You were making your way back to college. Having to attend events there past school hours should be criminal, but since you were part of the school's 'Welcoming Committee' it meant that your attendance at any activity held at the school which involved others from outside the school visiting was compulsory. If you had known that when you were signing up at the beginning of the year to get something else for your CV you would have politely passed. You admit you were fooled by the word 'Welcoming' assuming it would only be open days you would need to be there. You were wrong.
You were part way into your final year now, studying at a school close enough to home to stay in touch with family, but far enough to get away from a whole bunch of toxic people. You were majoring in English Literature, hoping to end up in a publisher's office. Though you still were undecided on if you were sure you had made the right choice in what to study in the first place, but it was too late now. So you just did what you had to do in order to try and get a degree that was worth the three years of stress. Of course you had made friends here now in this new place. A group of you had stayed friendly since you got mixed together into a flat in your first year. Half going to one college, half to another. There were six of you in total. But your closest friend was Maxine. Max as she insisted on you calling her. She studied art and liked most things relating to food, music and video games. But I guess who doesn't in some aspect? She is very alternative in a more dark and mysterious type of appearance, but is really very normal once she opens her mouth. You had been sharing a place with her for a year now and you guys worked out really well living together. You were completely on the same wavelength about almost everything, well everything so far. There wasn't much you had figured out you disagreed on. So you stayed co-living for your final year because the stress will be real and you're both past trying to be polite to strangers in a new place for a whole year rather than openly bursting into tears with a romcom to destress.
This year was the last year to pack in as many things as possible, on top of the many mental breakdowns that were inevitable. You joined some different clubs and teams to help out within the school and try and earn some spare cash while you were at it. Try and get a head start at the debt that will hang over your head for the next who-knows how many years.
So that's how you got to where you were now. As you were making the twenty-minute-trek to the building it started to get darker and darker. It was early October which should have prompted you to expect this to happen but the year had went so quickly the dark still crept up on you unexpectedly. If there were Halloween decorations up by now it would've got you in the mood for dark nights and cold winds, but the decorations were few and far between so as far as your brain was concerned it was still late August. You hadn't adjusted to opting for your thick coat yet and had left with just a hoodie as your outer most layer, a choice you soon began to regret the darker and colder it got. You could see your breath and the sky was getting navy as you tucked your hands under your armpits to try and stop your fingers feeling so frozen that you were starting to convince yourself that they might fall off soon.
You could tell you were getting closer, not only by the familiar path you walk every time you make your way to class, but by the light that started to radiate across the sky, now more evident in the moody blue clouds above you. You checked your phone as you walked in before heading to your team leader, just on time for him to hand you a programme. You weren't even sure what the event was, all you knew was that you had to put the programmes on the chairs in the theatre, set up the refreshments for the interval and then help tidy up once it was over.
So you did. You managed to smuggle in to see a snippet of the first half of what you assumed was a devised performance mash up from a whole bunch of different performing societies. You watched merely just to pass the time before heading out and helping to fill up the jugs with juice and fill the decanters with boiling water for teas and coffees. Once you had finished setting everything up that needed to be done, you took yourself to the second floor to the library. You knew it would be empty and that there were comfy couches there. It was dark because the majority of the lights had been switched off to lock down for the night, but the library light beamed off the walls from down the hall as it was open 24/7. You sped up, eagerly wanting to get out of the pitch black as you were really starting to feel uncomfortable now and you were starting to imagine impossible scenarios of shadows suddenly grabbing you and pulling you into other worlds and such. So the best choice here was to get to the library. You were practically running at this point and holding your breath to stop yourself from nervously humming. You slowed down in an attempt to somewhat gracefully open the door in case someone could see you.
