.-.-.-.-.-.-.
illumielle ; "It's not just that she makes him a better person–and she does–but he changes her too. He challenges her, surprises her. He makes her question her life, beliefs. He's either the best thing for her . . . or the worst."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
1. impunitus: unpunished, unrestrained, safe.
Entry No. 112
There is some comfort to having no friends. I knew that this would be hard upon applying for Colombia two
years ago. My folks implored me to sign up for nursing school, but they don't see the wonder I do in the
stars. It's majestic and uncharted. We've only just set foot on the moon, and I find that increasingly exciting!
Dad said that he wouldn't help me through this. Good. I don't need his money.
That's what the scholarship was for that I received for being the first female enrolled in classes here.
All of the boys—for they are certainly no men—in my classes all say that I'm only here because the school
wanted to avoid future lawsuits from women being denied based off of their sex.
I'm okay with that. Why? Because this is my chance to prove the entire university wrong.
I'm no symbol or beacon of hope for my sex, but I can be a stepping stone.
I've never been so successful in my studies in all my years of matriculation as I am today, but lately
I feel increasingly more isolated. Mother suggests that I search for a husband while I'm surrounded by countless
men here. I always politely remind her that I do not ever want to marry, let alone follow her American Dream.
This entry is already too long, but this journal is all I have right now. Initially, I know that the purpose of these pages were
to document my journey at Colombia University through the eyes of a woman, but I can't help but feel defeated outside
of my own do I feel like this? Why is being alone both comforting, yet terrifying?
.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.
"I'm trying to say—"
"Jane! You shut the fuck up! I've had it with you! You're no man! You're no scientist! You're nothing but an unbalanced, liberal, and irresponsible girl! You don't belong at Colombia whatsoever!" a loud and old masculine voice shouted from the other line of the pay phone.
"Daddy! How can you talk to me like that? I'm still your daughter!" the twenty-year-old university student argued in a low, but firm voice. Since childbirth, Jane had been conditioned to respect her father, the provider. In a flash, she was suddenly ten again staring at his fist accelerating quickly toward her cheek. A low groan dwelled in her throat as she shook her head to keep the familiar memory in the back of her mind.
"You listen here, young missy! You'll never be my daughter! I didn't even want you! I wanted a boy! I wanted a pal to play some ball with! Instead, the agency dropped you off at your damn mother's insistence!" the voice howled over the line.
A tear dropped from the girl's eyes. Those words had haunted her since she could coherently think as a young child. Her heart sat heavy against her chest. She paused briefly to shove away the antagonizing words and emotions they pulled from her. In a quick effort to remain focused, she wiped away the single droplet coursing down her cheek.
"Daddy, no matter what you say, I won't come home. Not ever! Im going to make you see things the hard way! I'm going to graduate and become so successful that you'll eat your own foot! I know you've never seen me as more than a burden to your household, but you're my dad! I don't care if your DNA doesn't flow through my veins! You can't get rid of me! You—"
The call ended. Her money ran out. That was the last of her wages before the next time she got paid by the restaurant. Her belly rumbled and she instantly rubbed the area with a soft and shaking hand.
Jane sadly lifted the phone from her ear and dropped it on the receiver. Immediately, she sunk against the narrow space and leaned her head against the phone as her fingertips etched the shape of the black phone quietly. Her brown eyes stared at the device aimlessly.
A knock brought her out of her short trance. "Yes, I'm sorry," the student spoke lowly. Grabbing her cloth backpack, she ran her arms through both shoulder straps and allowed the heavy bag to nudge against the small of her back. She winced upon its impact, but slid the wooden door open, seeing an older woman with long, black hair.
The woman instantly offered Jane a light grin, "Don't worry about it!"
Jane stepped out of the booth and moved back out to the restaurant. Her eyes peered around the small diner. There were a few regulars, but at this time of night, there were few people intending for good things to happen. Usually, she didn't work as late as she did tonight. But she needed enough to make the phone call to her mother to inform her that she was indeed still alive.
But her father had answered.
And she hadn't been prepared for that.
On a scale of one to ten of being supportive, her parents would be graded at a negative twenty. Jane Foster had excelled during high school. Previously, she lived in New Mexico. Two years ago, she'd been given a full scholarship to Colombia University. It had been two years until tonight that she had even heard from her father.
Nobody took her seriously. Not at home. Not in the classroom. Not even at her lousy-paying job. Everyone looked down upon her, and she'd had enough.
Luck had been something she'd expired long ago. At first, the university gifted her with a dingy, run-down dorm room from the oldest building of the dormitories. She hadn't minded. That was more than she expected to have been given.
However, six months ago, she was told to vacate that building due to renovations for the summer. Two days later, they tore it down to build more room for incoming men.
