The rest of the day was uneventful. Eric and I had worked on filling out some stuff around our room. We each had brought enough simple food and utensils to make it through the week until more of our supplies started showing up. Apparently there was some big party going on across campus at the cafeteria. Food, drink, socialization… none of those sounded particularly fun to me. Eric knew a few people that were going, though, and so he decided to go check it out. I wasn't sure what time he was going to be coming back, and had absolutely no intention of just waiting around to find out. I made myself some soup to eat, not feeling entirely too hungry after the events of the day. I figured that if I was still hungry later, there was a veritable army of snack food at my disposal.

I missed my computer from back home, decked out with everything I needed to get through boring nights, but it was the family computer first and foremost and not something I could lay dibs to and haul across state lines. My parents wouldn't have been too keen on that plan, so instead I just ended up buying a dinky laptop. It was cheap and small, too weak to play much of anything significant but good enough to do much of anything I needed for school. That, and it could search the internet, a desperate salvation a thousand miles from home.

I checked my email to see if I had gotten something beyond the usual spam, but there was no luck. Social networking sites and the like would only remind that I was surrounded by people I didn't know. Besides, it always seemed a bit pathetic for someone to really start diving into Facebook the instant they move away from home. I was gonna be strong, not bend to the will of a little thing like loneliness. I just ended up browsing a few random sites, realizing that there was nothing really worth doing there anyway, and resorting to FreeCell. FreeCell was salvation. FreeCell was love.

FreeCell was evil. I was pissed off at the thing within ten minutes and realized that I wanted nothing more than to get out of the room. I wasn't sure entirely where I was going, but I grabbed a jacket anyway, not too sure I'd need it but determined to have it if I did, and emerged from the safety of my dorm. I had remembered my key at the last minute.

The school was mostly empty. I heard music blasting from the direction of the cafeteria. Every student I saw seemed to either be coming or going from the party, but I wanted nothing to do with it. Peace and quiet was infinitely preferably, and a good tour of the Rogerman Building would be a good place to start. The door was unlocked, something I didn't think too much on. Normally this would be the point where I'd point out that I probably should have noticed something like that, that maybe it was telling of some dark truth that awaited me. Instead, I later came to the understanding that they never locked the building, just the classrooms. So yeah, it didn't really matter one way or the other.

I had a basic understanding of where my classes were. The building had five floors, each basically dedicated to a different branch of academic study. The first floor was English, the second floor was Math and Physical Science, the third was… actually, I really wasn't sure what the third floor was. I'd guess Foreign Languages and Blabity Bloo because I honestly never went up there. Elevator up past the third floor to the fourth and you'd find The Social Sciences and the like. The last floor was for all the other random crap that they couldn't shoehorn into other floors, something they seemed really adept at doing given any opportunity.

I mostly hung lower down. Most of my classes were on the first two floors, deciding to deal with most of my general ed. first before just messing around with the fun stuff. After mapping out where I thought my classes were based on memory, I decided to try heading up to the fifth floor and getting a good view of the campus from there. I felt like taking the elevator would get me in trouble or something and just headed up the good old fashioned way. I needed exercise, and stairs fit the bill.

All of the classrooms were locked and there wasn't a far window on either side of the hallway that I was on. I had a crazy idea in my head of checking and seeing if I could get up on the roof, something that made complete sense in the moment. I ducked back toward the nearest stairwell, the one with clearly marked with "roof access," and headed up one last flight of stairs. I was fairly certain that the roof was technically off-limits for students, but I assumed that most everyone who cared would be over at the cafeteria trying to keep everything in line. I noticed a sign on the way up that read, in clear and simple English, "No students allowed." Ignoring the sign completely, I climbed the last few stairs and reached the door. My hand rested on the handle, and in one go I pushed.

I didn't move. The thing was locked. I pushed a few more times, making a fair bit of noise in the process. It was annoying, to be certain, but there was nothing to be done. Had I been making less noise, though, I would have likely heard the footsteps coming up behind me.

"There's a sign right next to you for a reason."

I jumped and pivoted around toward the voice. A man stood a set of stair beneath me, looking up with a glance that suggested both amusement and annoyance. He had short brown hair and was dressed up in a white dress shirt, no tie, and a pair of slacks. He wasn't a whole lot older than me, maybe four or five years, but the thought of him being a student never crossed my mind. The way he stood, the glare in his eye, told me loads about his maturity level. His posture, the way his brow wrinkled, broadcasted his authority, but not in an overbearing way. He motioned to the sign, and I turned to look at it. I audibly gasped in mocked surprise before turning over to try and squeeze my way out of the situation. He was older, someone who demanded my respect. I needed to get on his good graces, or at least avoid turning things sour. I didn't want to be making enemies before stepping into a single classroom. He was quick to the jump though, and a bit psychic.

