"Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced."

-John Keats

One

You could almost hear it around the campus. It floated through the hallways, spilling outside and circling around the quad area that was becoming densely populated. It was the middle of October, which meant that there was a giant wave of relief sweeping through the student body.

It definitely wasn't the biggest or most prestigious university, but Clearview University had been around for just about two-hundred years. One-hundred and ninety-eight to be exact. One could make an educated guess about its age when looking at the buildings, especially the six that surrounded the quad. Red brick composition with a dash of weathering here and there. It seemed as if a scaffold was always attached to one of them replacing deteriorated bricks or replacing windows.

The school itself had a rich history, originating as a seminary school and remaining so for a little more than the first half of its existence. Back then it was known as St. Donan's College, founded by five priests of Irish ancestry. Rumors and legends speak about a series of tragic accidents or happenings that eventually caused the school to be shut down, with some speculations that there was a mass killing that was covered up by the local authorities. It stayed abandoned for about twenty-five years until it was re-opened as a progressive woman's only college known as Clearview University. Even though it became co-ed just a short time after, the name stuck and it seemed to effectively bury the school's dark secrets.

On this early Friday afternoon, none of that mattered or lingered on the minds of the student body. Fall break officially started today, and despite only being an extended weekend of essentially four days, it also marked the end of mid-terms, as well as the end of stress for at least a half of a week. Everyone was a little happier, livelier, amplified by the fact that it was a beautiful day and unusually warm for the season. There was a group of about eight to ten students tossing a Frisbee around on one of the grassy areas, which was devolving into a friendly game of monkey in the middle with two female students playing the aforementioned primate roles. Even the teachers seemed to walk with a little bit of pep in their steps. One of them, a paunchy middle-aged man with thinning dark brown hair and matching moustache, may have been walking a little too briskly when he accidentally brushed by a young brunette, knocking into a textbook she was carrying. She managed to keep a tight grip on the book, but the momentum of the collision spun her half-way around, causing her to drop her water bottle on the ground. Luckily, it was capped, thus preventing a complete calamity.

"Hey!" the startled girl exclaimed.

The male teacher didn't even look back as he disappeared into the ever growing crowd of people. The girl's friend, a taller and paler girl, with wavy auburn colored hair, bent down to pick the bottle up and hand it back to her now fuming friend.

"Jerkoff! Pederast!" the blonde yelled towards the now-vanished teacher as she snatched the water bottle from her friend. With a huff she started walking again, with her friend hot on her heels.

"Jesus Nicole, that's Mr. Miller!" The taller girl said incredulously. "He's still a department head!"

"Not of my department. And that doesn't give him the right to just bump into me without a second thought." Nicole took a long gulp from her water bottle. The two friends turned off the main path of the quad onto a shady path that led past the library, which was the second largest building in the school after the university center. The taller girl chuckles as she tucks some strands of hair behind her ear.

"What's a pederast anyway? One of your psych terms?" She inquires, playfully jabbing her finger into her friend's bicep.

Nicole smirked, giving a gentle shove back with her shoulder. "Someone who practices pederasty. A guy who likes young boys. With that creepy moustache of his, I'd say Mr. Miller looks like he may dabble. At least that means we're safe, Hannah."

Nicole and Hannah continued on the pathway that wrapped around the other side of the library, laughing at their private joke. Throughout Clearview University, a small stream cut through the campus running west to east, with small wooden bridges, no more than twenty feet in length, to connect the pathways. The bridge, however, was also no more than about four feet wide, which made it a tight squeeze when walking with someone side by side. Given the crowd of people coming from the other direction, Nicole and Hannah fell in step single file as a courtesy, while others across the way did the same.

The breeze started to pick up from the south, which caused Nicole's hair to whip in front of her face as they approached the bridge. Annoyed, she brushed it back away from her eyes with her left hand, as her right lingered on the wooden railing. From behind, she heard Hannah speaking but her focus was straight ahead, and it just became background noise. Coming towards her, in that group of non-descript students, all seemingly wearing the college uniform of blue jeans and school sweatshirt, one of the faces stuck out. She wasn't quite sure if it was his attire, with the black on black of t-shirt and jeans combination that loomed like a shadow amongst the blue and orange wave growing closer. It may have been that simple aesthetic that caused the young man to stand out. His eyes were cast down towards the ground, the only one in the group who wasn't talking to someone else, although visible white earbuds indicated that some sort of sound was accompanying him on his walk.

