and so that meant running several miles on a treadmill while watching whatever was on TV. There were several screens in his field of view, ranging from movies to talk shows to the weather channel. He looked down at the treadmill to check how far he had progressed since beginning his workout about an hour ago: 7.35 miles.

That's good. Could be better.

The noise in the gym made trying to legitimately watch anything on TV a futile effort without captions. Carl hadn't bothered to bring his portable CD player with him today, as he was growing weary of the music collection he had. He made a mental note to himself to visit a music store later this week to see if there was anything good that he could add to his collection.

"The tropics are mostly quiet, but we're watching the development of this tropical wave..." The captions appearing on the TV playing the weather channel read. This year had been very good for hurricanes, he noted. Only Hurricane Danny had done any significant damage to the U.S., and even then it was only a Category 1 storm. It was a curious occurrence that not a single named storm had passed directly through Corpus Christi since Hurricane Celia in 1970 - those with superstitious inclinations might even say someone had cast a spell on the Sparkling City by the Bay, protecting it from such storms.

As lovely as it is to have a school that's so close to the sea, I can't help but think that it wouldn't survive a hurricane slamming into it. Well, no. That would be giving the people who built this place no credit whatsoever. I'm sure they had that in mind when they decided to establish a school here and have taken every possible precaution to make sure this place can withstand the conditions of a storm. And while I'm not one to believe in superstition, it certainly seems like this place is less than likely to see the wrath of a hurricane anytime soon.

He looked back down at the treadmill, reminding himself to pace his breathing and maintain focus. Another ten minutes or so and he would head back to his dorm to rest, eat, and prepare for the Psychology 2301 study group at eight o'clock tonight. His fellow students were counting on him, after all.

- 6:14 PM -

Dinner for Jennifer Perez and Marvin O'Keefe consisted of a combination of quesadillas, sliced chicken, assorted vegetables, and caffeine-free soda. The two of them sat down across from each other and began to talk to each other about their day.

"I'm glad I decided to put off filling this elective slot until now. That psychology course is a much-needed breather compared to all my math classes. I'm going to go to that study group tonight just to feel good about how easy it is." Jennifer said. She had her hair in a ponytail and wore dangling silver earrings along with a sea-green t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

"No kidding it's easy. My programming courses have been keeping me super busy. You had the right idea, Jenny. Wonder if we'll be able to do the same thing next year." Marvin said. He kept his ginger hair trimmed very short in the interest of not having to do any upkeep on it whatsoever, and was always wearing some combination of a shirt, shorts, and sandals. Completing his ensemble was a pair of thin-rimmed brown glasses, selected to try and not look too much like someone who spent hours on end in the engineering building.

"Maybe. You'll have to check your degree plan and see what you still need. I really don't want one of us to have to graduate before the other if we can help it."

"It's not like we couldn't still keep in touch." Marvin said, taking a bite out of a quesadilla.

"Yeah, but think about it Marv. How often do you talk to anyone we went to high school with?" She said. He hesitated to respond, offering a half-hearted shrug before saying,

"Maybe... once a year? Something like that? I'm always really busy, so even the people that go here from our school I don't talk to all that often either."

"Well, part of that is just how you live. Nothing wrong with that, I'm just saying that if we weren't going to the same school, we wouldn't talk more than once a week, at the most. We'd be too busy living our own lives to keep our friendship up. I don't want that to happen to us when we graduate from here, either. I know we still both have a year to go, but the commencement date will be here before you know it." Marvin shook his head, cracking a smile.

"I do know one thing's for certain. You are never going to change. You've dragged me by the wrist ever since we were in the playpen, and I wouldn't be surprised if you tried to take me to the grave." Jennifer pursed her lips and pouted exaggeratedly, before cracking up in laughter.

"Oh, come on now. You know they don't bury bodies in the same exact spot. I'll settle for at least being buried in the same graveyard, how's that sound?" Marvin's smile widened.

"That sounds alright to me."

- 7:58 PM -

Carl looked out from his place at the podium to see who had decided to come to the study group. It was a smaller group than he had hoped for - only about ten individuals had showed up. There was going to be another meeting on Wednesday, so he surmised that more people would probably show up then to get in their last-minute studying. It was also only the first exam, and the course was known for being relatively easy compared to other intro-level courses, so those were likely factors in the low attendance as well.

He took a look at each of the people who had come. Most of them appeared to be freshmen, at least from what he could tell. There was a pair of individuals in the back that looked older, likely juniors or seniors filling out their elective slot with something easier than their core classes. Carl stacked his notes together, cleared his throat, and began to speak.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Carl, and I'll be leading the review tonight. First, allow me to go over what Professor Martin has stated will be on the upcoming exam..." He took a piece of chalk and wrote down the topics on the chalkboard behind him. Once he was done, he began to go over the topics on the list, answering a few questions that came up from some of the people in the room. Most of them came from one of the older students, a Hispanic girl with a ponytail who sat next to a guy with very short ginger hair. The others varied in their levels of attention, with a blonde-haired guy standing out in particular because he kept checking his watch as if he had somewhere else to be. That kind of thing was always annoying to him - why even be here if you clearly wanted to be somewhere else?

- 8:55 PM -

"...and if there are no more questions, I think we're done here. There will be another session just like this one on Wednesday at the same time and place, although I'll just be going over the exact same things I did tonight." Carl said, addressing the group before him.

After a moment of silence, he stacked up his notes and put them in a folder as the people began to gather their things and leave. The lights then began to flicker, making everyone pause for a moment before the lights went out entirely, blanketing the room in darkness.

"Ugh, really? Who blew a fuse?" Lloyd said, trying to feel around for the door. He felt something distinctly different from a door instead.

"That is not the door! Don't touch me!" Yolanda shouted.

"I found it! It won't open!" Jennifer said, trying to push open the door and finding that it refused to budge, as if someone had locked it.

"Calm down, everyone! I've got a flashlight." Carl said, reaching down to where he had placed his backpack to try and get his flashlight. As he did so, a bolt blasted from the lights, hitting him in the back and knocking him out. The others noticed the brief flash of illumination and saw that Carl had gone down.

"What was that?!" Lloyd said, trying to make his way across the room to get to Carl. Before he could get close enough to him, however, another bolt exploded from the lights and hit him in the chest, knocking him flat on the ground.

"What the hell is going on? Get me out of here this instant!" Yolanda shouted, pushing her way to the door. She intended to ram her way through it, but was stopped in the middle of her momentum by another electrical bolt, causing her limp body to fly against the door in vain. Jennifer and Marvin couldn't even say another word before they saw the lights explode in a brilliant white flash, sending lightning bolts outwards that hit everyone else, dropping them all to the floor.

Original upload date: November 3, 2016

A/N: I've been sitting on this idea for several months; I wanted to do a story in the style of Persona 1 and somewhere along the way I got the idea to use some elements of the Devil Survivor games, leading to what you see before you. This story takes place in the same universe as In the Eye of the Beholder, but the only connection between the two (besides Philemon, Igor, the Velvet Room, etc.) will be a single character that's already been introduced in this opening chapter.

This is my project for NaNoWriMo 2016, so if everything goes as planned you will see at least 50,000 words on this story by the end of the month. Likely more, as these notes and this site's interesting way of parsing line separators will inflate the count a little bit. It probably won't be finished in 50k, but this story won't be even half as long as Beholder is at the time of this posting. At least, that's the plan. We'll see how it turns out.