"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."

-Haruki Murakami

Three

On a normal Saturday morning, it usually took until noon for the campus to start buzzing with life from the student body. The appearance of a couple of police cars, an ambulance and four or five news trucks told the residents in and around Clearview University, that it wasn't a normal Saturday morning.

There hadn't been a death on university grounds in four years, and that was the overdose of a local homeless man who wandered onto the campus. The sad reality was that he was carted off without making any real buzz in the outside world. It was an entirely different situation when a co-ed was found dead, especially the manner in which she was found.

The crowd surrounding the entrance to Warren Hall was a few hundred deep. Rumors were already swirling around on what happened to Nicole Baldwin. All that was confirmed was that her roommate Hannah had found her when she woke up around 7 am. Hannah was speaking with a police officer near the front door, but couldn't get out more than a few words before beginning to cry again. There was too much of a commotion for anybody else to hear what she was saying.

The news reporters were all set up around the perimeter of the crowd. Their respective camera operators were all trying to get the best view of the scene, with a couple of them camped out on the top of their trucks. One of the reporters, the lady from the channel 9 affiliate, was already interviewing some of the students, trying to get the rumor mill working. As she was finishing up with a young man with dyed blue hair, she all but shooed him away in order to get to her next subject. She reached out and grabbed the arm of another student as he was trying to pass by.

"…the fuck?" He asked, turning and yanking out his ear buds. Not only was he startled, but his reaction startled the reporter as well.

"Sorry," the reporter replied while composing herself. She then cleared her throat and held up the microphone in her right hand. "I'm Karen London for Channel 9 news. I was wondering what you thought of this tragedy; did you know the victim Nicole Baldwin?"

The guy tucked his buds over the tops of his ears and looked around. He appeared as if he was just noticing the crowd and the situation for the first time. He also noticed the camera that was now pointing at him, and turned his face away from it with a shrug.

"No, I didn't know her. I just heard that someone died last night or this morning. I don't know much else."

He kept his eyes on the scene rather than the reporter or the camera. He began to walk away but Karen had moved a couple of steps in his path.

"I see. Well, what do you think about what's happened? Do you still feel safe on campus? Do you live on campus?"

He jerked his head back a few inches as Karen pointed the microphone at him. Before he could say anything, a commotion was heard by the front of the dorm. The reporter was now leaving and her camera man wasn't too far behind. He took the opportunity to leave, but looked through the crowd before doing so. The scene itself was jarring to the crowd surrounding it. Two EMT's emerged from the building, escorting a gurney with a body on top of it. Despite a long, white sheet completely covering it, everyone knew that it was Nicole. Her roommate Hannah cried out again, shrinking back against the wall as she watched her friend being taken away.

The guy had recognized Hannah from yesterday. He passed her and another girl on the small wooden bridge. He had locked eyes with the girl that was walking next to her, momentarily thinking that she looked familiar. Was that the girl who had died? It was eerie to think about and sent a chill down his spine wondering if it was her.

A wave of people was coming his way, as if the tragic events had a magnetic pull that only he was immune to. To him, death wasn't something that he needed to gawk at. Perhaps it was the way that he was raised, or the fact that he was there when his grandfather passed away in the hospital, but he didn't need to stand around and watch the poor girl being carted off, nor did he want to be a sound bite.

He crossed the wooden bridge as he did the day before without a second thought. It wasn't a very big school, so recognizing people but not being able to place them wasn't an uncommon occurrence. He barely paid attention to most of the people in his classes, nor was he the member of any after school clubs or fraternities. He liked to keep the circle of people he associated with as small as possible. It provided him the anonymity that he preferred. Even as a kid, he was an introvert at heart. Unfortunately, as he got older, some exceptions to the rule had to be made, so his life at Clearview tended to be busier than he would have liked.

Due to the campus' layout, it only took a little more than ten minutes to walk through from north to south. He cut through the visitor's parking deck at the southeast end, which was always empty between Friday evening and Monday morning. Only the sound of his footsteps accompanied him through the lot, which was welcoming to him after the busy morning he had stumbled across. It also gave him time to perform his Saturday morning ritual. He took off his headphones, unplugging them from his phone and placed them in the pocket of his gray sweatshirt.

He took a deep breath, then began to run as fast as he could across the lower level of the parking lot. He slowed down to turn the corner and run hard up the incline to the second level. This pattern continued up to the third and finally up to the fourth and final level, walking over to the edge and taking a minute to look out across the campus. Beautiful weather for October, Will thought to himself. The campus offered nicer pathways for joggers than the one he chose, but none of them offered the solitude that the deck provided at this hour, especially given the circumstances.

Exiting the parking deck, he found himself on Prospect Road, the south border of the campus. It had a mini mall on the opposite side, with a convenience store, laundromat and a school supplies store, with a Chinese restaurant on one end and an Italian restaurant on the other. He turned east, walking along Prospect and crossing over after about a block. Surrounding the school was a residential area of about five square miles, with an urban area further south which lead to the next town over past that.

