Requiem Run

Chapter 1

Most college students will wake up dreading the day, especially if a class at eight in the morning is involved. My excuse when I woke up was that it was the first day of my finals, something that any college student can relate to dreading.

Of course, everyone wakes up to the sound of their blaring alarm eventually, and I would prove to be no exception. As I slammed my finger down on the 'Stop' button on my phone, I noticed what I had named the alarm:

Finals begin today! You got this!

"Heh. Thanks, past Riley." I said as I climbed out of bed and shook my hair free of the bun it had been tied in through the night, "I'm gonna need all the luck in the world."

I laughed at my own joke, then I climbed out of bed and made my way to the bathroom attached to my side of the room. Naturally, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked like a wreck. Usually I just left my hair in its natural state of straight and thin, or tied it back in a ponytail, and today I was gonna go with a quick brushing and leaving it at that. The idea of putting makeup on now was unthinkable - I still sometimes thought about back when I had first started classes, and would walk into every classroom with a full face of makeup and done-up hair, perfect clothing, the whole nine yards. Now I was like all the others - barely awake, if that.

All the same, I finished my shower and got dressed - nothing special of course, just a t-shirt, blue jeans, sneakers and of course, my dad's old leather jacket, which I always wore unless it was too hot out, and on a cold December day like this one, that definitely wasn't an issue.

Out of the bathroom, I still had time to kill, and just as I realized that, my phone dinged off a text message to me from Max - I recognized his name the moment I picked up the phone.

Hey, you wanna get some coffee before the trek through hell?

I chuckled at Max's sense of humor. Of course, he was talking about the coffee shop in the library, right across the campus from the dorm rooms. Naturally, I texted back.

See you there, just on the way out.

With that, I slipped my phone into my pocket, grabbed my backpack, made sure my wallet was in it, and stepped out of the bedroom into the common area for me and my roommate. Ayla was already there, sitting on the couch staring down at her laptop.

"Morning." I said as I made my way to the door, "You have your Psychology final, right?"

Ayla nodded, glancing up and nodding at me as a way of returning my greeting, then she said, "You heading out now?"

"Coffee and math," I said, "Great combo, huh?"

"Perfect." said Ayla, "Godspeed."

I waved her off and stepped out into the hallway. Mostly empty, except for some girls sitting against the walls reading books, and one girl on her phone who nodded to me as I passed her to get to the stairwell. It wasn't too surprising, everyone else was probably trying to get as much sleep as possible before they had to start cramming for their finals as well.

Either way, I took off down the stairs and out the back door of the dorms and made my way across WestConn campus to the library, welcoming the heat of the inside from the cold of the Danbury air outside. Max was, naturally, sitting at the table closest to the door so he could see me.

"Over here, gov'nor!" Max called in his posh-est accent, something he liked to do when I was nearby; my best friend knew that one of the things that was always guaranteed to make me laugh was playing up his natural british accent as much as possible and using stereotyped phrases.

I laughed, just like he thought I would, and made my way to the counter to get my coffee with him in tow. To anyone else we'd almost look like the perfect couple; me, a nineteen-year-old 5'7 not-fat-but-not-thin blonde girl smiling and laughing as I got my coffee from the counter, and Max, the 6' brunette british exchange student with heterochromia - right eye blue, the left eye dark green - having coffee, laughing, joking with each other.