Mind Games.

chapter 3: Arrival.

Friday came exceptionally quick. Most likely due to the fact that I was scared out of my mind.
I'd never been a part of normal society, and now, I was being thrusted upon it with almost no warning. Life works in mysterious ways. I was currently watching cars pass us on highway 206 near Princeton. Clark was not permitted to drive me, but instead Terence and Oliver took me. Oliver was chatting on,
"You're going to love college, Alice. New classes, New friends...New everything, really."
"I'm sure you're right, Oliver." I stated, feeling my heart quicken at the thought of school. Is that normal? To be nervous about meeting new people? Because I think that's what was bugging me the most.
Terence could tell I was thinking hard.
"What's going on in that big head of yours, Alice?" Oliver stopped talking at the sound of Terence and frowned.
"Yeah, what's wrong?" He looked through the mirror at me. I smiled.
"Maybe it's because I've never had any actual friends."
"That's not true, you got Terence and I," Oliver said, smiling. I gave him a small smile.
"Thanks, but you two remind me of timone and pumba from the lion king." That made Oliver laugh and Terence smile.
"I'm guessing I'm not pumba, huh?" Oliver asked, chuckling. We pulled up to the administration building of Princeton. Terence and Oliver went inside and told me to wait in the car. I waited until they disappeared in the building and got out of the car. I closed the door and went for a little walk around the building.
When I turned the first corner, I came to a large open area. There was a small pond surrounded by trees and a well manicured lawn. Students were spewn all over. Some were reading books, some were talking. Some rode bikes and others just walked. I even saw a few student smoking what looked to be grass rolled into a piece of paper.
From across the way, I saw a group of boys wearing suspenders and giant glasses sitting on the grass and playing chess. One boy with hair as red as an apple and freckles looked up for a moment. He was smiling, and then he looked in my direction. I couldn't tell if he was staring at me, but he looked both shocked and amazed. At the risk of looking stupid, I smiled and gave a small wave. He perked up immediately and waved back with extreme enthusiasm. A strong set of hands grabbed my shoulders and I jumped back, spinning around to meet Terence and Oliver. Oliver smiled,
"See, kiddo? You're making friends already." He handed me a set of keys. I frowned and asked,
"Pardon my question, but to have a friendship, don't you first have to be acquaintances?" Oliver looked at Terence, who looked back and sighed.
"Yeah, sure Alice. Let's go find your dorm." Oliver lead us back to the car. Once we were all settled, he drove us to the other side of the campus where all the dorms were. We stopped in front of a big white brick building with three stories. Not many students were around it, but that didn't bother me.
Terence grabbed my two suit cases and we went inside.
"Well, says here that you are room number...22 on the second floor."
"Up we go," Terence said, walking up the stairway with us trailing behind. The hallway was air-conditioned, thank god, and it was quiet. For the moment, anyways. We stopped in front of a small oak door. 22. Oliver stuck the key in the hole and stepped to the side.
"Well, go on. Open the door." I looked at him, then at the brass knob. I just stared at it for a few moments. Then, I reached my hand slowly toward it. The knob made a creaking noise as it opened. The air sprang out at us, creating a gush. Then, we were greeted by...something rather peculiar.
The room was split in half. One half was painted white with tan carpet. It had a small bedside table next to it with a small dresser at the foot of the bed. The bed had a white sheet and a pillow, but no blanket. The other side of the room was very different.
The opposite side was painted black and had grey carpet. The bed had a blue and black striped blanket with a huge skull printed in the middle. The pillow cases were black with little skulls on it. There was a little iPod stereo that sat on top of the bedside table. There was a pair of boots with spikes on it and a ton of CD's littered the floor. Terence set my things on the bed and frowned. Oliver shuddered.
"Geez, you're rooming with the Grimm reaper."
"Hey, it's nicer than our hotel the agency gave us." Terence stated. Oliver nodded,
"Yeah. Wish they'd let us stay where we want, but whatever." He sighed and looked at me. I looked out the window at the sun. No, not directly in to it, but I marveled at its glorious light.
"Well, are you gonna be ok, kiddo?" I turned to him and smiled.
"Yes, I'll be fine."
"Good. If you need anything, our number is programmed in the phone." And with that, they disappeared out of the room. I sighed and decided to unpack. Clark had only brought me a few outfits from the house, but he gave me money to go and get new ones. He also packed me a variety of things. I had a baseball bat, incase anyone tried breaking into the dormitory, and I had a bottle of pepper spray to hide in my purse.
The first rule of self desfense that Clark taught me was this; if it doesn't have to result in a physical altercation, don't let it. That's why he gave me pepper spray. As I was slipping the bat under my bed, I heard a giggling female voice say,
"Are you some kind of bounty hunter or something?" I turned around to see a short, heavy set girl standing in the doorway. She had on a black leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders with dark blue jeans and skull shoes. Her hair was spiked up in a Mohawk that was pink on the tips and she had many piercings. Two in her lip, five on her eyebrows, seven in the left ear, six in the right ear, two in her nose, one on her tongue and three on her forehead. She had on pink eyeshadow, but that was it with the makeup. She smiled sweetly at me. I smiled back trying to seem polite.
"No, I couldn't kill people." She giggled a little bit.
"Whats your name?" She asked. I stood up and stuck out my hand for her.
