After a long car ride to the collage Jack was attending, we finally arrived.
The campus wasn't anything too special, just your typical collage campus. There were some benches scattered around outside in shaded areas, and building that likely held an abundance of classrooms.
Slender had done some strange shit that I'd rather not think about too much, and got us student id's and signed up for a few classes. Me, Masky, and Hoodie would have alternating classes with Jack. I would have one in the morning and one in the afternoon, while Hoodie and Masky each had a class with him midday.
We also got a dorm.
I'm still so confused on how he got us into collage, with fake ids and backgrounds. Masky and Hoodie had both graduated high school, so it was easier to put together for them. I hadn't actually attended a real school since elementary, which meant my entire background had to be faked and made up.
Masky grabbed my duffel bag, along with his, while Hoodie grabbed his own. We had parked in the student parking lot, quite a ways away from the dorms because all the close spots had been snatched up at the beginning of the year.
We made our way into the dorm building. I was navigating us through the halls, courtesy of the map on my phone. Our dorm was on the third floor, which led to an awkward elevator ride with some random buff guy.
He honestly looked high.
We finally all got settled into the dorm we shared. There was a window on one of the walls and two bunk beds. I, of course, grabbed one of the top bunks.
Masky was staying on the bottom bunk of the bed across from me and Hoodie was on the one under me.
Now, we were all just being lazy. I was sitting on my bunk, swinging my legs over the edge, being a little bit careful to avoid hitting Hoodie. I was memorizing my schedule. My first class was at 10am, then I had another at 12pm, after that my next class was at 4pm, and my final one was at 8pm.
Four classes a day. How fun.
Though two of my classes I would be completely on my own in.
It made me anxious that Masky and Hoodie wouldn't be there to help me if anyone decided to be bitchy towards me about my tics.
It happened before, so much in fact, that I ended up being homeschooled, right up until I killed my dad.
I knew that it would be different. I wasn't a helpless kid now, I had killed over a hundred people, I commuted arson of various occasions, and had done some other crimes along the way.
Hoodie flipped a page of the textbook he was reading, effectively pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts.
He had been writing notes for me and Masky to go over later so that we could catch up. Masky was sitting on his bunk, going through a textbook of his own, also writing notes.
I should have been doing the same, but I always had issues focusing.
"I'm going to go to the common area, gonna write my notes there, maybe walk around campus a bit and get a feel for the layout," I informed the two, though Masky was the only one to reply.
"Be safe. You have your knife?"
I lifted my shirt up to show him the pocket knife I had clipped to my belt. He just nodded, then went back to his notes.
I grabbed my textbook, a notebook, a pencil, and slid on a black jacket over my plain white shirt. The jacket had part of a skeleton painted on the back of it, slightly mimicking an x-ray. I also put a latch over the hole in my cheek so I wouldn't have to wear a mask all the time.
After grabbing my stuff and shoving it into a cross-body bag I had grabbed from a victims house before he left for our mission, I was out the door.
The common area was surprisingly quiet. There were a few games scattered around the room. A couple vending machines were against one of the walls, displaying a large variety of snacks and drinks.
I put my bag down on one of the tables and got to work, copying down information that seemed important.
Maybe half an hour later, the elevator chimed and two people got off. One of the was talking extremely loudly, the other one was just smiling and nodding along occasionally.
The one who was smiling saw me, then nudged his friend who stopped his ranting for a second so he could take a good look at me.
I went back to taking notes, ignoring the sensation of being stared at. It worked for the most part, until I heard a chair slide out from the other side of the table and heard a body sit in it.
A quick 'Greg!' was harshly whispered from the other person.
I looked up to take in the person, probably named Greg. He wasn't too out of the ordinary, having your typical brown hair, brown eyes, grey shirt and jean.
My head jerked to the side and my nose twitched.
"Hey man, you new?" The body asked, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table, propping his head up with his hands. The other person just sighed in defeat and plopped into a chair next to his friend
"Yeah- fuck you- I am," I said, ticcing in the middle of my sentence. Stupid fucking disorder acting up whenever I was talking with someone.
Greg just laughed, seemingly amused by my tics. My nose twitched again.
I took the time he was laughing to quickly examine the person he was with.
He looked familiar. He had brown hair, blue eyes, and glasses. I could have sworn I had seen him before.
"Greg, shut up. You're being rude," the other person said in a pretty neutral tone. It was nice someone other than a murderer was standing up for him. Then again, anyone could be a murderer. Better not to assume things.
