First

1. Welcome to the Jungle

I read an amazing book in my past life, which is what I call my life before university. It seems very strange that I once had time to read for pleasure. I don't remember what that feels like. Nowadays it's a luxury to have enough time to cut my fingernails. I don't even want to tell you how long it's been since I've shaved my legs.

I read this amazing book the summer before I started my engineering degree. Most of it has faded from my memory, but there's one quote that stuck in my memory like a fly on a Fudgsicle:

"Don't look away. Don't ever look away."

It seemed simple enough in my sheltered little world, and it became my mantra.

I wasn't afraid of the darkness that supposedly existed out there. I wanted to know everything about everything, and my first year of university was the perfect chance to start. No more 9pm curfew. No more sheltered life. I wanted to see everything, good, bad, and ugly, and I vowed to myself that, like the characters in my favorite books, I would have the courage not to look away.

God, was I naïve.

There are so many times I should have just looked away or, quite frankly, walked away. Then I wouldn't be in this abhorrent situation. 

I wish I had walked away. But then again, maybe I don't. 

Let me start at the start.

My first year of hell started on a perfectly ordinary Sunday. The grass was green. The sky was blue. Dad had some terrible oldies' song blasting from his tattered van's ruined speakers, and he and Mom were singing along with all the musical talent of a pod of beached whales.

They made quite a picture. Dad was 6'7" - a pale, lanky plumber, with a long moustache and a smile like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. Mom was teeny and meek. She could barely see over the dashboard and was often mistaken for a child in large crowds.

On the back seat next to me were a plethora of tools, rags, bits of pipe, and scrap pieces of tape, plastic, and paper - Dad's gear as a plumber. At my back, loud grating noises indicated that the larger tools were straining against the straps holding them on the shelves.

I'd mastered most of Dad's power tools by the age of 12, struggling to keep up with my brother who was five years my senior. When he'd left home for university I knew I would follow his footsteps. If he could do it, I'd thought, university must be a piece of cake.

Funny joke.

As we turned off the highway, I felt the first, small spark of alarm.

"You sure this is the right turn?" I asked, keeping my voice extra casual.

The Parents had threatened to dump me at a circus on several occasions, but I never thought they would actually follow through. Surely I hadn't been that terrible of a daughter.

A massive rainbow seemed to have thrown up on the ground, littering the entire campus with drops of color and catching a few humans in the downpour. People with hair jelled three feet above their heads were dyed completely yellow like Simpsons characters. Others impersonated giant purple dinosaurs.

My future classmates, ladies and gentlemen.

"University of Kelvin," Dad replied, pointing at a sign that had not escaped the fallen rainbow. "They look like a spirited bunch." He reached over to hold Mom's hand.

Spirited. That was one word for it.

Mom was quiet. That meant that she was suppressing some strong emotion. Probably terror.

We checked in, got my room key, and gingerly picked our way through luggage-littered hallways to my dorm. The tiled kitchenette was clean and empty - a stark contrast to the chaos in the hallway. My roommates had clearly not arrived yet.