"Hello, I'm Alice Chain. It's a pleasure to meet you miss?" She frowned.
"Are you a teacher, because that was a little more formal than it had to be." She shook my hand while I blushed uncontrollably. Then she introduced herself.
"I'm Olivia Thatcher, but everyone calls me Libby. Don't asked why, they just do. Nice to meet you Alice." I nodded and shook her hand. When we broke off, she sat on the skull bed and sighed.
"So, what's your major?" I folded my clothes and set them inside the dresser drawer.
"Nuclear engineering. What about you?" Libby sighed.
"Psychology." She crossed her legs on the bed and I sighed. Psychology was what I wanted to do, but the government had other plans for me.
"You're lucky, I wanted to do psychology."
"Why didn't you?" She inquired.
"My guardians had other plans."
"Well, you don't have to be majoring in it to take a semester of it, if you still want to sign up." I smiled and nodded quickly.
"Yes, I would like that very much! Where do I go to sign up?" She smiled and scooted off the bed.
"I'll take you. C'mon." We walked out of the dormitory and back out into the fresh air. The group of boys were still where they were earlier, but a lot of the other people were gone.
"Well, this is the campus. You can come here whenever there's spare time. That building over there's the lunchhall, and over there's the science building, where you'll be going. This is the mathematical building where the psychology courses are-"
"Good evening, Libby," I heard two almost identical voices say. They were both male, and they both had a different accent than anything else I had heard in real life before. But, since I'd seen the movies, I was able to identify the accents as German. I spun around with Libby to greet the faces of two identical twins. They were both about 6'1' and around 200 pounds. They both had crew cut blonde hair, with dark blue eyes and ears that stuck out slightly. They even wore the same cloths, which today sported a blue blazer with a tan under shirt and kakhi pants. I stared in amazmemt at them while Libby smiled.
"Hey guys, how's your day?"
"One certainly cannot complain, can we?" The one on the left asked his brother. His brother shook his head,
"You are most definitely right." They both turned to me and asked at the same time,
"Whos this?" I smiled,
"My name's Alice. Alice Chain." They both half bowed and the one on the left said,
"It's quite a pleasure to meet you, this handsome devil right here is Xavier," he pointed to his brother. Then, Xavier replied,
"And this other handsome devil to my left is Xander." They half bowed again. Libby giggled,
"They'll grow on you, don't worry." I giggled and Xander asked,
"So, what brings you two lovely ladies to the building of doom?" Libby giggled and replied,
"Shes signing up for Mr. Marsh's class."
"Ah, the magnet." Xavier stated, laughing. Libby nodded while I frowned.
"The teacher is a magnet? For what?" Xavier and Xander snickered while Libby said,
"You'll understand when you see him on Monday."
"Indeed. Well, farewell, Libby and Alice. We have business to attend to." Libby waved goodbye to them as they walked off down the sidewalk. As we entered the building, I found myself puzzled.
"Libby?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand,"
"What?" She asked, taking me down a long hallway.
"Aren't we signing up for his class?"
"Yes we are."
"Then, shouldn't he be the one that I hand in my sign up slip to?" She stopped in front of a door that had big bold letters on the door. It read, Mr. Marsh. She smiled and shook her head.
"No, he leaves the school every weekend."
"Where does he go?" I asked her. She shrugged.
"Nobody knows. It's a mystery, which is why a lot of the girls have a crush on him." This confused me. The thought of a student becoming romantically involved with a teacher baffled my mind. I had never heard of such a thing.
"You mean, women at this school...like him?" She opened the door and took a half step inside.
"Uh...that's what having a crush means. Haven't you ever had a crush?" She looked at me expectantly. I blushed once and shook my head.
"No, never." She looked at me with a shocked expression.
"What? You mean, you have never thought someone was cute?" Again, I shook my head 'No.' She giggled.
"Well, why not?" I didn't want to say something incredibly stupid, so I simply stated,
"I was homeschooled in the country. My dad was really the only guy I ever interacted with." She seemed satisfied with this answer and we entered the room. It was very large with rows of seats going up on a stairway. A big screen adorned the front of the room where a single lab table sat. Libby went over to the lab table and pulled out a small slip of paper. She handed it to me,
"Here. Just write down your name and age. The first class is going to be at 2:00 Monday." I nodded and borrowed the pen that sat on the lab table, scribbling down my initials. The door flew open and the boy with red hair from earlier came in, gripping a giant stack of books.
"Ugh, why do I have so many text-" but he paused dead in his tracks when he saw Libby and I standing at the counter. Libby waved. He just stared at us. He smelled oddly of goldfish and his hair was neatly combed to the side. I smiled and set down the paper.
"Do you need help with those?" I grabbed half the stack off the top. He smiled and nodded,
"Thank you. You can just set them on the counter." I set it down and sighed. He fumbled with them before setting them gently on the counter. After they were down, he pushed up his glasses with his index finger and smiled.
"I-I'm Norman Murphy. W-what's your name?" I reached out and shook his hand.
"I'm Alice Chain. It's nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too Alice." We stood in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments until Libby smiled.
"Well, we're gonna go, bye Norm."
"Bye, see you later." He tried to wave, but knocked a container of pencils off the counter and had to pick them up. Well, college is going to be quite interesting.

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Hope it wasn't terrible and please enjoy the next one, bye! C: