p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"I woke up the next morning to a series of panicked knocks on my door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"But it's so early, my struggling brain complained as I peeled the sheets off and slid the whole five feet down off the bed. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Thank gawd," someone groaned as I regretfully stuck my head out the door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"It was the midwestern girl, 709, the room by the bathroom. I was supposed to know girls in the hall by name and I did for the most part, but there were a few outliers who were either referred to as numbers by the various RAs or identifying nicknames. 709 was also the Nervous Tick, it just depended on who you talked to. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I was sleeping in my bed last night," 709 said, launching immediately into the details, "and I hear this voice… Shianne, you heard it right?" A timid-looking 709's roommate shrugged and slipped into the bathroom. "Anyway, I was asleep and then I heard this awful racket in the ventilation system. Like someone was crawling around up there! Sounded like a whole crapload of frats breaking in, except this particular crapload could sing something heavenly." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Voice like an angel. Who could that be?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I will inform maintenance immediately," I said in a blandly comforting voice, already shutting the door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I'm not even complaining!" 709 persisted. "If it wants to come back tonight and sing in my ear that would be – "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Her voice cut off as the door clicked and I turned back to peer under the bed. Something shifted slightly, a pair of mismatched eyes met mine before I heard a velvety voice. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Good morning, Mademoiselle. I trust you slept well?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Well enough," I grumbled, "but being woken up a whole two hours before my first class isn't what I would call ideal."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"He slipped out from under the bed like a shadow, gradually straightening out as if the sun were sinking lower, drawing his murky form up and out. The tip of my nose barely brushed one of his slumped shoulders and I drew my arms across my sleeping t-shirt, trying to regain my space – and suddenly I felt cold. Even in the dim morning light that filtered through the drawn blinds, he looked like an apparition, a reedy thin wisp of smoke shrouded in pitch black cape that hung off a painfully thin form. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Heart pounding, I turned around to grab a banana and a parfait cup from my mini fridge. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Breakfast," I said, shoving the cold assortment into his skeletal hands. I quickly grabbed my gym bag in the corner, shoving my lab notebook into it. "I'm going to go workout and run to class now. I'm sure you can keep yourself busy until I get back around noon?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Why was I panicking? I felt suffocated, I needed out./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"He never moved, only his eyes followed me as I hung nervously by the door. What was wrong with me? Other than the fact I had let a complete stranger from off the street camp out on my room overnight…/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Were you out and about last night by any chance?" I said, trying not to picture the pom-pom-like state my curls were currently in. This was my room, dammit, and my hall too for that matter. People living around here answered to me and this… apparition, was no exception./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"The willow-blue eye glittered like a jewel set in the white expanse of mask and his mouth curled ever so lightly – the most evil smirk you could imagine. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Just exploring my new abode."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"I managed to make a brisk nod, and with that my bare feet hit the crusty carpet outside and I found myself changing in the bathroom, desperately pulling a tank top over my sports bra along with some leggings and a pair of trendy sneakers. Meg was right, the caffeine was a drug to me, I must have been high to let that, that,em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;" thing/em inside the dorm. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""O-chem lab," I whispered as I fled the hall altogether. I had lab in a few short hours. Maybe it would be gone by then./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"strongErik:/strong/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"People were screaming in the courtyard again for no discernable reason. I peered outside Christine's single, prison-cell of a window to see some girls wearing almost nothing at all and chasing their muscular friends, both of whom were sporting Greek letters on their shirts. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Apparently people in this time period would howl on the random – so much for long-practiced tricks to incite real terror. I could have left my lasso at home. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Everything about 2017 was distasteful: the people, the music, the dwellings (did no one know what cornices were anymore?). The only thing that was reasonably good was the, what did she call it? Parfait? /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Tired of pacing the tiny room, I effortlessly pulled the air vent grate on the ceiling aside and leapt through. Within minutes I was standing on the roof watching a flustered Christine flee to the opposite street, bag in tow. My throat tightened as I watched her go. I hated watching her go – I had experienced quite a lot of that lately. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Stupid boy," I growled under my breath as the stale city air stirred my cape ever so slightly. It was that Vicomte's fault she had left in the first place. And apparently he existed in this time too. "Christine." The name slipped out entirely be accident, a fierce whisper that was immediately lost in the blare of traffic. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"What did she do all day, this 21supst/sup century Christine? A university student, that's what she was, but what was she studying? Music surely? The quality and tone of her speaking voice implied something achingly grand under the surface, the very same gift I had grown to adore at the opera house. Music clung to her whether she knew it or not and I wanted to draw it out again, to shape it and craft it. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I am your angel of music," I whispered./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"The retreating figure of Christine paused for a moment before slipping behind one of the numerous brick buildings sprawled out across the campus. a name="_GoBack"/a/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"I woke up the next morning to a series of panicked knocks on my door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"But it's so early, my struggling brain complained as I peeled the sheets off and slid the whole five feet down off the bed. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Thank gawd," someone groaned as I regretfully stuck my head out the door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"It was the midwestern girl, 709, the room by the bathroom. I was supposed to know girls in the hall by name and I did for the most part, but there were a few outliers who were either referred to as numbers by the various RAs or identifying nicknames. 709 was also the Nervous Tick, it just depended on who you talked to. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I was sleeping in my bed last night," 709 said, launching immediately into the details, "and I hear this voice… Shianne, you heard it right?" A timid-looking 709's roommate shrugged and slipped into the bathroom. "Anyway, I was asleep and then I heard this awful racket in the ventilation system. Like someone was crawling around up there! Sounded like a whole crapload of frats breaking in, except this particular crapload could sing something heavenly." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Voice like an angel. Who could that be?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I will inform maintenance immediately," I said in a blandly comforting voice, already shutting the door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I'm not even complaining!" 709 persisted. "If it wants to come back tonight and sing in my ear that would be – "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Her voice cut off as the door clicked and I turned back to peer under the bed. Something shifted slightly, a pair of mismatched eyes met mine before I heard a velvety voice. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Good morning, Mademoiselle. I trust you slept well?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Well enough," I grumbled, "but being woken up a whole two hours before my first class isn't what I would call ideal."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"He slipped out from under the bed like a shadow, gradually straightening out as if the sun were sinking lower, drawing his murky form up and out. The tip of my nose barely brushed one of his slumped shoulders and I drew my arms across my sleeping t-shirt, trying to regain my space – and suddenly I felt cold. Even in the dim morning light that filtered through the drawn blinds, he looked like an apparition, a reedy thin wisp of smoke shrouded in pitch black cape that hung off a painfully thin form. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Heart pounding, I turned around to grab a banana and a parfait cup from my mini fridge. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Breakfast," I said, shoving the cold assortment into his skeletal hands. I quickly grabbed my gym bag in the corner, shoving my lab notebook into it. "I'm going to go workout and run to class now. I'm sure you can keep yourself busy until I get back around noon?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Why was I panicking? I felt suffocated, I needed out./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"He never moved, only his eyes followed me as I hung nervously by the door. What was wrong with me? Other than the fact I had let a complete stranger from off the street camp out on my room overnight…/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Were you out and about last night by any chance?" I said, trying not to picture the pom-pom-like state my curls were currently in. This was my room, dammit, and my hall too for that matter. People living around here answered to me and this… apparition, was no exception./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"The willow-blue eye glittered like a jewel set in the white expanse of mask and his mouth curled ever so lightly – the most evil smirk you could imagine. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Just exploring my new abode."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"I managed to make a brisk nod, and with that my bare feet hit the crusty carpet outside and I found myself changing in the bathroom, desperately pulling a tank top over my sports bra along with some leggings and a pair of trendy sneakers. Meg was right, the caffeine was a drug to me, I must have been high to let that, that,em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;" thing/em inside the dorm. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""O-chem lab," I whispered as I fled the hall altogether. I had lab in a few short hours. Maybe it would be gone by then./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"strongErik:/strong/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"People were screaming in the courtyard again for no discernable reason. I peered outside Christine's single, prison-cell of a window to see some girls wearing almost nothing at all and chasing their muscular friends, both of whom were sporting Greek letters on their shirts. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Apparently people in this time period would howl on the random – so much for long-practiced tricks to incite real terror. I could have left my lasso at home. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Everything about 2017 was distasteful: the people, the music, the dwellings (did no one know what cornices were anymore?). The only thing that was reasonably good was the, what did she call it? Parfait? /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Tired of pacing the tiny room, I effortlessly pulled the air vent grate on the ceiling aside and leapt through. Within minutes I was standing on the roof watching a flustered Christine flee to the opposite street, bag in tow. My throat tightened as I watched her go. I hated watching her go – I had experienced quite a lot of that lately. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Stupid boy," I growled under my breath as the stale city air stirred my cape ever so slightly. It was that Vicomte's fault she had left in the first place. And apparently he existed in this time too. "Christine." The name slipped out entirely be accident, a fierce whisper that was immediately lost in the blare of traffic. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"What did she do all day, this 21supst/sup century Christine? A university student, that's what she was, but what was she studying? Music surely? The quality and tone of her speaking voice implied something achingly grand under the surface, the very same gift I had grown to adore at the opera house. Music clung to her whether she knew it or not and I wanted to draw it out again, to shape it and craft it. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I am your angel of music," I whispered./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"The retreating figure of Christine paused for a moment before slipping behind one of the numerous brick buildings sprawled out across the campus. a name="_GoBack"/a/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;" /span/p