She was a homeless student at Colombia University: one of the highest-rated schools in the world. Still, she was acing all of her classes. During the week, she slept in the library. A female librarian allowed her to sneak in right as they were closing. The young girl was thankful. She knew that it was a risk that the woman didn't need to have.
Once again, Jane was a liability unintentionally.
The girl swallowed, a deep-set lingering fear bitterly settling over her bones.
The night sat heavy outside. A few bursts of people looking for trouble passed by. Even in the diner, there were a few people pulling out supplies that looked questionable. No one paid anyone here a sparing thought.
If you stayed out of other's ways, they'd leave you alone, too.
Jane stood helplessly under the threshold of the small hallway leading to the bathrooms and phones. The neon-glittering sign captured her attention as she peered up. The corners of her mouth still tasted like the fries she'd stolen from the back, salted and flavored precisely as she'd come to enjoy.
The semester began two months ago. It was the middle of November. Snow was everywhere beyond the glass windows, and, despite there being a great heater in the diner, the cold still seeped through the door as people would enter.
The young adult helplessly sought out a booth near the hallway and dropped her bag on the table loudly, stealing the attention of a few of the men around her. She mumbled a low apology, and picks at one of the few buttons on the outside of the bag.
A hand slid around her shoulder, causing her to spring up quickly, turning around to see the same woman. Jane's breathing was erratic, fast.
"Let's go," the dark-haired woman said.
The student lifted her brow, "Excuse me?"
A playful smile cut through the lady's pretty features, "I come here every other day. You're always here. You're homeless, right?"
The curly-haired brunette glanced away bashfully, "I wouldn't say that I'm homeless." Taking a second, she inhaled deeply and boldly replied, "Besides, it's none of your business anyway."
The comment pried a laugh from deep within the other woman's chest. "Of course it is. Do you know how innocent you look among the likes of men like those in here? You can stay at my place until you get settled."
"Thank you," Jane politely said, "but, I don't think that would be wise."
The woman began emptying out her pockets and the items in her purse hanging at her side. After, she shook her bag upside down over the table and pulled her pockets inside out. "I have no intentions of hurting you. No weapons or drugs. I'm clean. You can trust me. My name is Darcy."
"It's nice to make your acquaintance; however, I won't be a freeloader."
Darcy collected her belongings and shoved everything back where they belonged. Her dark brows rose as she sighed, "You're a student, right? I always see you with textbooks or whatever. Like, you can totally crash at my place. It's safe, and during the day, it's quiet. You'll be well fed and a lot happier than you appear to be here. Can you dig it?"
She didn't know why she did, but she replied, "Okay." Jane guessed that the sound of a nice meal did the trick.
Darcy shoved a loose strand behind her and smiled, "Great. Where do you go to school? It's rare for our gender to study beyond nursing school."
Uncomfortably, Jane managed to answer methodically, her arms reaching for her bag. "Colombia University."
Darcy slapped Jane's arm gently, "Far out! You must be Jane Foster! I remember reading about you in the paper. A lot of people think you're a women's rights activist!"
That's when Jane chuckled, "I'm nobody that important. I promise. And I do partake in a few rallies where my studies allow, but I'm, again, nobody of import."
"So, you're like the first and only female student there, right?"
Jane nodded as she pulled at the sleeves of her tattered brown coat. Her jacket wasn't all that helpful at keeping her warm, but she was still better off than others in her position.
Out of nowhere, Darcy idly mentioned, "You have wild hair."
The statement both unnerved her and amused her. Jane tugged at the ends a bit before saying, "It's always been like this. Growing up, my folks never allowed me to do much with it except braid it. Once I got to high school, I was sort of given more freedoms, but I was still made fun of a lot."
"How old are those glasses? They, like, consume your entire face!"
Jane didn't know how else to react than to just laugh, so the smooth sounds passed through her lips in a quick fashion, "They're about four years old. My vision isn't really that bad, but I don't have any safe place to store them, so I just wear them so they don't get scratched."
Darcy led the younger woman through many busy streets. The moon consumed the sky in a large display surrounded by bright stars. As they glistened, Jane closed her eyes and envisioned what secrets they held. Darcy paused to glance up and down a secluded street and grabbed Jane's hand.
They both ran across the street, and Darcy began to laugh, waving to a few people they passed by.
"We're just about there. Once we reach my place, I want you to take a bath, shave your legs if you'd like, and change into the outfit I'll lend to you. I have some business to take care of first, so kill about an hour, kay?" Darcy informed her, still holding onto Jane's smaller hand.
