Straight-Up Not Having A Good Time At Night Raven College: Chapter 2

Chapter 14: Encounter At Midnight

.....It was nighttime at the Ramshackle dorm.

Exactly what time, Kat still didn't have a clue... There was still no working clock in the stupid house, so all she really knew was that it was dark.

One forearm draped loosely over her eyes, she lay on her back, with Grim sprawled out in the crook of her other arm.

When she and the others had finally left Savanaclaw, she'd basically just gone straight back to Ramshackle...
She was already so far past tapped-out that it wasn't even funny.

When she'd gotten back, it was pretty much all she could do to take her glasses, shoes, and uniform jacket off before faceplanting onto the bed and screaming into the pillow for a good five minutes...
She'd had a little bit of a meltdown or something, then fallen asleep.

When she woke up, she'd... Well, she'd been here.

.......She couldn't sleep now, though.
This bed was still all wrong. And it was too quiet...
She'd always had trouble sleeping without some kind of background noise, like a box fan or something.
And--

In the crook of her arm,  Grim shifted in his sleep, mouth open and drooling.
"Mmmm-- mmm...." He snored, rolling over and twitching his forelegs a little.
"D-Didja' see that? My all-powerful super shoot... Snzz..."

It really wasn't very loud, all things considered, but...
Honestly, it was kind of annoying.
Maybe it was just because of how burnt-out she was...

.....And, also, it was... Kind of too hot.
That first night she was here, Grim's ears were honestly a godsend, but-- well...
She'd always been prone to overheating at night, and an active heat source in bed with her wasn't exactly helping much.

.......She needed some air.

Extricating herself from Grim without waking him was a bit of an ordeal, honestly... But eventually, she managed it.

Wriggling out from under the sheets, she swung her legs off the bed, padding slowly over the creaky floorboards.
Slipping her feet into her sneakers, she slid quietly out the bedroom door, leaving it a little ajar.
Descending the stairs leading down into the front hall, she unchained and unbolted the door before, finally, pulling it open.

Stepping out into the chilly night air, Kat picked her way down the path to the fence at the edge of the yard.
Her breath steamed, and she had to stop and wipe her glasses with the hem of her hoodie, but honestly it felt kinda good.

Reaching the fence, she moved over to the gate and leaned on it, tilting her head back to gaze into the sky.

She'd read a book or something once where the main character was far from home-- were they on a different planet?
Or did they get isekai'd too? She couldn't remember...

Anyway, there was a scene where they looked up at the stars and couldn't recognize any of them.
They were like an astrologist or something? Astronomist? Or maybe they just liked stargazing, she still couldn't remember.
It made them all sad and scared because they were really in another world...

She didn't know anything about stars, though, so she couldn't even tell if these were the same ones as Earth.
They just looked like a bunch of tiny lights.
....They sure were pretty, though.

"I wonder when I'll be able to go home," she said out loud, still staring up at the stars.

Or if I'll be able to, her mind whispered to her wordlessly.

Shut up, she told it, smacking it like a malfunctioning DVD player.
But the thought was still there-- just lurking deeper now, right on the edge of perception.