Perhaps he could feel her eyes on him, for right as they were about to pass, he raised his head and locked on to her. She could swear she saw a fire behind those bright green eyes, and though it may have only lasted a second, he seemed to go by in slow motion. Whatever trance Nicole had been in was broken by a sharp sensation in her right hand.

"Damnit!" Nicole exclaimed, holding her hand up. She spied a tiny, brown speck on her palm that would have been missed if the pain hadn't been there. Luckily, there was enough wood on the surface to successfully pluck it out.

"That's why you don't run your hand across wood." Hannah quipped as they exited the bridge and were able to walk side by side again. "Seriously though, wash your hand when we get back."

"Yes, mother." Nicole replied whilst rolling her eyes. She turned around to look at the man again, who was quickly fading into the distance. "Hey, you see that guy?" Nicole asked Hannah while pointing.

Hannah turned to look, but shrugged. "You need to be more specific."

"All black, kinda pale. Did he look familiar to you?" Nicole inquired.

"I don't know, didn't see his face." Hannah replied. "Was he hot?"

Nicole scrunched her face, waving her hand back and forth. "Wasn't bad, but I feel like I know him. I just can't place it."

"Nicki, it's Clearview, not Penn State. You've probably seen him walking around before." Hannah stated as they both turned to continue their walk. They were coming up on a set of four-story dormitories, with their destination specifically being the buildings on the right. The freshman dorms consisted of two buildings, one for female students and one for males, which were connected by a walkway on the second floor. It was an obvious afterthought in design, an addition that was perhaps the only modern bit of architecture other than the new medical center. Hannah and Nicole met as roommates in their first semester at Clearview and were fortunate enough to hit it off.

Just as they were within a few yards of the front door to Warren Hall, where they resided, Hannah's phone started buzzing loudly. Hannah whipped her purple backpack around, frantically digging through for a few seconds before retrieving the phone.

"Hello?" Hannah answered, stopping in her tracks and placing a hand on Nicole's shoulder to stop her as well. Nicole turned, watching Hannah's eyes light up. "Hey, what's up? Yeah…now? Uhh…" Hannah looked up at Nicole, "…sure! Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay, see you there." Hannah hung up and her lips curled into a smile.

"Okay, who was that?" Nicole inquired.

"Remember that guy in my I was telling you about from Algebra?" Hannah asked, drawing a shrug from Nicole. "You know, Jason?"

Nicole, still clearly not knowing who she was talking about, chose to play along, nodding a few times. "Jason, right. Yeah, that cute guy, right?"

Hannah laughs and nods in kind, clearly understanding that her friend is just playing along. "Right, as if I'd be that tongue-tied over a troll. Anyways," Hannah continues whilst pacing in small steps, "he wants to grab lunch with him like, right now. So I'm gonna meet him over by Winter and Hamilton."

Nicole sighed. "Well shit, there goes my idea of grabbing a bite at the Caf. Where are you two going anyway?"

"I don't know," Hannah started, absent-mindedly twirling her hair, "should I have asked first? How do I look? Should I change first?" Hannah asks with a frown while looking at her outfit.

"Jesus, who is this guy?" Nicole inquires, waving in a dismissive manner. "You look great, go on. Just remember to make him work for it."

Hannah lets out a high-pitched sound that can only be described as a squeak, obviously doing a horrible job of containing her excitement. She leans in to exchange a cheek kiss with Nicole that turns and walks away at a brisk pace. Nicole chuckles to herself, turning around and heading inside Warren Hall.