Around the corner, a steady buzz shifting through the sidewalk reverberated up to Jane's knees. Sounds of laughter, shouting, and moaning could be heard faintly as they both approached the corner. An uneasy, sinking weight rested in her belly. Jane swallowed as Darcy led her through the busy pavement, growing closer to what. seemed like a nightclub.
"Where are we going?" she stammered out quickly.
"You don't know? This place is revered around all walks of life! I'm surprised to see anyone that doesn't recognize it," the raven-haired woman commented.
Jane tensed. "Well, would you care to enlighten me?"
Darcy halted just before approaching the bouncer, clutching at Jane's hands. "This is Club Illumielle," Darcy shouted over the roaring bass. Within, heavy guitar music could be heard. When she heard Jane cough, she turned around and pulled her behind.
The bouncer didn't even look at Jane; instead, he eyed Darcy up and down disgustingly as he moved the velvet rope. Jane scrunched her face at the man adorned in all black: a mixture of leather and netting. He apparently didn't even notice her.
Her eyes needed to adjust to the thick, dense darkness that enveloped her all too quickly. Her heart surged, the pace building at an unusual rate. Jane tightened her hold over Darcy's hand.
The woman snaked them both through the crowd to a set of stairs guarded by another bouncer. Without thought this man also let her pass. She thanked him with a kiss on the cheek as she passed him in an unnatural rush.
Jane instantly swallowed down the unnerving rioting her instincts was doing. Her bones felt tight, immobile as she started up the steps one by was not quite a known emotion for Jane, but she knew she should have at least been weary of this woman.
All too easily, Jane was now in danger, at least by the looks of the men in the corner that she watched as they snorted up white powered through their noses. Jane pried her head away from the frightening sight as they rounded the corner, approaching an elevator.
Darcy let go of Jane to press the number nineteen: the highest floor of the building.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Jane sank into the retro style bath tub, the water line moving up to just below her nose. The noise from the club below was drowned out. If she perked her ears up and focused, she was sure she could hear the sounds of a heated conversation from somewhere close, but secluded.
Instead of focusing on where she was, or the potential danger she could face while being here, Jane closed her eyes and thought of her upcoming test she was more than prepared for.
Dark matter cannot be seen directly with telescopes; evidently it neither emits nor absorbs light or other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level. It is otherwise hypothesized to simply be matter that is not reactant to light, she recited inwardly as her faint movements underwater triggered tiny ripples to tickle her skin.
Instead, the existence and properties of dark matter are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the universe.
The following information was easy enough to remember. And since the term had only began a few months ago, the information was not as advanced as she'd like it to be.
According to the Planck mission team, and based on the standard model of cosmology, the total mass–energy of the known universe contains 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy.
Jane had spent nearly all summer memorizing the textbooks for each of her six classes for this term. With nothing else to do except continuing to work in order to sleep at that diner all summer, Jane was easily the most well-off for the class.
She was thankful for the opportunity, too. Had she not dedicated so much time during the summer months, she would definitely be behind.
Thus, dark matter is estimated to constitute 84.5% of the total matter in the universe, while dark energy plus dark matter constitute 95.1% of the total content of the universe.
The temperature of the water sank, cooling around her bum and warming her face. So much had happened in such a short time frame that Jane hadn't thought about how long it had really been since her last bath. Over the summer, she would wait for the rain and rub herself as best as she could with a bar of soap.
Her eyes flew open as she sat back up so that her neck rested gently against the porcelain height of the tub. She sighed peacefully as her hair floated around her in long tendrils irritably coiling around her arms and shoulders.
Dark matter plays a central role in state-of-the-art modeling of cosmic structure formation and Galaxy formation and evolution and has measurable effects on the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background.
All these lines of evidence suggest that galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than that which interacts with electromagnetic radiation.
Everyone in her class had had trouble understanding such basic material; yet, she, a female not really even supposed to be attending the institution, could grasp it so easily.
Her opinion of logic was rather simple.
Men did not have more advanced minds.
They were not ordained by any god in any culture.
They were simply blessed with a long history of standing and unrivaled power.
Jane was a great example that knowledge was not static to the race or sex.
In a quick motion, Jane sank underneath the water. Everything vanished. All she could listen to hear was the languid movements of the water. To her: a symphony. She slowly allowed her eyes to blink open a few times. The bath tub faced a window, and she could see the stars the window pane frame so distortedly that she thought they were bitterly close to her fingertips.
Her hand rose from within the water to reach at the glowing stars. Of course she didn't touch them, but this was something that she had done since she was a young girl. Back then, she was always called a dreamer.
Jane would fantasize about the worlds that existed beyond the exosphere. Sometimes, she felt like a trapped fish in the ocean. Not even the vast, deep ocean satisfied her curiosity and hunger to see those worlds.
But she didn't just want to see them; she wanted to understand them. That's why she was pursuing a degree and lifelong career in Astrophysics.