"You didn't see it, huh? Please, don't even go there. You saw it, you read it, you did your little 'heh, I don't care. Screw the rules, I'm young and awesome' routine. There's no way you didn't see that sign. Signmakers are a group of people who dedicate their lives to ensuring that you read something that they put down, and trust me when I say that they're good at their job. The way it's positioned at eye level as you turn to the next set of stairs, the colors that it's bordered by that just seem to jump out and say "Good God, read me. I'm important!' Yeah, you're not blind. You're young. Same difference, et cetera."

This guy was a motor-mouth with a sarcastic twist of lime to finish off the whole deal. Then again, he was also pretty right. The more he talked, the more I just needed to know who he was.

"Isaac Crawford. I'm a first year. Was just looking around."

I just wanted to get that out of the way. I figured he was about to ask my name, so I preempted the entire problem. I was shy, sure, but I wasn't stupid. He was thrown off guard, just like I was hoping.

"Can't say most students are so forthcoming with their names, Isaac. It's refreshing. Unless that isn't your real name."

"I'm not clever enough to come up with a fake name that quick."

"But clever enough to snap right back with a comment."

He had me there. The man motioned down behind him and began to walk. I followed. We headed down the stairs slowly. There was no sense of urgency in any of his actions. Obviously he couldn't really care less about what I had done, instead just following up on it in the way that anyone would if it was their job to do so. He was faculty, authority, so he was obligated to wag a finger at me and send me on my way. He gave me the feeling that anything more than that was just too much effort. He wasn't old enough to look back upon "youthful antics" as something he did in his good old days.

"I heard you walk right past my office when you came in. Then I heard you traipsing around the second floor a bit. Decidedly non-sneaky of you, making so much noise. I was expecting students to pop in here tonight anyway, trust me you, but usually they give a bit more effort in not being found. They typically don't end up desperately smashing against a door's handle trying to get it to open. I probably could have heard that downstairs if I hadn't already been looking for you in the first place."

All of his words had an eye-rolling quality to them that would have probably drove me nuts if it wasn't so obvious he was just enjoying the moment more than attempting to bash me. I would have probably been the same in his shoes.

"Well, I just assumed that the building was empty. All the students would either be at the dorms or the party, and most of the faculty would be busy keeping an eye on them. Making sure whisky didn't find its way into the punch bowl or something."

He just rolled his eyes and glanced back at my direction.

"It's a party, Isaac, not senior prom."

I jumped a bit forward, getting closer to the man.

"Can't say I have many other examples to compare it to."

We emerged on the first floor and the man turned around, continuing on his way backwards. He gave me a once over, seeming to absorb my whole look in a moment. Once he was done he turned back around.

"Yeah, you don't seem like the life of the party."

Gah! This guy was brutally honest. Refreshing, though. But still brutal. Yeah, I couldn't be sure how I felt about that comment. Was it nice that he was able to just speak his mind, or was it just a shitty thing to do? "Both" was the decided answer. It only seemed fair.

"At least you're a good judge of character."

We were nearing the front door. I kinda didn't want to leave. The man was good conversation. We were obviously making small talk, but it wasn't awkward or boring. He was just mocking me and I was retorting as best I could. It was more like a fun little debate that I had no chance of winning, which meant that there was absolutely no pressure.

"Okay, tell all your little friends that you shouldn't wander around the school at night, okay. It isn't safe. Lots of dark places. And also, tell them to avoid this building. I don't like people bothering me, and I tend to work best here at night when I can have some alone time. So go on. Get some sleep. You'll be needing it. Classes start tomorrow."

I nodded and pushed open the door. I had wanted to ask his name, ask exactly who he was, but there hadn't been a moment where it hadn't felt awkward. You needed to squeeze a question like that in when it didn't feel like it was unnatural. Also, the longer you were talking the harder it was to do so. In the end I just decided to leave. I'd probably see him again, ask someone off hand who the guy was. Of course, I never really needed to do that.

"I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning, Mr. Crawford. Don't be late. I start class on time. I also lock my door. And bring your book. We'll be using it."

I looked back at him and immediately knew who he was. Or at least I knew who he was supposed to be. My first period teacher, my 8:00 English Literature class. Of course, I couldn't remember what his name actually was. But I could tell by the tone, by the way he had spoken, that he had meant that. That he had somehow recognized my name from his class roster. At least he was the kind of teacher who cared enough so as to read the roster ahead of time. I gave him one last look before vanishing back into the darkness.

A quick glance at my schedule back in my dorm room told me everything that I needed to know: Professor Matthew Baker.


Call me the bullshitter of all bullshitters if you will. Yeah, this is really late. Like two and a half weeks late. Maybe more, can't really remember. Well yeah, let's just say I've been really darn busy. Life sucks right now. There's no point in trying to make excuses because those aren't worth a whole bunch, but I wanted to make sure that you knew that I wasn't just twiddling my thumbs and laughing away the days, because that just isn't true. So here's chapter three. I hope you enjoy it. It's rough and a bit sloppy but it's still something, and I promise things are really going to pick up next chapter. You've met a few important characters, you're starting to really understand Isaac's character, and now you can move on to the actual story itself. So yeah, that should preferably be up soon, but I can't make promises. Until then, and when things finally settle down, read, review, enjoy, and get a job, you bum.