Bexley City University

20 miles outside of Bexley City

Pop: 250 Faculty 3000 Students

The doors to the classroom swung open and a rushing, chaotic crowd fled the sanctuary of learning. The noise was impressive, a multitude of voices joined together in cacophony. Individual conversations were nearly impossible to identify although every so often a few words would stand out: "... can't believe we have so much..." or "...reading was brutal..." or even "...party tonight?"

One would certainly not think it, yet the students who had just vacated the classroom were almost all exceedingly dedicated. They had chosen to take this particular class, despite the large numbers attending. That might be because the professor was one with an amazing reputation. It might also be because of the material on mythological beasts. An odd class, and amazingly enough it was cross-listed in a variety of ways. Who would have guessed that Biology, Religious Studies, and English departments would cooperate on such a class?

As she slipped from the room, Kirsten Wells shifted her bag on her shoulder, shoving her way along in the crowd and glancing back over her shoulder as she continued her discussion with Ashley Johnson, the one friend she had managed to convince to join her in the class.

"... so I was thinking I would do my final paper on demons. What do you think? I mean, I should probably narrow that down a little bit, but there is so much material out there on it. They would be a mythological creature, right?" The flow of her words was not interrupted as she again hitched her bag up and managed to skirt around the guy who had stopped directly in front of her. Shooting him a deadly glare, she turned back to Ashely with a quizzical expression.

Ashely, who was finding the course more challenging than she had expected, looked rather blank and just a touch dejected. "Maybe. But won't that be a whole lot of work?" Of course Ashely intended to do well, but she was planning on something a little more straightforward, a little more obvious. Trolls, perhaps.

"Nah. There is a ton of material out there," continued Kirsten and she promptly began to list it. Ashley's eyes began to glaze over and abruptly she cut the other woman off in the hopes of finding a topic that was less likely to bore her to tears.

"Did you hear about the freshmen's party? Sounds like it is going to be pretty big." Excitement glowed in her eyes at the thought of the party, especially the amounts of alcohol and the numbers of intoxicated boys. It had to be admitted that Ashely had her own particular goals in university.

Kirsten's nose wrinkled slightly, but she shrugged a bit, waving at a few of the other students straggling out of the classroom. Even with the semester just starting many of the students were familiar, names newly learned. She enjoyed it rather more than some of her friends thought she should, but she saw the same eagerness on some other faces.

"Actually, I have some plans to meet up with a few people from class. You could come if you wanted. Stephen will be there." A sly grin accompanied that little tidbit of information and it was clear that she had regained at least some of Ashley's attention.

Hesitation was brief, then Ashley replied, "Well I suppose. We can always go to the party later."

They clattered off down the hallway, headed for the cafeteria to grab some food to hold them until later.

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Author guidance for This story

This is a collaborative story between: The Mist and Cheshire Grin Our idea was simple....ish. Write a horror story where we both write a chapter each and create our own characters then, and this is the fun bit, we kill each others off! Neither will ever know who will be next..... Oh and when I posted "mature" I meant Mature! Thank you

updated Dec 14 '08 by TheMist