Burn Marks

College

A smiley face right on the back of your left thigh, that was the tattoo that had gotten permanently placed on your body a few years ago. Not a cute smiley face like the ones you see in sticker books. It looks more like...the dead kind? It was yellow with a white smile and black crossed out eyes, kind of edgy. You have a theory about the tattoos given out to every couple, each soulmate tattoo reflects a piece of themselves in the tattoo. Maybe your soulmate was a really happy guy? Or was he blind? Maybe he has a good smile. Thoughts like this made you think about your soulmate on and off for years. Some days you would completely give up on your soulmate then other days you'd hope for the day to come sooner. Anyhow, many years had gone by and you just stopped caring, figured you would find them when the time came. You have finally come to the realization that you can't find your soulmate by force. It would just happen one day, and then you would be happy for the rest of your life. Though you didn't realize that day would come soon.

After daydreaming for the entire car ride you realized you had made it to your college. The familiar streets that brought great curiosity to you when night struck, the once new brick buildings now aged with the ever growing ivy climbing up the walls, trying to make their way up to the heavens, and the great clock tower that loomed over you, a constant reminder that time doesn't stop and you must keep going.

As you parked and got out of your car you grabbed your phone and connected your headphones. Listening to the same playlist you had had for months at this point. The same songs that never tired you. The same songs that brought you comfort late into the night. The same songs that kept you up at night helping you focus on your studies. It was another constant in your life that you could rely on. Songs never changed.

A warm breeze glided across your face as the realization finally hit you, it was the beginning of your last year in college. The beginning of the end if you will. You had been studying health services and passed almost every single course available to you. Of course it was expensive as all hell but it would probably be worth it considering, one day you'd be saving peoples lives. The idea of being able to give people a second chance at life brought a warm fuzzy feeling to your heart. That was one reason you studied health services, the other reasonings were much more saddening.

You walk around to the back of your car and open the trunk, to take the few things you had up to your dorm. As you start walking to your room the aforementioned clock tower starts chiming. You look up at the tower to see the hands gesturing to the 12 and 3, signifying it was 3 o'clock pm. As you continue walking you notice not a lot of people are around, maybe a few teachers here and there but little to no students. You think to yourself: Today is the last day before classes start, you'd think more people would be around. As you walk to your dorm you try to shrug off the weird feeling in your gut. I'm sure my roommate will be in our dorm and she'll tell me what's going on , you think to yourself.

You knock on the door waiting for an answer. When you only hear silence emitting from the room that weird gut feeling comes back like a punch to the stomach. You rummage through your bag looking for your key to unlock the door. As you do so you realize your roommate hasn't even been in the room yet. That was odd considering how punctual she had been the last three years. You text her thinking something bad might have happened to her or maybe it's just traffic, you think , but hey a text never hurt : "Hey just checking in, ur never usually late, to anything really, I just wanna make sure ur ok"

To try and stop the anxiety from eating away at you you start to put your things away, there wasn't much. You start by setting up your desk. Your cup full of pencils, colorful highlighters, and pens. They were useful when it came to writing notes. Next you put down a fake succulent on the windowsill. Your mom had given it to you on your first day freshman year. You remember how she had told you, "You can't give up until this plant dies." You had been so careful about watering once every two weeks. It took you the entire school year for you to realize it was fake. She laughed so hard when you confronted her about the plant being fake. Lastly you placed your laptop down in the center.

Once your desk was all made you decided to take a short break to sit on your bed and relax for a bit. You noticed that your roommate had finally answered you, "Hey I don't want u to be worried, there is a traffic jam and they won't let anyone onto campus right now. I'll text you if there are any updates. Seems safe for now. Keep ur eyes on the news just in case. Ya never know"

You start typing, "Ok thank you for letting me know, i was lowk a bit scared you flaked out on me lmao i thought i was gonna have a new weirdo roommate, or like you got hurt or something, idk" Right as you send the text you feel the ground beneath you shake, followed by a loud boom echoing throughout the courtyard and into your room. Cautiously you run to the door to check it out. As you open the door, all of your senses are harassed by the stench of soot and burning rubber. 

There is a playlist mentioned in this chapter: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/34nCXjGKB8moN1oRZgqeuo?si=93dd194f841d467d