The inside of the dorm is relatively unremarkable. Taupe-colored walls with a pair of corkboards in the main lobby area, filled with dozens of flyers that encompass every inch. It's relatively quiet with the exception of the TV which is always on, even if nobody is around. A couple of girls that Nicole recognized pass her by and head out the way that she came in. There doesn't seem to be a RA or attendant around, which Nicole finds odd but dismisses the thought as quickly as it came. She headed past the front desk and towards the open door that led to the staircase.

As soon as she touched the first step, she felt an intense pain in her head, causing her eyes to narrow and taking a moment to stop. She had been getting migraines on and off for the last couple of years, so it was nothing new, but it didn't make them easier to deal with. Nicole silently cursed to herself and soldiered on up the two flights of stairs to her floor.

Every hallway in the dorm was brightly lit, which didn't do her any favors. She squinted and shielded her eyes, casting them down in the direction a rhythmic sound was approaching from. It grew louder and she took a few steps to meet it, until she spied the source of the noise; a pair of pink and black sneakers that stopped in front of her.

"Hey, Nic! What're you doing?" The owner of the sneakers asked. Nicole knew that it was Cara, a girl who stayed just two rooms down across the hall. She was always upbeat and just a little too tan for normal humans.

"Oh, hey Cara. Just heading to my room for a little darkness." Nicole responded while keeping her hand over one of the light's sources. Seeing the way Cara canted her head to the side, Nicole elaborated. "I have a vicious migraine."
"Bummer!" Cara exclaimed. "Hey you know my mom always drank tomato juice when she had a headache, maybe that'll help. Do you have any tomato juice? I don't."

It made Nicole feel a little better as she thought about poor Cara, oblivious that mom probably had more hangovers than migraines. She did manage to shake her head though. "No. No tomato juice. Just aspirin and a dark window curtain."

"Well that's too bad," Cara frowned for a split second before going back to her usual perky self, "feel better though, okay?"

Before Nicole could respond, Cara walked past her and headed towards the staircase. She continued walking to her room, almost walking into the corner wall while trying to avoid the light. Both of the connected dorms were horseshoe patterned, with a garden area between them where kids congregated at all hours. Midday it was almost empty, but because of the natural privacy that it provided, it turned into a little drinking party most nights. Nicole hoped that this headache would pass so she could also enjoy herself later tonight.

Upon getting to room 314, Nicole dug around her purse to quickly find her keys. The plastic frog on her ring clanged against the door as she unlocked the door and gave it a light push open. She walked in and shut the door behind her with her heel while placing her purse around the right side of her desk chair. The room itself was just as ordinary as the building she resided in. Two twin beds, one of the left and one on the right side, with a mini-fridge in the middle. Each side of the room had a desk with an uncomfortable wooden chair, which Hannah already replaced with a rainbow-colored bean bag chair. Nicole opened her closet and took off the yellow hooded sweatshirt she'd been wearing, tossing it inside the hamper that sat in the middle.

She moved across the room to the window above the fridge and threw the single black curtain closed. Nicole always needed complete darkness when she slept, and thankfully Hannah was no different. The walls on each side of the room told the differences between the two. While Nicole had one poster above her bed of the band The Pretenders, Hannah's half of the room was filled with a combination of posters and pictures of family and friends that were crookedly thumbtacked. Nicole was also the neater of the two, as evidence of her foot getting caught in Hannah's purple tank top, which was haphazardly discarded on the floor in the middle of the room. She kicked it towards Hannah's bed and sat down on the edge of hers, closing her eyes for a few seconds due to the sharp pain that lingered.

Nicole always kept a bottle of aspirin at her small bedside desk, but there was also another small container there. It was black and cylindrical with a silver top, something that was often used to hold reels of film. Lying down, Nicole grabbed for this bottle rather than the aspirin. She uncapped it and took out two small, white pills that were generic with the exception of the letter 'P' that was engraved. Without the assistance of water, Nicole popped them in her mouth one after the other. A part of her wished that she grabbed her phone out of her purse so she could listen to some music while she relaxed, but decided that complete silence might serve her better.

Despite the headache, she let out a contented sigh at the thought of feeling back to normal later, and the trip that she would take to get there. She closed her eyes and let herself drift off.