6

It was still dark when I woke up from my spot on the lounge floor. I stood and dusted my clothes off and shook out the blanket I had slept on and put it back where I had gotten it from originally. Just as I turned around I saw a shadow pass in front of the lounge window, I stayed stock still until it had passed and even after I gave it ten minutes before I went towards the door. I opened the door slowly and peered out around the corner letting the door close silently behind me. I inched against the wall towards the main hall and as I rounded the corner I came face to face with Spencer. I wasn't in the mood to talk or even get in an argument so I just ran past him out onto the main campus lawn and hopped over a bush onto a path way. I straightened out my clothes and walked towards the shopping center, there I found a small bookstore and bought a pair of very weak reading glasses with a plain black frame to them and put them on. I learned yesterday that even with the most precaution you could still be found out but even the most clueless person, making me very lucky that it was only Spencer who recognized me, if he even actually had the other evening, and luckier still that no one would think to ask him if he'd seen me considering I had made it loud and clear I didn't like him and would rather sit in a pool of leaches than talk with him.

I still had a whole day ahead of me and at some point I would have to return to my room just because sleeping on the floor was not something I wanted to make a common habit of besides, I need a new change of clothes and a real shower. The halls were as empty as ever, I wonder when the grad students would actually come back, probably not for another week, meaning if I could hide out for a few more days, but I'm tired of hiding, I really just want them to leave me alone. If they wanted to find me, chances are they would. I walked out of a side entrance of the building onto the green and walked down the hill towards the main campus. It was so early, not even the groundskeepers were awake. I liked it this way, it was quiet, and everything was so pretty and undisturbed, it was the most tranquil I had been able to feel out here since I came back. I looked up to notice a large murder of crows sitting on the roof of the graduate dorms.

"Interesting aren't they?"

I turned to see a girl standing under a tree across the footpath from me. She was wearing jeans with a long chain hanging from her hip down too her knee and a tank top with a lacy fishnet looking long sleeved shirt over it, there were holes cut in the sleeve for her thumbs. Her hair had to have been past her waist, it was pure black and her skin was like that of darker porcelain, not pale, but not dark either, she looked to be a little bit shorter than I was, was defiantly smaller in frame, she was Asian, though I couldn't have told you what part if my life depended on it.

"Yeah…they're cool, creepy, but cool"

She just kinda smiled, took a photo of them, the shutter making a clicking noise that made some of the birds stir and raise their wings in thought of flight, but then settled seeing no harm to come. She stepped over the chain linked mini fence that cordoned off the yard from the footpath and walked up to stand beside me, she put her hand out.

"Names Kijo...you?"

"Willow" I shook her hand, it was warm, the grip friendly

"This you first semester?"

We started walking down the hill, just making small talk, she asked about school, I explained how I was here for two years, just like her, just I usually hung around with the school spirit crowd, but recently had a change of life style and realized friends had to go with it. She kind of just nodded in understanding and that was the end of that particular conversation. She started talking to me about photography and video games and music and all kinds of random subjects and I found that she and I had a lot in common. We got breakfast in the lower west campus dining hall and she invited me back to her room to hang out and listen to music, she was one of the few lucky sophomores who got a single on campus. It was a good day, felt like I had finally made a friend but eventually I had to go.

"Hey it was great hanging out with you; it was nice to meet someone with something in common"

"Yeah same here, your more than welcome to come hang out here anytime, just gimmie a call, my school extension is 039594"

"Mines is "140506, I have a room-mate but just ask for me, I'm sure she'll pass the message on, if not e-mail is "

"I gotta set up an email account here; my little brother took my old one cause of this game he plays"

I walked myself out her dorm building, it was halfway across campus from mine, I hadn't been there all weekend, but I still though of it as mine. I swiped in, walking through the crowded lobby. It was Sunday and most kids were coming back from their partied out weekends, I was glad because it was easier to walk around unnoticed, or so I thought. I had gotten maybe six feet into the lobby when I felt a string hand land on my shoulder; I turned around to be face to face with a grinning Razi.

"Can I help you mister?"

"Cute stunt kiddo thought we lost you for a while there"

"Aren't you like supposed to avoid me in public, you know make sure people don't think were friends or anything like that?"

"Change of rule, from now on, I will be like the big brother you never had"

"…Or wanted…"

He had a grin on his face like that of the Cheshire cat, or just a cat in general who caught a large bird and got away with swallowing it whole. I wanted to take his arm off my shoulder, to go back to hiding, but I was tired, I wanted to change my clothes, shower properly, eat something, be normal, but I realized that I could never be normal again, and I had to get used to it, because nothing would be seen the way I had seen it before. He walked me to my room where Lynn was sitting on her bed; she looked from Razi to me, back at Razi with an almost apologetic look and buried herself deeper into a book she was reading.

"Ill catch you at dinner Willow, me and you have a lot of talking to do, oh and skipping out on it isn't an option"

He walked out the room, still with the smile on his face, he pulled the door closed behind him and the moment I heard the lock click, I snapped, the sound of the lock just echoed in my head and kept amplifying itself, I slammed my foot into the wall by the foot of my bed, ignoring that pain was starting to register as I was only wearing sneakers. I slumped against the wall and let myself slide to the floor and just stared at the blank wall in front of me. Slowly my gaze turned to Lynn who was just staring at me.

"What the fuck are you staring at, isn't it enough for you that you all have me caged in here like some kind of god damned zoo animal? I'm already under observation by you guys 24/7, do you really need to stare at me like I'm some kind of freak?!"

She just kept staring at me and it was then I realized the room had gotten suddenly dark save for the light from the hallway coming in from underneath the door. Lynn just stared a little harder and then quietly closed the book and sat down on the floor next to me.

"Now do you see why we need to watch you? You don't even get what you can do when your mind is unfocused, it could have been the whole building you short circuited"

"I don't need to be on permanent lock down for you to help me"

"Your not n lock down…we just have to monitor particular things"

"Yeah well if you ask me, you guys go about keeping tabs on me in a really twisted way."

"Yeah, well nobody asked you now did they?"

"You know; just because you got bitched out for losing me, don't take out your aggravation out on me"

"Who said I got bitched out?"

"The look on your face when Razi walked in here with me behind him like some prized pet told me enough to know that you guys screwed up and got called on it."

"Yeah well you didn't look so damn happy yourself"

"Yeah, and I don't think I will because now the prey has to go eat dinner with Mr. Hunter"

"He's not all bad you know, he just doesn't open up to people, but he's nicer to you than he was to the rest of us"

"Well at least we have a dinner topic "Where do you trust issues stem from" oh yeah that should be good dinner talk"

Lynn smiled and got off the floor and gave me a hand getting up myself, I got myself in the shower and changed into an outfit pretty similar to what I had seen Kijo in earlier, its was comfortable and it still fit the new look I was using , though I couldn't hide anymore, it kept me separated in a way of what I was last year, which I needed to push myself away from as much as possible because there was no way id ever be able to be friends with the kids I though of as friends the year before, now that I thought about it, they weren't friends, friends would like you not matter what kind of freak of nature you where, these kids would have torn me apart. I kept my contacts in, kept the glasses put my hair in a pony tail and walked out my room without a second glance to Lynn and walked into the dining hall, from one corner of the room I herd a yell.

"Bedlam, move your ass already!"