"C'mon Jackie, I'm sure he doesn't mind," Greg said, laughing more.
I heard the other person mumble something along the line of 'it's just Jack'.
I moved my hand from the table to my hip, where my knife was. I wouldn't pull it on him in the middle of a public space, with his friend here too. It just provided me with a sense of comfort knowing I had a way to defend myself.
Greg's friend, Jack, noticed this movement, and slightly raised his eyebrow at me, but didn't mention it.
"Just shut up," Jack sighed out.
"Fine fine, whatever," Greg said, obviously not taking Jacks advice seriously, "So what's your name?"
I froze for a second, deciding it was safe to use my real name. That's what it said on my id anyways. Just a fake last name to avoid any suspicion.
"Toby," I finally said, jerking my head again. I knew if I could feel pain that my neck would be causing me a ton of it right now, but I couldn't so it didn't really matter.
"Toby is a pretty cool name. Don't you think so, Jackie?" Greg said, once again using the nickname that Jack seemed to be annoyed by.
"Yeah it is, Gregory," Jack shot back, a small amount of venom in his voice.
"Dude, how many times have I told you not to call me that?" Greg asked, apparently upset.
"Then call me Jack, and I'll call you Greg," Jack replied, directing his attention to his nails. I noticed they had black nail polish on them, though it was seemingly chipping off at the edges. I had always wanted to paint my nails, though was nervous to ask for help because I got laughed at for wanting to a few times.
"Whatever, I'm gonna head out. Still got some work to do and ladies to fuck," Greg said, standing up and stretching his back.
"Holy fuck, stop being so explicit all the time," Jack said, putting his head in his hands.
"It will, indeed, be an extremely holy fuck," Greg said. He winked at me and then walked off.
"I'm sorry about him," Jack mumbled through his hands.
"It's fine, I have a sibling who talks- gay bitch!- like that at home all the time," I cringed.
Jack just laughed, removing his head from his hands. "He sounds like he can be annoying?"
"Oh definitely," I replied, grinning at him.
It was silent for a bit. I stared at my textbook but felt as if I couldn't process any information while he was sitting at the same table as me.
"Pikachu!" I ticced, interrupting the silence.
Jack looked up at me and raised an eyebrow.
"My sibling found out if he repeated something enough, I would develop it as a tic," I explained. It was true. After BEN figured it out, he followed me around repeating Pikachu over and over until I finally ticced it.
"What a menace," Jack said, leaning back in his chain.
"Definitely," I agreed.
It was quiet again.
"Hey," I said, cautious about my next question, what if he thought I was weird or something? "Could you paint my nails some time?" I finally asked.
He just smiled at me, "Yeah sure, I'd be up for that. Have you painted them before?"
"Not really, I'm worried I'll mess it up because of a tic, and no one else wants to do it for me," I recalled the time I asked Jeff for help painting my nails and he just laughed at me before walking off.
"That's seems pretty reasonable. Can I see your schedule? Maybe we have some classes together. I could paint them after a class if we do. If we don't then you can just come over to my dorm and we could do it there," Jack offered.
I pulled out my schedule and handed it to him. He scanned over it quickly before smiling at me again.
"We have a couple classes together. We can do it after our 10am class?"
I grinned, "Sounds good."
"Hey, mind me asking what happened to your face? Are you okay?" He said, changing the course of the conversation entirely. It caught me slightly off guard.
"Oh yeah! I'm alright, I used to chew my cheek as a way to cope with anxiety when I was younger and it left a nasty mark on my face that i'm insecure about."
"I experience anxiety a lot when I was younger too so I get it. I used to chew on my nails until my parents got me a necklace with something I could chew on at the end. It helped me a lot. Maybe I can find you one?" Jack offered.
"Yeah that sounds nice," I smiled at him.
"I'm gonna head back to my dorm, but I can give you my number so you can talk to me whenever if you want."
In response, I opened the messaging app on my phone and gave it to him.
He typed his number in then sent a message to himself through it. Afterwards he handed it back to me.
"See you!" He said, then went off in the same direction Greg had gone off in earlier.
I collected my things and went back to the dorm I shared with the two assholes, and I mean that in the best way possible of course.
I must not of noticed the smile that was on my face the whole time, because Masky commented on it.
"You're smiling. Something good happen?"
I just grinned a bit more, taking off the patch that was on my face and tossing it into the trash can after folding it in half. "I made a friend."
I had never seen Masky look more proud.