The droplets of water carelessly slithered back down her arm. Her hair floated all around her, even in front of her eyes. Under the water, she was truly invincible, and yet, still trapped.
Slowly, she sat up and broke through the water in a graceful, fluid motion.
Her back straightened and her hands pushed away the water in her face and continued moving over her long brown hair, her arms lifting sluggishly. Her eyes blinked once as she inhaled.
A door opened somewhere in the apartment. Jane shot out of the water, careful not to get too much water of the tiled floor. As quickly as she could manage, she reached for the large towel and wrapped it around herself.
"Where is she?" a man hollered from beyond the bathroom door before opening it without bothering to knock.
Jane gasped as she raised her foot off of the floor to self-consciously rub it against her leg. As she saw the tall man staring at her through quizzical brows, she bit her lip.
The dark-haired man turned back and pulled Darcy carefully into the bathroom, pointing to me, "Why did you bring her here?"
He lowered his hand at his side when he turned to her, ignoring me, a half-naked female, completely. She didn't know why she was so bothered by being ignored this one time of the numerous times daily.
Darcy moved to Jane's side quickly and winked at her, moving her attention back at the man. "Loki, you said we needed help during the day and week. She has nowhere else to go, so shut up and tell her she can stay."
His left eye twitched. "She cannot stay here!"
Darcy began to pout playfully, "Oh, why not? Let this be your one good deed for your whole life."
Before he could reply, Jane scrunched her brows together and interrupted, deciding to be ignored for no longer, "Why is it that you couldn't knock? Clearly I was still using the bath."
The man stalked toward the young woman and threw his hand at her. Her left hand clutched the towel tightly so it would not fall, and her right hand caught his wrist. Her response was automatic. Her father had unconsciously taught her how to defend herself to an extent. She was no martial artist, but her instincts did control her muscles in handy ways.
His wrist tried to overpower her fleeting strength, but just when she was just about to give into the intolerable itch at her failing strength, he pulled his wrist out of her grasp, using his other hand to grab her delicately by her chin, his thumb nearly touching her bottom lip.
His blue, green, and gray enriched eyes claimed her attention, "I do not knock anywhere in this building. I own the place."
"That doesn't negate the basic human right to privacy when nude, however. Since that's an issue under your roof, I'll be happy to go back to where I came from. This was obviously a mistake. All I require is time to change back into my clothes, and I'll be gone."
Darcy moved between them, pushing him away from her, "Look, if she goes tonight, she'll have to walk out there in the dark alone. Are you gonna be that king of guy, boss?"
The owner glared at me, despite her talking to him. His eyes were thunderous. He glanced down at his wrist before saying, "Clearly, she is more than capable of defending herself."
Darcy stomped, "Just give her one chance! You know we need help around here. I won't let her see the night staff. I want her away from that sort of stuff. She needs a place to start over, and that's what you've always said about everyone here: that Illumielle is the place of new beginnings. Cut the girl some slack."
The owner finally moved his head over to where Darcy stood, moving closely toward her. "I would be more inclined to do so had you not disturbed me in my office."
Darcy scoffed sarcastically, holding his attention. She rolled her fingers into fists and placed them on either hip, "How could you ever handle three girls at once?"
The tall frizzy-haired man crossed his arms after smiling sardonically, "Had you been more preceptive, you'd have noted that there were four ladies in there with me. You know that I thoroughly enjoy being worshiped."
He walked out of the room, and Darcy laughed as he did so. Eventually, she turned her attention back at the younger student. "The good news is that you get to stay. There's an extra room two apartments down if you get hired for real. If not, you can stay in my apartment." The woman moved closer and reached for Jane's face, "You'll be safe here, despite how everything seems."
Jane lifted a weary brow, moving away from Darcy altogether. She stared at the woman's choice in clothing for her: a pair of black hot pants and a fringed tuxedo shirt. Jane was unfamiliar with dressing so revealingly. For now, however, she would not bite the hands that feed her.
"How can I trust any of you?" she finally queried.
Darcy placed a hand on her shoulder carefully, "Don't trust anyone except me and Loki."
Jane chuckled, "I wouldn't trust him if he were the last man on earth."
Darcy shook her head, "You say that now, but he can be decent."
Jane held her gaze in a heated glare, "Your standards are illogical. Decent isn't good."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
AUTHOR'S NOTE(S):
***All information about dark matter was brought over from wikipedia. That material is not mine. Also, the description was a part of the prompt, so not my words, but Startraveller776's!
So, here is the first chapter of a prompt I picked up on Tumblr from Startraveller776! I've been planning it out for months, but I finally have a good start for it! I've very excited for this story to embark, finally! REVIEW?