The Silent Letters

Chapter One.

Esme walked into the university campus whilst chugging the icy coffee left in the cup, Asher waved her over. She brushed her hands down her shirt once more, lifting her bag further onto her shoulder as she looked down the hill. A freshman group walked past her laughing and talking obnoxiously loud. She sat down on the grass with her friends slowly joining the conversation they were having. Oli and Alexia were having their own little conversation as Monica grabbed Nova's textbook. "Our class has moved on to a different textbook."

Nova looked down at the open textbook in their hands, "Then what are we learning about?"

The group laughed as Nova grabbed their bag searching through. Monica pulled a textbook from her bag and handed it to Nova. Nova read the title before diving back into their bag retrieving the textbook with the same title. It had been highlighted, tabbed and annotated as Nova opened it. Monica stared down in disbelief, "How?"

"I probably did it at 3am while watching a show."

The group all stared at Nova as they flipped through their highlighted textbook. Monica just shook her head putting her textbook back into her bag pulling her phone out of her pocket. "So Esme, good morning?"

"Sure, I got fired though."

Everyone turned, "Mrs Slitos is so bloody strict with that old record shop isn't she."

"She literally has commissions, we get two customers a day if we are lucky. Also I was mouthing off around her son, but he just doesn't like me." She added quotation marks around the son sentence as her friends laughed.

Asher turned to her, "So are you going to start working at Kim's now or..."
"I don't know, this place makes it hard and I would feel so bad, I already live in the cafe apartment."

"Okay but Kim was never going to live in that apartment. Also the cafe would be so cute for you, the uniform and everything."

Just as she went to reply, another group of freshmen ran past the group kicking up dust and dirt, aiming for the front doors of the main building. They were yelling as the doors slammed shut behind them causing silence to escape over the quad as everyone looked towards the main building until quickly the chatter and noise from everyone around the quad grew back. "Only a few more months until we get ultimate freedom from this place." Oli muttered as Alexia nodded along with him.

Asher turned to Esme grabbing her hands, "Ok I need your opinion because Monica was not helpful. Do you think I could pull off the plain black graduation robe or should I alter it to suit my style?"
"Honestly either way you are probably going to be able to pull it off aren't you." Esme laughed as Asher looked at her. "Not helpful."

"Okay, okay I'm sorry. Honestly alter it, you are taking a fashion degree."

Alexia piped in, "You should definitely ask a teacher or something though."

Asher nodded as he took in all the information from his friends. Esme watched as another set of freshmen ran through the doors. "I can't wait for graduation."

"Only a few more months." The group fell silent as they all relished in the idea of graduating in 10 months. Senior Year.

A bell rang out around the campus, the group of friends scattered all going in different directions around the campus. Esme headed for the large buildings labeled Medicine. Just as she started to cross over the grass she got a notification sound from her phone, she pulled her bag around to her side and shoved her hand into her bag rummaging around. She grabbed her phone, opening the message. Her phone fell from her hands onto the soft grass beneath her as her head went faint, everything around her moved slowly as she processed the message facing up from the grass. The second bell rang, Esme swore and quickly grabbed her phone from the grass shoving it into her bag hoping she wasn't gonna be late for her first lecture with her new professor. The message could wait, the person behind it could find something else to do with his bloody time.