To The End And Beyond ***ON HOLD***

~ Chapter #1~

There stood a pretty, petite girl with quaint hazel eyes, fair complexion and an air of innocence about her. She was dressed in a long floral top, black trousers and a beautiful floral hijab which framed her heart-shaped face.

"Assalamualaikum, I'm Samara", she spoke softly, smiling shyly.

"Walaikumsalaam, I'm Aqsa," Aqsa replied, giving the girl a friendly smile. "Room-mate?"

"Yes. I've missed a week already so Allah help me! But I had to do some major convincing at home for my family to allow me to live in the Dorms. My house is half an hour's drive away from here, but I just wanted to experience university life first-hand, and what better way than to be here throughout?" Samara replied, clapping her hands gleefully like a kid who had just been awarded a bag of candies!

Aqsa took an immediate liking to her. She helped Samara unpack and settle in, finding out that Samara was taking the same course as her and most of their classes were together too. Talk about coincidence! At least it didn't feel so lonely here now.

ZAIN

Zain was debating whether to follow up on the command that the seniors had barked out to him for his initiation, or just ignore them and not do anything about it. He could just say he forgot. But he very well knew these kind of people, ignorance wouldn't work with them.

"Let's just go and get it over with," says Daniel nervously. "The sooner we find out what they want, the better. We will deal with what to do when the time comes."

Zain had a sense of foreboding, but he knew there was no way out. They would make his university life miserable. And Zain had no intention of letting down his mother. It was fortunate that their father had not left them empty handed, but he was the one his mother and 2 sisters were relying on. He knew that even though they had Uncle Amir (he just couldn't bring himself to call him anything other than that) with them, he still needed to know that he had made something out of his life, for the dreams his late father had for him, and he could only do that with hard work, which meant facing everything that came his way and not getting distracted by anything that pulled him away.

"Let's go Daniel," Zain finally said and they walked to the Gym briskly.

Pushing open the door, they walked in to see they were not the only ones who would undergo an 'initiation ceremony'. There were around 10 other boys and 5 girls as well. Zain saw Aqsa calmly chatting with a girl. Zain did a double take when he saw the girl, she was really pretty MashaAllah (What God has willed). He lowered his gaze immediately.

The biker jacket guy and his gang were all leaning against a table, smirking. Being a Saturday afternoon, the Gym was being used by very few people, and the ones who were there, were minding their own business.

"So.....let me welcome you all to Al Ain University," booms out the biker jacket guy. "I'm sure you all must be eagerly waiting to hear your initiation tasks. We would like the boys on this side," he points to the right, "and the girls here", points to the left. "Thank you. And now, each of you will pick a task."

Zain and Daniel picked their paper slips. Daniel let out a sigh of relief. Zain peeked at his task. Daniel just had to run around the campus in less than 5 minutes. Zain opened his slip. Run around the campus in less than 5 minutes. What????

The biker guy came up and flung a friendly arm around him. "Scared you didn't we?" he said, laughing. "We don't actually do initiation here. Threatening you guys and calling you for an initiation here was the prank on you all!" Zain shook his head in disbelief, remembering how terrified he and Daniel had been, considering all the stuff they had heard and read about initiations!