Your name is Vriska Serket, and it's been a long day. You've trekked across the campus twice today and the third trip it's taking to get back to your dorm room is proving to be a bit much. Your bag feels as though it weighs 8 million pounds, and you curse as its strap bites deeper into your shoulder. While you admit "8 million pounds" may be a slight overstatement, it is pretty heavy with all of your textbooks in it. Despite your weariness though, today hasn't really been that bad. You like your classes well enough, and you've already met one person you can tolerate. You take a deep breath and pause for a moment, looking around. The sun is slowly setting, the air has reached a nice, cool temperature, and all around you you can hear the soft sound of insects buzzing. A warm breeze glides through the air, reminiscent of Summer's end. Fellow university students are taking advantage of the pleasant temperature, and you see many people sitting together on the campuses' green spaces and outdoor tables, comparing stories of their first day at Skaia. You feel a slight twinge of envy at how care-free they look, as if everything's just right in the world.
You bite back your small bitterness as you climb the steps to the second floor of your dormitory. You've gotta admit, it's not bad for college housing. The hallways are the same light blue as the study area from this morning, and the floors are a light brown; probably meant to look like wood flooring. There are lots of flyers tacked up on the bulletin boards lining the hall, and you make a mental note to take a look at them later. Among the flyers, at least a dozen or more are extracurricular sign-ups. Who knows, maybe there's a group for Spider Webs of the World or Advanced Hypnosis. A girl can dream!
You smile a bit at the idea as you pull out the keys to your room. It's all the way at the end of the hall, and is separated from the neighboring dorm by a supply closet.
You'd gotten to Skaia late yesterday afternoon, and you'd been so tired you went to sleep soon after unpacking. Combine that with the rush you were in this morning, and you haven't spent much time in this room at all so far. The door swings inward, and for the first time you really take in its small interior.
Continuing the rest of the building's theme, the walls are light blue. The floor however is beige carpet, and you remind yourself to see if anyone has a vacuum you can borrow as you accidentally step on the few bits of cereal you'd dropped this morning. You let your bag drop to the ground and sit down on your bed. It consists of a twin-sized mattress covered with plain white sheets and takes up one wall of your room, along with a wooden bedside table. Said table is currently occupied by an alarm clock, your glasses case, a lamp, and a worn paperback filled with earmarked pages. The next wall is mostly taken up with a metal desk set below the room's single window. It overlooks a group of trees and a small bench, and should let in a decent amount of light during the day. You'll have to fix that.
The third wall, and fourth half-wall, is home to your closet, a narrow armoire-mirror combo, and a laundry hamper. It's not much, being half the size of the other dorms; but hey, it's yours. Most people would be ecstatic to have a single room on their first year, and while you certainly won't mind the privacy, it's yet another reminder. People don't trust you.
The school claimed they'd simply already filled the rest of the dorms. Your placement was purely coincidental, they'd said. But you know better. They're not taking any more chances with you than they have to, and honestly, you can't say that you blame them. You'd be careful with someone like you too.
It still stings though, and you feel your shoulders slump as you continuing looking at your impersonal surroundings. There are no posters on the walls, no useless knick-knacks or souvenirs from past trips on the armoire, not a single photo on the shelf built into the wall; nothing to give any indication of your personality or life up until this point. The clothes in your closet are the only things that give any hint to your taste, and they're currently hidden from view. Even if the closet door was open though, all there'd be to look at are several pairs of jeans, an assortment of long and short sleeved tops, in shades of blue and black respectively, a few tanks, a swimsuit that may or may not fit, and a black hoodie. There's a box too, shoved as far back in the corner as it would go, but you're not thinking about that now.
Instead, you're gazing thoughtfully at your phone, scrolling down the short list of contacts until you reach its newest addition.
Your thumb hovers over the send button.
Rose invited you to have dinner with her. Said she'd heard of this great little café nearby that has some kind of chocolate cake that's to die for. Much as you'd kill for some chocolate right now, you'd said you'd have to see how you were feeling. Long first day and all. She gave you her Pesterchum code and said to feel free to message her anytime.
You'd sworn to yourself that you wouldn't get attached to anyone, but looking around your new room... you think maybe there's a fine line between not getting too attached and being a hermit. You've done the isolation thing before, it doesn't suit you. Plus, it would be a crime not to investigate the potential of good cake, wouldn't it? New starts don't involve starting crime sprees , you reason with yourself.
That settles it, you hit the button.
[AG] Rose?
[TT] Hello Vriska, how are you?
[AG] Good. How are you?
[TT] I'm fine thank you.
[AG] You mentioned something about cake earlier?
[TT] Why yes, yes I did. Would you like to try out the cafe I mentioned?
[AG] Do they have a lot of cake?
[TT] I've been told there are obscene amounts of cake.
[AG] Then what are we w8ing for? ::::)
[TT] I have no idea. Which dorm room are you in? Give me five minutes and I'll be right there.
[AG] It's 18, last one down the hall.
[TT] A8 on the vending machine, 8-legged creature on your bag, substituting the eight sound with an 8, and now 18 as your dorm room. I believe I'm sensing a theme here.
[AG] What a coincidence! I 8elieve I'm sensing an acute feeling of hunger.
[TT] Message received. Would food constitute as a sufficient bribe should I want to ask you more about this quirk?
[AG] 8uy me food and I'll sell you a soul.
[TT] I'll keep that in mind.
Rose says she'll see you soon, and despite your earlier misgivings, you feel a small smile tug at your lips as you put away your phone.
AN: It is a most grave crime indeed not to investigate good cake. Comments always welcome!
All rights to Homestuck belong to Andrew Hussie.