It wasn't long before he turned up the walkway that led to a two-story house. The house was much like the others on the block, with the exception of the painted green exterior, which stood out amongst the row of pristine looking but ultimately dull white houses. This particular house also featured a dead front lawn and other signs of disregard. He kicked an empty bottle out of his way as he got to the front door. To his chagrin, it was ajar, not locked as he would have liked it.

The same level of disregard could be found inside the house that could be found outside of it. A soccer jersey hung over the bottom of the staircase's banister and for some reason, there was a slice of pizza sitting perfectly on the third step. He sidestepped the slice and continued up the stairs, walking as quietly as he could so to not disturb the residents which he believed to still be sleeping.

"Yo Will. How was the run?" someone asked.

As he got to the second floor, he saw that the door to the bedroom across the top of the landing was open. It was John's room, the resident night owl of the house. Not that he was the hardest partier, but he purposely scheduled his classes to start no earlier than one in the afternoon if he could help it. Will was surprised that this particular roommate was awake.

"Exhilarating," Will responded while moving towards the door, "but I think this is the first time you've been awake when I got back. What's up?"

John looked disheveled, like he hadn't slept all night. His room was the smallest, and possibly the most cluttered. He sat in his computer chair, keeping his eyes fixed on the flat-screen that he situated against the wall next to the door.

"You hear about that girl, the one who died? Messed up, man." He stated before taking a sip out of the sixty-four-ounce Marvel novelty cup that he had. "I mean, yeah life sucks sometimes, but that's what therapy or posting anonymously on forums are for."

Will took a step into the room, craning his neck to look at the TV. The line across the bottom told him the rest of the story that he stumbled across this morning: 'Local Girl Commits Suicide', along with a photo of a smiling Nicole Baldwin.

"She killed herself?" Will asked while turning back to John. "All I heard is that a girl died. Didn't know how."

"Did you know her?" John asked, finally tearing his eyes away from the TV to look at Will. John was about as expressionless as a person could be, so his question almost seemed accusatory.

"No." Will answered abruptly, taking a step back and leaning against the door frame. "Although she looked familiar. Maybe I had a class with her."

"Doubt it," John retorted, "apparently she was a freshman. I thought she looked familiar too, so maybe she was at one of our parties."
Will nodded, thinking to himself that it was entirely possible. There was a party every Saturday night here, ranging from fifteen to as many as one hundred and fifteen people, depending on the night. It was mostly his other roommates' doing, specifically Teddy and Curt. It served a purpose to entertain him on some nights, but Will often retreated into his room after a while just to get away. John often opted to hang out in his room as well, being the only straight-edge member of the house.

"I guess they all kind of pass through this place at some point." Will remarked. "Makes me feel like the guide to the underworld at times."

"Charon?" John asked, although he already knew the answer.

"I can always rely on you to fill in the blanks." Will stated with a chuckle. He turned towards the hall. "You want the door closed?"

"Yeah. I think I'm gonna try to sleep for a few hours." John said while turning the TV off. He got up, only to fall comfortably onto his bed which was a mere foot away from his computer desk. "Until next time."

"Good night." Will said as he closed the door behind him.

The second floor had four bedrooms total, and one bathroom. The sixth door on the floor led to the attic, which Will would claim as his room. It was larger than the rest of the rooms, which made sense in his mind, since he paid the largest portion of the rent. It also was the only room which could be locked from the outside. Will took a set of keys out of his left pants' pocket and unlocked the door to his room.

It wasn't that he didn't trust his roommates to steal from him, not all of them at least. Will's room just contained items that he deemed too valuable to go missing. He locked the door behind him while flipping on the light switch. The attic's original layout wasn't ideal, but with enough work done, such as rigging up the lighting to his liking, it was a sufficient enough home. It was a short ten steps up to the final landing on the house, which indeed was the size of three bedrooms. True that the roof sloped to where portions of the attic were uncomfortable to stand in, but he made good use of the space. His bed was straight ahead next to the circular attic window, which had a large dark red blanket over it to block out the sun when he left, casting a crimson glow during the day. To the left was his desk where he kept his computer and a pile of books. He had a futon couch in the middle facing the right side where a large TV and entertainment system was rigged up, mostly sitting on the floor due to height constraints.

The last item of interest in the room was a large rectangle shape covered by a white sheet, which sat inconspicuously on the other side of the attic. Will took his sweatshirt off and had to crouch down towards the area where it was. He rooted around through its pockets, taking out his phone and headphones, placing them on a small table beside the chest. He removed the white sheet, showing off a large, wooden chest was underneath. It looked old, possibly an heirloom, or something found at an antique shop. There were also some undiscernible carvings all over the top, and on the front of it. He twirled the combination lock around a few times to unlock it. It creaked open as he lifted it up with one hand, while rooting around through his pockets with his other hand.

He took out a small, black film canister, and then another. In total, he removed seven of them from the middle pocket of his sweatshirt, setting them on the floor in front of the chest. He opened one of them, just to confirm what he was expecting to find. Plucking one of its contents out, he held the little white pill between his thumb and index finger. After a quick inspection, he found the 'P' symbol he was looking for and dropped the pill back into the canister. He unfolded a red cloth in the chest to reveal that about twenty more of the canisters were already in the chest. Will placed the rest of the canisters in the chest and shut it, locked it and covered it once again with the white sheet.